Enhancing Employee Benefits with Annual Leave Advance in GCC countries

Introduction

Annual leave is an essential benefit that allows employees to rest, travel, or visit family—especially for expatriates in GCC countries. To support this, many employers offer salary advances during leave periods, along with other perks like air tickets.

Keka HR now makes it easier to manage this benefit with its Leave Advance feature. This guide explains how to enable and manage leave advances so your employees can request pay for their leave duration or part of the month before leave. It also helps your HR and finance teams streamline approvals and payroll processing.

Set up eligible leave types for advance

Before employees can request a leave advance, you need to specify which leave types are eligible.

1. Go to the Leave settings in Keka.

2. Under Additional Restrictions, enable the option to allow advance salary requests.
   
   

3. Choose whether employees can request an advance for:

   • The entire leave duration, or

   • The leave period plus a partial salary for the earlier part of the month.
     
     
     
     
     Note: Not all leave types will be eligible—only the ones you explicitly configure.

Create a Leave Advance Policy

Once eligible leave types are set, create a policy that defines how the leave advance is calculated.

1. Go to the Payroll tab in the left menu.

2. Click Settings, then select the Leave Advance tab.

3. Click + Leave Advance Policy to create a new policy.
   
   
    

4. In the popup:

   • Enter a name for the policy.

   • Set the daily rate calculation formula, which may be based on salary components (e.g., Basic, HRA).

5. Click Save.
   
   

Your policy is now active and can be used during employee leave requests.

How employees request a leave advance

When applying for eligible leave, employees will see an option to request an advance salary.

• They can choose:

  • Advance for the full leave duration, or

  • Advance for part of the month + leave period

    Example: If leave starts on April 8th, the employee can request an advance covering April 8th–May 7th and optionally request partial salary for April 1st–7th.

Approve leave advance requests

Leave advance requests are only triggered after the leave request itself is approved.

As a payroll admin or finance head, follow these steps to approve the request:

1. Go to the Payroll tab.

2. Click Approvals, then select the Leave Advance tab.

3. In the Pending Approvals section, find and select the request(s).

4. Click Take Action.
   
   

You’ll now see a detailed view that includes:

• Leave dates and type

• Amount being requested

• Option to approve for:

  • Leave period only

  • Leave period + part salary

• Selected leave advance policy with a hover option to see the calculation

• Payment mode: Choose the upcoming or next payroll cycle

Click Approve or Reject to complete the action.

After approval

Once approved:

• The request moves to the Pending Payment tab.
  
  
   

• After payment is processed, it moves to the Past Requests tab.
  
  

• The employee will see the leave advance amount reflected in their payslip.
  
  

Notes & Definitions

Definition – Part Month / Part Salary:
The days before the start of the leave within the same month are called "part month". The salary for this duration is referred to as "part salary".

Tip: Hover over the leave advance amount in the approval screen to see how it was calculated using the policy formula.