Free tool
Attendance Register Generator
Pick a month and get a register that prints on one A4 sheet, with every date laid out, the weekly off marked, monthly totals counted and a signature line at the foot. No sign up, and nothing you type leaves your browser.
Click any box in the register to cycle through present, absent, leave, holiday and weekly off. Nothing you type here is sent anywhere; the sheet is built entirely in your browser.
Attendance register
Attendance register for August 2026. Weekly off: Sunday.
| Employee | 1S | 2S | 3M | 4T | 5W | 6T | 7F | 8S | 9S | 10M | 11T | 12W | 13T | 14F | 15S | 16S | 17M | 18T | 19W | 20T | 21F | 22S | 23S | 24M | 25T | 26W | 27T | 28F | 29S | 30S | 31M | P | A | L |
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A worked example: September 2026, one employee
September 2026 has 30 days and begins on a Tuesday. With Sunday as the weekly off, four days fall out as rest days: the 6th, 13th, 20th and 27th. That leaves 26 working days in the month.
Priya is on the register for all of them. She was present for 24 days, absent without leave on the 9th, and took one day of approved leave on the 18th. Her row totals up like this.
| Days in the month | 30 |
|---|---|
| Weekly offs (Sundays: 6, 13, 20, 27) | 4 |
| Working days on the register | 26 |
| Marked present (P) | 24 |
| Marked absent (A), on the 9th | 1 |
| Marked leave (L), on the 18th | 1 |
| Paid days, if the leave is paid | 25 |
That figure of 26 is not a coincidence, and it is the reason this sheet is worth keeping properly. A monthly salary in India is conventionally treated as pay for 26 working days, because the paid weekly off is already inside the monthly figure. The register is where that 26 comes from. If Priya is on Rs 20,000 a month, one unpaid absent day costs her Rs 769.23, being 20,000 divided by 26. Get the register wrong by one day and the payslip is wrong by that much.
The same 26 day divisor drives every overtime hour she works. A day recorded wrongly here does not stay a paperwork problem; it moves money, and it does so in a document you would have to produce in a dispute.
How to use the register
Choose the month and the weekly off
The sheet lays out every date in the month with its day of the week, and shades the weekly off automatically. Section 26 of the OSH Code requires one day of rest in every week, so the off day belongs on the register rather than being left blank and unexplained.Add the employee names, or leave the list empty
Type one name per line to get a named register. Leave the box empty and you get twelve numbered blank rows instead, which is the sheet to print and fill in by hand at the counter.Mark each day
Click a box to cycle through present, absent, leave, holiday and weekly off. Use the fill button to mark the whole month present in one go, then correct only the exceptions, which is faster than marking thirty days one at a time.Check the monthly totals against the payroll
The last three columns count the present, absent and leave days for each person. These are the figures a payroll run should be using. If the register and the payslip disagree, one of them is wrong before the money moves, not after.Print it and have it signed
The sheet prints on A4 landscape in black on white whichever theme you are reading in, with the legend and a signature line for the employer or the authorised person. The CSV export is there for anyone who needs the same month in a spreadsheet.Keep it for three years
Store the signed sheet or the exported file for three years from the last entry, which is the retention period under the rules made below the Code on Wages. File it by month so a specific date can be produced without hunting.
What the law requires you to record
Two provisions sit behind the attendance register, and both apply to almost every employer regardless of headcount.
Section 50 of the Code on Wages 2019 requires every employer to maintain a register with the details of the persons employed, the muster roll and the wages paid. Section 113 of the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code 2020, in force since 21 November 2025, requires a register showing the employees, the work performed by them and the hours that make up their normal working day. Both permit the register to be kept in electronic form.
The hours those registers are measured against come from Section 25 of the OSH Code: a normal working day of 9 hours and a weekly ceiling of 48 hours, with anything beyond counted as overtime. Section 26 requires one day of rest in every week, which is why the weekly off is marked on the sheet rather than left as an unexplained gap.
Registers must be preserved for three years from the date of the last entry under the rules made below the Code on Wages. Your state Shops and Establishments rules prescribe a form of their own on top of this, and the form number differs from state to state, so check the rules for the state your establishment is registered in before assuming a format downloaded from the internet is the one your inspector expects.
This page is a working tool and a plain reading of the provisions above. It is not legal advice, and state rules vary.
Attendance register questions, answered
Is an attendance register compulsory in India?
Yes. Section 50 of the Code on Wages 2019 requires every employer to maintain a register of the persons employed, the muster roll and the wages paid. Section 113 of the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code 2020 separately requires a register showing the employees, the work they performed and the hours they worked. On top of both, your state Shops and Establishments rules prescribe their own attendance register. There is no size threshold that exempts a small business from keeping one.
What columns must an attendance register contain?
The employee name and an identifying number, the date, whether the person attended, and the hours worked including any overtime. Most state formats also ask for the time of arrival, the time of departure and the rest interval. The register generated here covers the daily attendance mark and the monthly totals, which is what a payroll run and a routine inspection are usually checking against.
Can I keep the attendance register on a computer instead of on paper?
Yes. Both the Code on Wages and the OSH Code expressly allow registers to be maintained in electronic form. What matters is not the medium but whether the entry was made when the work happened. A digital record that is typed up at month end is no better evidence than a paper one written from memory.
How long do I have to keep attendance records?
Three years from the date of the last entry, under the rules made below the Code on Wages. Keep the signed printouts or the exported files for at least that long. In a wage dispute the burden of producing the record sits with the employer, so a missing register is generally read against you rather than treated as neutral.
What do P, A, L, H and W mean on an attendance register?
P is present, A is absent, L is leave, H is a declared holiday and W is the weekly off. These five marks are the common convention across Indian registers. Whichever set you use, print the legend on the sheet itself so that a reader who was not there can interpret it without asking you.
Does a register filled in at the end of the month count?
Legally it is still a register, but as evidence it is close to worthless. A month reconstructed from memory or from a payroll sheet cannot corroborate the payroll sheet, and inspectors and labour courts both know the difference. A timestamped clock in and clock out per employee per day is what settles a dispute.
Which format applies under the Shops and Establishments Act?
It depends on your state, because the Shops and Establishments Act is state legislation and each state prescribes its own form and its own form number under its rules. Check the rules for the state your establishment is registered in. The columns are broadly the same everywhere, so a register in this shape usually transfers with only the header changing.
Do I need a separate register for overtime hours?
Usually yes. Attendance and overtime are ordinarily recorded separately, because the overtime record has to show the hours worked beyond the normal day and the wages paid at the statutory double rate under Section 27 of the OSH Code. Mark attendance here, then work out what the extra hours are worth on the overtime calculator.
A register that fills itself in
Printing a blank sheet works. It also means somebody has to remember to fill it in, and a month written up from memory is the weakest record you can hold. Shiftelio records the clock in and clock out as they happen, from the employee's phone or a shared device, and the monthly register is then a report rather than a chore.
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