Lucca: digitising leave, absences and expense claims (HR guide)

Quick answer. Digitising leave, absences and expense claims with Lucca follows six steps: set up the company and populations, configure leave and absence rules per the collective agreement, configure expense claims (categories, caps, scales), define the approval workflows, connect it all to payroll, then train and roll out. The point is not just convenience: reliable variables in mean reliable payroll and an accurate social declaration (DSN) out.

Leave, absences and expense claims share one thing: they are payroll variables. As long as they flow by email, spreadsheet or paper, they generate omissions, entry errors and month-end back-and-forth. Digitising them makes capture reliable at the source and wins on two fronts: less admin for teams, and more accurate payroll.

Lucca is a French HRIS organised in modules (absence management, expense claims, and beyond). The value of such a tool is not its feature richness but the quality of the variables it feeds to payroll. That is exactly what we look for when helping a director manage monthly payroll variables without friction. To place Lucca against its alternatives, see our Lucca, PayFit and Silae comparison.

1. Set up the company and populations. Sites, teams, managers, then employee import: the basis of every module.
2. Configure leave and absence rules. Counters (paid leave, time off, absences), accrual rules per the applicable collective agreement and the company calendar. Reminder: paid leave accrues at 2.5 working days per month of actual work.
3. Configure expense claims. Expense categories, caps, scales (mileage, meals) and photo capture of supporting documents.
4. Define the approval workflows. Who requests, who approves (manager, HR): a clear workflow avoids blind reimbursements and traces decisions.
5. Connect to payroll. Exporting variables (absences, reimbursed expenses) to the payroll software is the step that saves time, alongside setting up payroll.
6. Train and roll out. Train managers and employees, start with a pilot team, then generalise once the rules are validated.

Note. The value of an HRIS comes not from the number of modules but from the reliability of the variables it sends to payroll. A wrongly entered absence or a mis-categorised expense lands directly on the payslip and in the social declaration: the check before export stays essential.

Digitisation is measured above all in time saved and errors avoided on three day-to-day flows.

Expense claims and evidential value. Photo capture does not remove the need to keep compliant supporting documents: evidential digitisation meets specific conditions (order of 22 March 2017). When in doubt, keep the original. Our article on automating expense claims details the process.

Taxable or exempt expenses. Some reimbursements (mileage allowances, meals) follow URSSAF scales: above them, the excess is subject to contributions. The configuration must reflect these rules to avoid adjustments.

A fast-growing startup. Headcount and rules change fast: wiring clean approval workflows early avoids chaos, as in our startup support.

• The collective agreement drives the counters. Wrongly set accrual or time-off rules distort every employee's balances: check them first.
• Connecting to payroll does not remove the control. Export automates transmission, but a consistency check before the payslip and the social declaration stays necessary.
• Expense scales change. Mileage allowances and benefits in kind are revised: keep the configuration up to date to stay within exemption limits.
• Adoption makes the result. A leave-request tool only works if managers and employees use it: plan training and simple rules.

Recently, a services SME came to us because its payroll kept piling up corrections: leave booked by email, expense claims on a spreadsheet, variables reconstructed in a rush every month-end. By digitising capture and connecting variables to payroll, the number of errors fell sharply and payroll preparation time shrank.

The lesson is constant: an HRIS like Lucca does not replace configuration rigour, it puts it at the service of capture. As chartered accountants registered with the Ordre, our role is to secure the structuring rules — agreement counters, expense scales, the social treatment of reimbursements — and to check the consistency of variables before the payslip. The tool makes the raw material of payroll reliable; human control keeps the last word.

Hayot Expertise tip. Start with leave and expense claims, the two most time-consuming flows, and connect them to payroll from the outset. Have the agreement configuration and scales validated by your accountant, then trial on a pilot team before generalising. You will turn two monthly chores into automated, reliable flows.