Vacation Expiry Notices, Sent and Recorded

Under the German Federal Vacation Act, vacation is to be taken in the calendar year, and carried-over vacation usually by 31 March of the following year (§ 7(3) BUrlG). Since the European Court of Justice's Max-Planck ruling (C-684/16) and the Federal Labour Court's decision of 19 February 2019 (9 AZR 541/15), vacation generally only expires if the employer has first told employees about their remaining days and that they may lapse.

What this means for your company in detail is a question for your legal adviser. This page describes how Chrontic handles the notice, the carry-over and the record.

The Leave Notices page shows, for the selected year, every employee whose vacation accounts you manage, with:

• the remaining days per leave type,
• how many of them are statutory days,
• the days carried over from the previous year and their deadline,
• the date and sender of the last notice, or "Not yet notified".

The Only not yet notified filter leaves exactly the people who haven't received a notice this year. The figures come from the same vacation accounts Chrontic uses for leave requests, part-time changes, joiners and leavers. There is no second list to reconcile.

Select one or more people and send the notice by email. The email states:

• the date the days were counted on, the number of remaining vacation days and how many of them are statutory,
• days carried over from the previous year and their deadline,
• a request to take the vacation in good time, with a link to request leave,
• a note that days not taken may lapse once the deadlines have passed.

For employees without an email address, print a letter with the same content and record the hand-over with Mark as handed over. A notice can be sent again at any time, for example when the remaining days have changed a lot.

Only people allowed to adjust vacation accounts can send notices, and only for the employees that permission covers.

Each notice is stored as its own record: person, leave type, year, date, sender, channel (email or letter), recipient address, the number of remaining days at that moment, the deadline and the full text the person received. Records are not edited. Sending a notice again creates another record; the earlier one stays.

This lets you see later who was told what and when, without searching mailboxes or personnel files.

At the turn of the year Chrontic carries open vacation into the new year and keeps two pots apart:

• Contractual vacation above the statutory minimum is carried over up to the cap set in the vacation rules; anything above it lapses at the turn of the year.
• Statutory vacation without a notice is carried over in full. With a notice, the same cap applies; anything above it is recorded as an open liability, not deleted.

The vacation rules also set a deadline for carried-over days, 31 March by default. Days taken up to then come out of the carried-over days first, contractual before statutory. After the deadline only the remaining contractual carried-over days lapse. Statutory days without a notice stay as they are. Statutory days with a notice are not removed automatically; they wait for a decision by the leave team. Every lapse and every decision is stored in the audit log.

1. In the autumn: on the Leave Notices page, set the "Only not yet notified" filter and send the notice to everyone with remaining days.
2. For employees without email: print the letter, hand it over, mark it as handed over.
3. At the turn of the year: Chrontic creates the new year's vacation accounts and carries over remaining days, statutory and contractual separately.
4. In the first quarter: carried-over days and their deadline are on the same page; send another notice if needed.
5. After the deadline: decide on notified statutory days that are still open; open liabilities are listed on the Open Liabilities page.