1 · Upload a CSV
Columns are matched by header name. name is required; email and start_date are picked up when present (“Employee Name”, “Work Email”, “Hire Date” and similar wording all work). A missing start date defaults to today — accrual is measured from it, so a person with no start date would have no meaningful balance. An employee whose name already exists is skipped, never duplicated.
There is no allowance column, on purpose. In Leavora an allowance is a property of the leave type — an accrual policy the team shares (Setup → Leave types) — not a number stored per person. A column of per-employee allowances has nowhere to go, and accepting it would mean silently discarding it. Nothing is written until you confirm the dry-run report.