PtoPal

• 

  PtoPal

Inspiration

During college, I had plenty of time but not enough money to travel. Now, after college, I finally have the budget—but not the time. That contrast stuck with me and inspired me to build something that could help me and others make the most of our limited time off. I wanted a simple tool to take the guesswork out of PTO planning and answer a question many of us ask: “Will I have enough time off for this trip?”

What it does

PTO Pal helps you plan your time off by calculating how much PTO you’ll have by a future date. You enter how many PTO hours you earn per paycheck, how often you get paid, your current PTO balance, your start date, and the future date you're planning around. PTO Pal then calculates your total available PTO so you’ll know exactly how much time off you’ll have—and whether you can take that vacation.

How we built it

Challenges we ran into

One major challenge was designing a calculation system that works for a wide variety of PTO policies and paycheck schedules. Since everyone earns time off differently, the logic had to be flexible while still easy to use.

Another challenge was building the app entirely on the frontend. Without a backend, storing user data became an issue—users would otherwise need to re-enter their inputs every time. To solve this, we explored using local storage to retain user inputs across sessions and improve the overall experience.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

One of the features I’m most proud of is the calendar view. It’s something I always imagined including, but in the past, planning and drafting the logic for it felt overwhelming and delayed progress. With the help of AI, I was able to quickly bring the idea to life and get it into a working state—turning a long-time goal into a real, usable feature.

What we learned

I learned how powerful AI can be for speeding up the prototyping process. Using AI to generate functional code helped me focus more on product thinking and user experience, and less on boilerplate. It’s a great tool for quickly reaching an MVP stage.

What's next for PtoPal

PTO Pal started as a passion project, and I’d like to keep building on it for myself and others who need a simple, reliable PTO calculator. I’m planning to expand it with a browser extension, and I want to add login functionality so users can save and revisit their inputs across devices.

Built With

• bolt.new
• javascript
• typescript
• vite