Employees request leave and their manager approves it. Contractors book time away that is granted at once, and their manager gets a notice instead of a decision. Both log hours against the same projects and issues, and contractor time away is unpaid, so it never reaches the R2Płatnik payroll file.
Product context, not legal advice. Whether a B2B contract holds up depends on how the work actually runs, so check your setup with your lawyer.
Time tracking · Reports
| Project | Hours | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Northwind Portal | 186h | |
| Atlas Rewrite | 124h | |
| Internal · Platform | 78h |
Many Polish and CEE software houses and agencies have people on umowa o pracę working next to B2B contractors. The HR system should keep the two apart on purpose, not by accident.
How does a contractor tell us they will be away, without asking for leave?
They book days on a contractor type - the Polish preset ships one called Dostępność B2B. It is granted at once, counts no balance, and their manager gets a notice, not a request to approve.
Can we keep contractors out of annual leave?
Yes. Mark them Not eligible on the employee types and they cannot book them. Who can book what is decided by policy membership, never by the contract field.
Could a new contractor land in annual leave by mistake?
Yes, unless you check. New hires join every policy set to add new hires, contractors included. When the person's contract is recorded as B2B, the members list warns you, and you move them to Not eligible there.
Can contractors log hours for their monthly invoice?
Yes. They log time per project and per Jira, Linear, GitHub or Asana issue. A manager or admin exports logged time as CSV by person or project, with a column per day, week or month. SquadBear stores hours, not rates, so the invoice is made elsewhere.
Does contractor time away end up in the payroll file?
No. The R2Płatnik file carries only paid leave types that you map to an R2Płatnik leave kind, and Dostępność B2B is unpaid. Sick leave stays out as well.
Can managers still plan around a contractor's time away?
Yes. The days show on the shared team calendar like any approved absence, and if the contractor has a work schedule, they come off their expected hours.
One workspace, one directory, one calendar. Where the two contracts should differ, SquadBear has a separate setting. "Built in" works once the Polish preset is applied. "Your setup" is a decision an admin makes once.
| Area | Employees on umowa o pracę | B2B contractors |
|---|---|---|
| Time away | ||
| Leave typesWhat they bookBuilt in | The Polish preset's employee types - Urlop wypoczynkowy, Urlop na żądanie, Zwolnienie lekarskie, Opieka art. 188, Siła wyższa, Urlop opiekuńczy, Okolicznościowy and Urlop bezpłatny. | Dostępność B2B, from the same preset. Rename it to whatever your contracts say, for example Planned unavailability. |
| ApprovalWho says yesBuilt in | The request goes to the manager, or through a workflow you choose. | Granted at once. The manager gets a notice, not a decision, and you can switch the notice off. |
| BalanceWhat is countedBuilt in | Each booking is charged to the allowance its type uses. | Nothing is counted. There is no allowance to run down. |
| EligibilityWho is in which policyYour setup | New hires join the employee types automatically. | Added by hand. Mark contractors Not eligible on the employee types so they cannot book them. |
| Contract formContract on the profileYour setup | Employment contract. | B2B contract or civil-law contract. It only warns - for example when a contractor sits in a paid type - and never decides who can book. |
| Hours | ||
| TimeLogging hoursBuilt in | A week grid per project and per Jira, Linear, GitHub or Asana issue. | The same grid. A members-only project takes hours only from its members, leads and linked teams. |
| ReportsMonthly hoursBuilt in | CSV by person, project, team or category, with a column per day, week or month. | The same CSV, as the basis for the invoice. Rates and invoices stay in your invoicing tool. |
| Month endLocking the monthYour setup | People submit a period and its entries lock. An admin can close the whole workspace through a date. Team and Enterprise plans. | The same, so the hours behind an invoice stay as they were. |
| Payroll and plan | ||
| R2PłatnikLeave for payrollYour setup | An admin installs the Symfonia R2Płatnik app and maps each leave type to an R2Płatnik leave kind. The monthly XLSX for its leave-card import has one row per approved request, with dates and minutes. | Not in the file. Unpaid types are never exported, and Dostępność B2B is unpaid. |
| PlanSeatsBuilt in | Each active person counts towards the plan. | Counted the same way. |
The contract sits on the profile, time away follows the policy a person is in, and everyone logs hours against the same projects.
Record each person's contract - employment, B2B or civil-law. It never decides who can book what. On the Polish preset's types it warns when someone sits in a type meant for another contract, and says that paid leave for a contractor can read as an employment relationship.
People · Profile
Backend Engineer · Employee · PL
Employment
Custom fields
Pick the Jira, Linear, GitHub or Asana issue and log hours against it in the week grid. SquadBear only reads the tracker and writes nothing back. A members-only project accepts hours only from its members, leads and linked teams.
Time tracking
Jira · Linear · GitHub · Asana
If a contractor has a work schedule, days booked as unavailable come off their expected hours, just like an employee's approved leave. A public holiday counts as zero.
Time tracking
On Team and Enterprise, people submit a complete period and its entries lock. Managers see what has been submitted, and an admin can close the whole workspace through a date. The hours behind an invoice stay as they were.
Connect SquadBear over MCP and your assistant works under your own login and role. It can check who is away before a release, pull a month of hours by project, and put a new contractor in the right policies.
I want to commit the Q3 launch to Aug 12. Is the core team actually staffed and healthy enough to hit it?
get_team_availability{ "teamId": "team_core", "startDate": "2026-07-27", "endDate": "2026-08-12" }get_team_time_summary{ "teamId": "team_core", "startDate": "2026-06-15", "endDate": "2026-06-28" }get_team_health_trends{ "teamId": "team_core", "modelId": "hmod_pulse5" }searchJiraIssuesUsingJql{ "jql": "fixVersion = 'Q3 Launch' AND statusCategory != Done" }“How many hours did Marta log in September, by project?”
get_time_report
“Who on the Platform team is away in the next two weeks, contractors included?”
get_team_availability · list_team_absences
“Add Adam to Dostępność B2B and mark him not eligible for Urlop wypoczynkowy.”
list_leave_policies · set_policy_assignment
“Book me as unavailable from 3 to 7 November.”
request_time_off
“Who still has hours missing for October?”
get_team_time_summary
The questions a software house usually asks before it moves its people in.
EU or US, chosen at sign-up and fixed. Each region has its own database and file store.
The app runs in Polish and in English, and each person can pick their own language.
Every query is scoped to the signed-in workspace, and the database refuses a row that points at another one.
Cloudflare hosts the app, data, files and email. Stripe and Google or Microsoft sign-in take part only if you turn them on.
No. Some context, though. Under Polish law a B2B contractor has no statutory right to annual leave - time off is whatever the contract says. In reclassification cases, a contractor who has to ask for time off and wait for approval, like an employee, is often cited as a sign of subordination. A common, safer pattern is to let contractors notify rather than ask, under a neutral name. SquadBear lets you run it that way. Whether your contracts hold up is for your lawyer to judge.
Because they would still sit in an employee leave type, with its approval step and its balance. A separate type that is granted at once and counts nothing keeps the two apart, and the members list warns you when a contractor whose contract is recorded lands in a paid employee type.
Yes. Leave type names are free text, so use Planned unavailability, Planowana niedyspozycja or whatever your contracts say. Avoid employee terms such as urlop wypoczynkowy for contractors.
Yes. When the type is set to "Granted at once, manager notified", the manager gets a notice as soon as the days are booked, and the days show on the shared calendar. You can switch the notice off for the type.
No. It stores hours in minutes per project and issue, with no rates and no billable flag. Export the CSV and invoice from your own tool.
One. A monthly leave file for the leave-card import in Symfonia R2Płatnik, as an app an admin installs. Other payroll systems have no ready file yet; for now the REST API is the way out.
No, but it is the fastest start. One step gives you the eight employee types and Dostępność B2B. You can also create a contractor type by hand, but then the contract warnings do not apply, because they come from the preset.
Yes. Every active person in the workspace counts, whatever their contract. The free plan covers five people.
Apply the Polish leave preset, add contractors to Dostępność B2B and mark them not eligible for employee leave. Their hours go into the same projects from day one.
