Attendance management system for Indian companies

What an attendance management system does

Most Indian companies start with a paper muster roll, a biometric device that nobody reconciles, or a spreadsheet HR fills in at month end. An attendance management system replaces that with one record of who worked, when and for how long, checked against the shift each person is on. It does five jobs:

Captures time. Employees punch in and out, or punches arrive from a biometric device or another system. Applies shift rules. Start and end times, a grace period, and the hours that make a half day or a full day turn raw punches into a status for each day: present, half day, absent, late. Fixes gaps. A missed punch or a wrong time goes to a manager as a correction request, instead of an email thread. Gives HR a register. One monthly register, with totals per person, that can be checked, exported and locked. Feeds payroll. Absent days and overtime hours reach the payroll run without anyone re-keying them.

For HR, the payoff is a month-end that closes in hours, not days, and attendance data that matches what payroll paid. For managers, it is knowing who is in today without asking. For employees, it is seeing their own record and fixing a missed punch themselves.

For employees: punch in, check the month, fix a missed punch

In Beoblo, an employee punches in and out from the browser, on a laptop or on a phone. Beoblo can be installed on a phone straight from the browser, so it opens like an app from the home screen without an app store. HR can switch self-punch off for groups that use a biometric device instead. A punch is always made by the person: AI assistants and API keys cannot punch for anyone.

The employee sees their day (first punch, last punch, hours so far) and a month calendar that marks each day as present, half day, absent, leave, holiday or missed punch, with totals for the month. Approved leave from the leave management system shows on the same calendar, so attendance and leave never disagree.

If they forgot to punch out or the time is wrong, they raise a correction request with the right time and a reason. It goes to their approver, and the day updates once it is approved. They can also ask Kili, Beoblo's AI assistant, "show my attendance this month" and get the summary in a sentence.

For managers: who is in today, and corrections to approve

A manager opens team attendance and sees who is in, who is late, who is absent and who is on leave today, filtered by department and location. A store manager with two branches can check one branch at a time; a plant head can look at one shift's department.

Correction requests arrive with the employee's reason and the time they want recorded. The manager approves or declines with a note. The original punches are kept, so anyone checking the record later can see what was punched and what was corrected.

Managers can ask Kili "who is absent today?" and get the answer for their own team; HR gets it for everyone. Kili answers the question but does not approve corrections: a person does that.

For HR: the register, the lock and the reports

HR works from the monthly attendance register: one row per employee, one column per day, with totals for present, half days, absent, leave and late marks. It can be exported as a CSV for auditors or for a state return. Before running payroll, HR locks the month. After that, new punches and corrections cannot change it, so the register payroll used is the register on file.

Reports come as CSV downloads: a daily report (who was in and when), a monthly summary, late arrivals and overtime. HR also sets the attendance rules: shifts, grace periods, whether self-punch is on, whether the location is recorded at punch, and whether attendance drives loss of pay.

Important changes are written to an audit log: who did what, and when.

Shifts, late marks, half days and overtime

Each shift has a start time, an end time, a grace period, and the hours that make a half day and a full day. Beoblo uses those to mark each day. A punch after the start time plus the grace period is a late mark. Hours worked decide whether the day is a half day or a full day. Hours beyond the shift are counted as overtime, with the multiplier set for the country, and appear in the overtime report.

Night shifts that end the next morning are supported: a 22:00 to 06:00 shift is one working day, not two half days. That matches section 28 of the OSH Code, which counts hours worked after midnight in the previous day.

Basic attendance has one shift per location. Companies that rotate people across shifts, such as construction sites, hotels, factories and service teams, use the Workforce module, which adds a weekly roster, shift swaps between employees and a planned-versus-actual view, so a supervisor can see who was rostered and who actually came.

Beoblo does not calculate early exits. If your policy penalises leaving early, the hours worked still decide whether the day is a half day or a full day.

Biometric devices, other systems and location

Many Indian offices and factories already have a fingerprint or face device at the door. Beoblo works with CSV exports from devices such as eSSL, ZKTeco and Matrix, and similar devices that can export punches. HR uploads the device's export, maps its columns (employee code, date, time) once, and Beoblo checks the file before importing, so a wrong employee code or a bad date is caught before it reaches the register.

Only punch times are imported. Fingerprints and face photos stay on the device and never reach Beoblo, which keeps sensitive biometric data out of your HR system.

For other systems, such as an access-control system or a site app, there is an API that can send punches to Beoblo. There is no direct, live sync with the device itself: punches arrive by file upload or through the API.

For people who work away from a desk, HR can turn on recording the location when someone punches, and make it required. The location is stored with the punch for HR and the manager to review. Beoblo does not block punches by distance from the office or by network address; it records where the punch was made.

From attendance to payroll: loss of pay

When HR turns on "Attendance drives loss of pay", absent days in a locked register go to that month's payroll run as loss-of-pay days, the same way approved unpaid leave does. The setting is off by default, so a company can run attendance for a few months, check the data, and switch it on when the register is reliable.

This is why the lock matters. Payroll reads the register as it was when HR locked it. A correction approved after the lock does not quietly change a payslip that has already been paid; HR fixes it in the next month instead.

Before HR locks payroll, the payroll anomaly check compares the run with last month and flags big changes, missing attendance, unpaid leave, joiners and leavers, and negative pay. Use the salary calculator to see how a month's gross becomes take-home pay.

Working hours and overtime under the OSH Code

The four labour codes came into force on 21 November 2025. For establishments the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 (OSH Code) covers, section 25 says no worker may be required or allowed to work more than 8 hours in a day, with the intervals and spread-over the appropriate government notifies. The Ministry of Labour's FAQs describe the standard as 8 hours a day and 48 hours a week, with some flexibility to extend daily hours with the worker's consent and overtime pay.

Section 26 says no worker may work more than 6 days in a week. Where a government exemption takes away a weekly holiday, the worker gets an equal number of compensatory holidays within that month or the 2 months after.

Section 27 sets overtime at twice the rate of wages for work beyond the hours the government prescribes for a day or a week, counted daily or weekly, whichever is better for the worker. Overtime needs the worker's consent, and the government may cap total overtime hours. Section 28 covers night shifts: for a shift that runs past midnight, hours after midnight count in the previous day, and the weekly holiday is 24 consecutive hours from the end of the shift.

Section 43 lets women work in all establishments, and before 6 a.m. and after 7 p.m. with their consent, subject to conditions on safety, holidays and working hours that the government sets. Offices and shops may also follow their state's Shops and Establishments Act, which sets its own daily hours, spread-over and overtime limits, so a company with offices in several states may need different shifts in each.

The attendance records the law asks for

Section 33 of the OSH Code requires the employer to keep a register, electronically or otherwise, with the particulars the government prescribes, including the work performed, normal working hours in a day, the weekly day of rest, wages paid, and leave, leave wages, overtime work and attendance. It also requires notices at the workplace, wage slips (electronic is allowed) and returns filed with the Inspector-cum-Facilitator.

An electronic register is allowed, which is what an attendance management system gives you. The useful test is simple: if an inspector asked for a month's attendance and overtime, could you produce it from one place, with the hours, the days of rest and the corrections visible? In Beoblo, the locked monthly register, the overtime report and the payslips for the same month answer that question together.

The exact register formats are set by the central and state rules under the Code, and some states still ask for their own forms. Export the register as a CSV and arrange it in the format your state asks for.

Worked example: one week on a day shift

A company runs a 9:30 to 18:30 shift with 15 minutes' grace, a half day from 4 hours worked and a full day from 8 hours. "Attendance drives loss of pay" is on. Here is one employee's week, as Beoblo marks it.

On Monday they punch in at 9:40 and out at 18:35: inside the grace period, present. On Tuesday they punch in at 9:52 and out at 18:45: past 9:30 plus 15 minutes, so a late mark, though the hours still make a full day. On Wednesday they leave at 14:00 after punching in at 9:30: four and a half hours, a half day. On Thursday they forget to punch out, so the day shows a missed punch; they raise a correction for 18:30 with the reason "forgot to punch out", and their manager approves it. On Friday they do not come in and have no leave: absent.

On Saturday the plant needs extra hours and the employee agrees to stay from 9:30 to 21:30. That is 12 hours; under the OSH Code, hours beyond the 8-hour day are overtime at twice the rate of wages, so 4 hours are overtime. If the employee's hourly rate is ₹150, those hours are paid at ₹300 an hour, ₹1,200. Check your state's rules for how the hourly rate is worked out.

At month end HR checks the register and locks it. Friday's absence goes to payroll as one loss-of-pay day, and the Saturday hours appear in the overtime report.

How to choose an attendance management system

Capture. How will people punch: browser, phone, biometric device, or a mix? If you have devices, ask how their punches get in (file upload, API or live sync) and test it with a real export from your device.

Shift rules. Can it hold your grace period, half-day and full-day hours and night shifts? If people rotate shifts, is there a roster with swaps?

Corrections. Can employees fix missed punches with a reason, and does the manager approve them? Are the original punches kept?

The register and the lock. Is there one monthly register you can export, and can you lock it so payroll and attendance never disagree?

Payroll link. Do absent days reach payroll as loss of pay without export and import? Can you switch that on only when you are ready?

Field staff. If people work away from the office, what does the system record about where they punched, and what does it do with it?

Privacy. If you use fingerprints or face scans, does the HR system store them, or only the punch times?