Holiday taken, holiday owed and the cost of cover
Who still has a lot of holiday to take before the year ends, and what will covering it cost?
Upload your holiday record and a payroll. Ask Orrery shows each person's entitlement, hours taken and booked, what is left, and the cost of covering the remaining hours with overtime or agency.
When people use it: Quarterly, and from September to plan cover for the end of the holiday year.
How it works, step by step
Upload the files
Holiday records come in many layouts; Ask Orrery reads month columns and totals and tells you which it used.
Who has the most left
A cluster of untaken holiday in the last quarter means overtime or agency in December, your most expensive month.
Cost of cover
Compare overtime cost with agency cost: the gap is often more than £10 an hour for care staff and more for nurses.
What you upload
- Your holiday record (entitlement and hours taken by month)
- A payroll with rates
- Optionally, agency invoices for the agency rate you pay
Files are stored privately for your account, never shared with anyone and never used to train AI. You can delete them at any time. Spreadsheets, CSV, PDF and Word files all work, in your own layout.
Try it with sample files
Made up files for a made up provider, Example Care Group, so you can see what Ask Orrery does with them.
Questions you can ask
- “From my Example House holiday record, who has the most holiday left to take before December, and how many hours is that in total?”
- “What would covering the remaining holiday cost with overtime at each person's rate, and with agency at the rates on my Example House agency invoices?”
- “Chart holiday remaining by person.”
Ask the data in plain English
A real question and answer from Ask Orrery, the assistant inside the platform, using the Example Care Group sample files above (October 2026). It works from your files and Orrery's data, and shows its sources.
Nia Doyle has the most holiday left, at 184 hours. That comes from the Remaining column in your "Example House holiday and sickness 2026" file.
- Nia's entitlement is 224 hours, on 40 contracted hours a week.
- She has 40 hours taken or booked: 24 in February and 16 in October.
- Entitlement of 224 less 40 leaves 184 hours, which is 82% of her year still to use.
The next highest are Abi Lowe with 144 hours and Jasmine Ince with 115.2 hours.
How to read this: The file's Remaining figure already counts October to December bookings as used. If you only count holiday actually taken up to September, Nia has 200 hours left. She is still top, and Abi Lowe is next on 168 hours.
Check Nia's entitlement. She started on 23 January 2026, but her entitlement is the full 224 hours. If it should be pro-rated for a part year, her real balance would be lower, and she might no longer be the top.
Why it matters: Large unused balances late in the year can mean a cluster of leave in December or carry-over costs. The holiday cover guide covers this. Do you want the total unbooked hours across the whole team, or a list of the top ten?
Source: your uploaded file, "Example House holiday and sickness 2026.xlsx".
Ask, chart and report, in plain English
Ask Orrery answers from Orrery's data and your own files, draws charts on request and builds reports you can save as PDF. These are real examples made with the sample files.
- Statutory holiday is 5.6 weeks a year; check your own policy for carry over before planning.
- Spreading holiday through the year is cheaper than covering a rush at the end.
Answer this with your own files
Subscribers get every guide, chart and projection for all 153 councils, Ask Orrery with private uploads of their own files, and every council report.
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