Factorial

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Build the HR administration I actually need instead of Factorial — with one warning stated first.

**Employment law is local and it changes.** Holiday accrual, overtime, working time records and payslip retention are all specified by your country and often by a collective agreement. Build the system; do not invent the rules. Put every rule in configuration, dated, so a change in the law is a new row rather than a rewrite.

STACK
- Node 20+ with Fastify, server-rendered HTML with a little vanilla JS
- SQLite through better-sqlite3, WAL mode
- Caddy in front

THE DATA MODEL
- people: id, name, email, started_at, ended_at, manager_id, contract_ref
- contracts: id, person_id, kind, hours_per_week, effective_from, effective_to — **contracts change, so this is a history and not a column on the person**
- absence_types: id, name, is_paid, accrues, carries_over, max_carry_days
- balances: computed at query time from entitlements minus taken. Never a stored total that can drift
- absences: id, person_id, type_id, from_date, to_date, half_day_start, half_day_end, status, requested_at, decided_by, decided_at, note
- entitlements: id, person_id, year, days, reason, effective_from — append-only, because 'why did she have 26 days in 2024' must be answerable
- time_entries: id, person_id, started_at, ended_at, source, edited_by, edit_reason
- documents: id, person_id, kind, path, sha256, uploaded_at, visible_to_person

HOLIDAY, WHICH IS ALL ANYBODY USES IT FOR
- Request, approve, and a team calendar. That is ninety percent of the value
- Half days matter and are always forgotten. Model them from the start; retrofitting is painful
- Public holidays per country and region, in a dated table, and never hard-coded
- Carry-over with an expiry date, and a warning to the person a month before they lose days
- **Balances computed, never stored.** A stored balance drifts the first time a request is edited, and then nobody trusts the system

TIME RECORDS, WHICH ARE A LEGAL DOCUMENT IN MANY COUNTRIES
- Clock in and out, or a daily total, depending on what your law requires
- **Every edit recorded with who and why, and the original kept.** A working-time record that can be silently changed is worthless to an inspector and to the employee
- Weekly and monthly exports in whatever format your accountant or authority expects

DOCUMENTS AND ACCESS
- Payslips and contracts, visible to the person and to a named few. Access checked on the server for every file, every time
- **Personnel data is the most sensitive data a small company holds.** Encrypt at rest, log every read of another person's record, and default to deny
- Retention per document kind, per your local requirement, with a sweeper

WHAT NOT TO BUILD
- Payroll calculation. Getting tax and social contributions wrong is a fine and a very bad month. Export to whoever runs payroll and let them do it

WHAT MATTERS MOST
Dated rules in configuration and computed balances. One survives the law changing; the other keeps the numbers true.