🇿🇦 Built for South Africa

Leave management that makes everyone say yay.

Simple, BCEA-compliant leave management for South African businesses of any size. Set up in minutes, not months. No HR degree required.

✓ Free forever for up to 3 employees  ·  ✓ No credit card needed  ·  ✓ BCEA compliant
YayLeave leave overview dashboard showing team leave summary
R0
Forever free for small teams (≤ 3 employees)
R15
Per employee/month — billed annually for 4+ staff
5 min
Average setup time — no consultants needed
100%
BCEA compliant leave types included out of the box

Everything you need. Nothing you don't.

YayLeave gives you a complete leave management system that's genuinely easy to use — for administrators, managers, and employees alike.

🏢

Multi-company & Department Support

Manage one company or many. Organise employees into departments with parent-child hierarchies. Each company gets its own leave configuration.

📋

Flexible Leave Types

Start with BCEA defaults — annual, sick, family responsibility, maternity — then add any leave type your business needs: study, special, unpaid, religious observance, and more.

⚖️

Job Grade Policies

Different job grades can have different leave entitlements. Senior staff or executives often earn more leave — configure it precisely without spreadsheets.

🏆

Long Service Increments

Reward loyalty automatically. Configure extra leave days that kick in after 5, 10, or any number of years of service — per leave type, per job grade.

💰

Paid & Unpaid Leave

Each leave type is clearly marked as paid or unpaid. Leave policies can override this at the company level, giving you granular control over payroll impact.

🔁

Carry-Over & Expiry Rules

Set carry-over caps in days or percentage. Define how long carried-over leave is valid before it expires. Automatic notifications keep everyone in the loop.

📊

Leave Balances & Accrual

Real-time leave balances per employee. Configure accrual methods — lump sum or monthly accrual. Employees always know exactly where they stand.

📝

Leave Applications & Approval

Employees submit, managers approve. Full application status tracking — submitted, pending, approved, declined — with an audit trail on every action.

🔒

Full Audit Logging

Every change is logged with who did it and when. Compliance-ready audit trails mean you're covered for disputes, audits, and CCMA hearings.

Built on South African labour law, from the ground up.

The Basic Conditions of Employment Act sets minimum leave entitlements for every South African employee. YayLeave enforces these by default — so you're compliant before you've even customised anything.

  • Annual Leave — 21 consecutive days (15 working days) per leave cycle, as per BCEA s.20
  • Sick Leave — 30 days in a 3-year cycle (BCEA s.22), with short-cycle support for new employees
  • Family Responsibility Leave — 3 days per year for qualifying life events (BCEA s.27)
  • Maternity Leave — 4 consecutive months unpaid, no dismissal protection breach (BCEA s.25)
  • Parental Leave — 10 consecutive days for fathers and adoptive parents (2020 amendment)

🎯 Go beyond the minimums

Many South African companies offer more than the BCEA minimum — and YayLeave makes it easy. Add extra leave types, boost entitlements for senior grades, and reward long service automatically.

📅 Public holidays handled

South African public holidays are built into the leave calendar. Leave spanning a public holiday is correctly calculated — no manual adjustments needed.

🏦 Payroll-ready leave data

Paid vs. unpaid leave is tracked separately per employee. Export clean data your payroll team (or payroll system) can use directly — whether you're on Sage, PaySpace, SimplePay, or anything else.

The right view for every role.

Admins, managers, and employees each get a tailored experience — on web and mobile. Nobody sees more than they need to. Nobody has to ask IT for help.

🛠️

Admin Portal

Full system control

Set up companies, departments & job grades
Configure leave types & policies
Manage employee records & roles
Set carry-over rules & expiry
Full audit log access
System-wide reporting
👤

Manager Portal

Team leave at a glance

Approve or decline leave requests
View team leave calendar
Monitor team leave balances
Identify leave conflicts & coverage gaps
Department leave reports
Delegate approval when on leave
🙋

Employee Portal

Self-service, no hassle

Check leave balances anytime
Submit leave applications
Track application status
View personal leave history
See public holidays & carry-over
Mobile app access (coming soon)

Let your AI agents handle leave queries.

YayLeave exposes a clean REST API — so your internal AI agents, chatbots, and automated workflows can query and manage leave data without anyone opening a browser.

1

Employee-facing AI assistant

"How many leave days do I have left?" — answered instantly by your company's AI, powered by YayLeave's API. No login, no waiting for HR to reply.

2

Automated approval workflows

Wire up an AI agent to approve routine leave requests automatically — checking balances, team coverage, and policy rules — and escalating edge cases to a human manager.

3

Payroll & HR system integration

Pull approved leave data directly into your payroll system on pay-run day. No exports, no manual reconciliation, no mismatches.

4

Leave analytics & forecasting

Feed leave data to your business intelligence tools or an AI analytics agent to predict staffing shortfalls, spot sick-leave patterns, and plan for peak periods.

REST API  JSON responses  OpenAPI / Swagger docs
How YayLeave's AI agents handle leave queries: an employee asks a question, the YayLeave API checks leave data, and the AI returns an answer or takes action.

Honest pricing. No surprises.

Start free. Grow when you're ready. All prices in South African Rand, billed annually.

Lite – Free
R0
Forever. No credit card. No catch.
Get started free
Up to 3 employees
All BCEA leave types
Custom leave types
Admin & Manager portals
Employee self-service
Leave applications & approvals
Audit logging
Advanced reports
API access
Priority support
Enterprise
Custom
For organisations with 1 000+ employees. Let's talk.
Contact us
Everything in Lite Business
Full REST API access
Headless / agentic integration
SSO / SAML support
Dedicated onboarding
SLA-backed support
Custom integrations
Payroll system connectors
Volume pricing

A Pro tier with advanced analytics, mobile apps, WhatsApp integration, and payroll connectors is coming soon.   Notify me →

What's coming next.

YayLeave is actively being built. Here's what's already on the way — and a few features we think could make a real difference.

📱

Mobile App – iOS & Android

Apply for leave, check balances, and approve requests from your phone. Built for the way South Africans actually work.

📅

Team Leave Calendar

A shared visual calendar showing who's on leave when — filterable by department. Spot coverage gaps before they become problems.

🔔

Smart Notifications

Automated alerts for leave expiry, carry-over deadlines, pending approvals, and leave anniversary milestones — via email, push, or WhatsApp.

💬

WhatsApp Integration

Apply for leave and get approvals via WhatsApp — without opening an app. Critical for a South African workforce where WhatsApp is king.

🔗

Payroll System Connectors

Direct integrations with Sage, PaySpace, SimplePay and other South African payroll platforms. Leave data flows automatically on pay-run day.

📈

Analytics Dashboard

Sick leave trends, absenteeism patterns, department comparisons, and leave cost reporting. Know your numbers without building spreadsheets.

📎

Document Attachments

Employees can attach medical certificates or other supporting documents to leave applications — stored securely and linked to the audit trail.

🤖

AI Leave Assistant (Pro)

An AI agent that answers employee questions, flags unusual leave patterns for managers, and suggests optimal leave planning — powered by YayLeave's headless API.

Want early access to Pro features?

Leave your email and we'll let you know when the Pro tier and mobile apps launch.

Common questions

Is YayLeave BCEA compliant?
Yes. YayLeave is built around South Africa's Basic Conditions of Employment Act (BCEA). Annual leave, sick leave, family responsibility leave, maternity leave, and parental leave are all included as default leave types with correct entitlements. You can add more — but you can't accidentally go below the legal minimum.
What happens when I grow beyond 3 employees?
When you add a 4th employee, you'll be prompted to upgrade to the paid Lite plan at R15 per employee per month, billed annually. Your data stays exactly where it is — nothing gets locked or reset. You can upgrade at any time.
Can I configure different leave entitlements per job grade?
Absolutely. YayLeave's leave policy engine lets you set different day entitlements per job grade for each leave type. You can also configure long-service increments — for example, an extra 2 days of annual leave after 5 years of service — automatically applied per employee.
Does YayLeave support carry-over and leave expiry?
Yes. You can configure carry-over rules per leave type — including a cap on the number of days that can be carried over and how long they remain valid before expiry. The system tracks these automatically and can notify employees and managers when leave is about to expire.
Can I add leave types that aren't in the BCEA?
Yes — any leave type you like. Study leave, special leave, religious observance leave, bereavement leave, sabbatical, or anything else your company offers. Each custom leave type gets the same policy configuration as the built-in BCEA types.
What is the headless API and do I need it?
The YayLeave headless API allows software, AI agents, and other systems to interact with your leave data programmatically — without anyone logging into the web portal. If you want to connect YayLeave to your payroll system, build a custom employee chatbot, or let an AI agent handle leave queries for your team, the API is how you do it. It's available on the Enterprise plan. Most small businesses don't need it — but as AI agents become more common in the workplace, it's increasingly valuable.
Is my data secure?
Yes. YayLeave runs on Microsoft Azure with HTTPS enforced on all connections. Every action in the system is audit-logged. We do not sell or share your data with any third parties.

Stop managing leave in spreadsheets.

It takes 5 minutes to set up. Your first 3 employees are free forever.

Get started — it's free →
No credit card  ·  BCEA compliant  ·  South Africa's leave management system