Book Time Off is a simple, effective annual leave tracker. You request and approve leave, track it on a calendar, see who's off, and set allowances and rules, for a flat €1 per user a month. Shireburn Indigo is a Malta HR, payroll and attendance platform: it runs payroll, clocks hours and does salary benchmarking, with leave as one part. If you just want leave handled, cheaply and quickly, Book Time Off is the one. If you need payroll, attendance and the wider HR job, Shireburn is built for that.
What Book Time Off does
Book Time Off handles annual leave and nothing else, which is what makes it simple. Staff request time off and managers approve it in a click. Everyone sees the same calendar and wallchart, so two people don't book the same week by accident. You set each person's allowance and the rules around it, and the balance updates itself. Malta's 14 public holidays load in automatically and never come off anyone's allowance. It works with Outlook, Slack, Microsoft Teams and Google Calendar, and it's a flat €1 per user a month with a 30-day free trial and no card.
What Shireburn Indigo does
Shireburn Indigo is a Malta HR and payroll platform. It runs FSS payroll, produces payslips and forms, clocks attendance (including a biometric clock), does salary benchmarking, and includes a leave portal alongside all of it (shireburn.com). It does much more than track leave. Shireburn doesn't publish a price; it's sold by quote on a per-employee basis.
Set the allowance in days
In Malta the statutory minimum works out to about 27 days a year for a full-timer, and day to day that is how most teams plan and talk about leave. Book Time Off tracks it in days and half-days, so you set each person's allowance in days and book against it. The hours side is a payroll job; our Malta leave calculator converts between days and hours if you ever need the exact figure. (General guidance, not legal advice.)
Side by side
Book Time Off is the highlighted column.
| Feature | Book Time Off €1 / user / mo | Shireburn Indigo Malta HR & payroll |
|---|---|---|
| Handling leave | ||
| See who's off (wallchart) | Yes | Leave portal |
| Request & approve | Yes | Yes |
| Half-day bookings | Yes | Yes |
| Malta public holidays built in | Yes · 14 days | Yes |
| Slack, Teams & Outlook | Yes | Varies |
| Beyond leave (Shireburn's ground) | ||
| Malta payroll & payslips | No | Yes |
| Biometric clock / attendance | No | Yes |
| Salary benchmarking | No | Yes |
| Entitlement in hours | No · days | Yes |
| Price & setup | ||
| Published price | €1 flat / user / mo | Quote only |
| Start it yourself | Yes · 30 days free, no card | Sales process |
Which one to choose
If you want annual leave handled simply and cheaply, with the price up front and no sales process, choose Book Time Off. If you need Malta payroll, attendance and the wider HR job in one platform, choose Shireburn. Some businesses use Book Time Off for leave and keep payroll wherever it already is. For the wider field, see the Malta leave software guide.
Questions people ask
Shireburn doesn't publish a price. Indigo is sold by quote on a per-employee basis, so you'd contact them. Book Time Off is a flat €1 per user a month, shown on the site, with a 30-day free trial and no card.
Only for the leave part. Shireburn Indigo is a full Malta HR, payroll and attendance platform; Book Time Off only tracks leave. If you use Shireburn mainly to book and approve time off, Book Time Off does that more simply and cheaply. If you rely on its payroll, clocking or benchmarking, you'd keep those.
It tracks leave in days and half-days, the way most Maltese teams plan holidays, so you set a full-timer's allowance at about 27 days. It also loads Malta's 14 public holidays automatically and marks them as days off, so they never come off anyone's allowance. Reconciling entitlement in hours is a payroll job. This is general guidance, not legal advice.
Yes. Sign up, add your team and start booking in minutes on a 30-day free trial with no card. There's no quote and no sales process.
Sources, checked 21 July 2026: Book Time Off from the live product; Shireburn from shireburn.com; Malta leave from DIER and S.L. 452.87 under the Employment and Industrial Relations Act (Cap. 452). Not legal or payroll advice.