My PTO
Support
My PTO adds up the paid time off you have earned and carries it forward, so you can see months ahead whether the trip you want is already paid for. Everything below is about how to get it set up and what to do when a number looks wrong.
Need a hand? Email davidwbrown@hey.com. Tell me what your accrual policy says and what the app is showing, and I will get back to you.
Setting up
What do I type in the policy box?
Whatever your employer's handbook or HR portal says, in its own words — "you earn 0.0577 hours for every hour worked", "16.67 hours on the first of the month", "80 hours a year". The app reads it and fills in the fields below. If it reads it wrong, every field is editable by hand; nothing depends on the sentence being understood.
My schedule is not nine to five
Set the hours you actually work for each day of the week — three twelves and an eight is a normal week and the app handles it. Any single day that went long, went short, or turned into an extra shift can be corrected on the calendar without changing your regular schedule.
My employer caps how much I can bank
Enter the cap in setup. The projection stops accruing when you reach it and starts again once you spend time off and drop below it.
When a number looks wrong
The app and my paystub disagree
Payroll is the authority. Enter the real balance from the stub on the day it applies, and everything from that day forward is recalculated from that number. Earlier days are left alone. Do this whenever a stub arrives and small drift never accumulates.
Why is my balance lower than I expected after booking a day?
Time off comes out of the workday it lands on. A day you take off is not also a day you worked, so it neither accrues hours nor counts toward hours-worked policies. That is what a paystub does too.
Days or hours?
Both, always — the balance is shown as days, with the hours beside it, so there is nothing to switch. Days are your own: the app divides by the hours in your typical workday, so a half day is half a token whether your shift is eight hours or twelve. Anywhere you type a balance in — a paystub correction, for instance — the app asks for hours, because that is what a stub prints.
Saving for something
Will I have enough days by then?
Add a goal — a name and the dates you want off — and the app answers that question against the balance you will actually have on those dates, not the one you have today. If you will be short, it says by how much, and it offers the two things that would fix it: the date you could go instead, or working the shortfall off, when your policy earns time off by the hour.
What does “Booked” on a goal mean?
That those days are on your calendar, not just wished for. A goal can say Booked and still warn you that your balance runs short across those dates — booking days off does not pay for them, and the app will not pretend it does. Giving the days back on the calendar takes the goal back to saving.
Backup and restore
How do I move to a new iPhone?
Turn on iCloud backup in the app's Settings before you switch. On the new phone, sign in to the same Apple Account, install My PTO, and it offers to restore. Backup is off until you turn it on.
I was using an older version of My PTO
If the old app's data is still on the phone, the new version finds it on first launch and brings across your logged days, your balance, and your settings. The oldest versions never recorded a weekly schedule — if yours didn't, the app keeps everything it can and asks you only for the days you work.
Can I get my data out?
Deleting the app removes everything it stored on the phone. If you turned on iCloud backup, remove that copy from the app's Settings first, or from your iPhone's iCloud storage settings afterwards.
Things the app does not do
- It does not connect to your employer's HR or payroll system. Nothing is read from your workplace; you tell it the policy and it does the arithmetic.
- It does not track your location or detect when you arrive at work.
- It does not have accounts, sign-in, or any server run by the developer.