Monitor Employee Leave and Absence Patterns for Payroll and Compliance

Implementation: Query and Analyze Leave Data from HRIS

Step 1: Query Leave Requests by Employee and Date Range

Knit's Leave Requests API enables querying employee absences either for a complete month or a custom date range. This flexibility supports both routine monthly reporting and investigation scenarios.

API Endpoint: GET https://api.getknit.dev/v1.0/hr.employees.leave.requests

Query for a specific month:

GET /v1.0/hr.employees.leave.requests?employeeId=emp_12345&month=2025-01

Query for a custom date range:

GET /v1.0/hr.employees.leave.requests?employeeId=emp_12345&startDate=2025-01-01&endDate=2025-01-31

Parameter requirements:

• employeeId (required): Employee identifier from HRIS
• Time range (required, choose one):
  • month parameter: Format YYYY-MM (e.g., "2025-01")
  • startDate AND endDate parameters: Both required when using custom range
• originData (optional): Request raw HRIS data in addition to standardized format

Step 2: Analyze Leave Patterns and Detect Policy Compliance Issues

With leave request data retrieved, implement analysis logic to detect compliance violations, fraud indicators, and policy exceptions. Different leave types and patterns suggest different risks.

Leave type categorization and risk profiles:

Leave Type	Compliance Risks	Fraud Indicators	Audit Requirements
VACATION	Accrual limit violations, mandatory minimum not taken	Excessive vacation during critical periods	Accrual calculation verification
SICK	Exceeding sick leave allowance, pattern abuse	Friday/Monday clustering, same-day requests	Medical documentation for extended absences
PERSONAL	Usage exceeds allocation	Frequent personal days during busy seasons	Approval verification
PARENTAL	FMLA compliance, duration limits	None (typically well-documented)	FMLA eligibility and duration tracking
BEREAVEMENT	Exceeding policy limits (typically 3-5 days)	Excessive bereavement claims	Verification of qualifying relationships

Step 3: Generate Compliance Reports and Fraud Alerts

With leave patterns analyzed, create actionable outputs: compliance reports for audit evidence, fraud alerts for investigation, and policy exception notifications for HR review.

Key Leave Requests API and Data Model Fields

Field	Data Type	Description
id	String	Unique leave request identifier
startDate	Date (YYYY-MM-DD)	First day of leave
endDate	Date (YYYY-MM-DD)	Last day of leave (inclusive)
requestedOn	Date (YYYY-MM-DD)	Date employee submitted request
status	Enum	Approval status: REQUESTED, APPROVED, DECLINED, CANCELLED, DELETED, NOT_SPECIFIED
leaveType.type	Enum	Standardized leave category: VACATION, SICK, PERSONAL, JURY_DUTY, VOLUNTEER, BEREAVEMENT, NOT_SPECIFIED
unit	Enum	Measurement unit: DAYS, HOURS, NOT_SPECIFIED
amount	Double	Quantity of leave
isPaid	Enum	Paid vs. unpaid leave indicator: TRUE, FALSE, NOT_SPECIFIED
note	String	Employee-provided reason/context

Leave type standardization:
Knit normalizes leave types across different HRIS platforms:

• VACATION: Annual leave, PTO, holiday time
• SICK: Illness, medical appointments
• PERSONAL: Personal days, floating holidays
• PARENTAL: Maternity, paternity, adoption leave
• BEREAVEMENT: Funeral leave, compassionate leave
• JURY_DUTY: Court service, legal obligations
• VOLUNTEER: Community service, volunteer activities

Date range querying options:

• Month parameter: month=2025-01 retrieves all leave requests with start or end dates in January 2025
• Custom range: startDate=2025-01-01&endDate=2025-03-31 retrieves all leave overlapping Q1 2025
• Use month for: Regular monthly compliance reporting, payroll reconciliation
• Use custom range for: Quarterly audits, fraud investigations, specific incident date ranges

Supported HRIS platforms:
30+ platforms including Workday, SAP SuccessFactors, ADP Workforce Now, BambooHR, Personio, Rippling, Zoho People, UKG, and more.

Wrapping Up: Compliance Monitoring and Fraud Detection Through Leave Data

Automated leave and attendance tracking transforms employee absence monitoring from periodic manual HRIS exports into continuous compliance surveillance and fraud detection. By programmatically accessing standardized leave request data from 30+ HRIS platforms, your GRC platform enables real-time policy compliance verification, statistical fraud pattern detection, and audit-ready evidence generation.

Key capabilities unlocked:

• Unified leave data access: Query employee leave requests across 30+ HRIS platforms through single API
• Flexible date range queries: Retrieve leave by month or custom date ranges for both scheduled compliance checks and ad-hoc analysis
• Standardized leave types: Leave categories normalized to VACATION, SICK, PERSONAL, PARENTAL, BEREAVEMENT across all HRIS platforms
• Paid vs. unpaid tracking: isPaid field enables payroll reconciliation and policy compliance verification
• Fraud pattern detection: Analyze leave timing, frequency, and type to detect indicators like Friday/Monday sick leave clustering
• Compliance monitoring: Calculate leave totals by type, compare against policy limits, identify employees approaching regulatory thresholds
• SOC2 audit evidence: Generate reports demonstrating operational continuity controls through leave distribution analysis