What do P, A, L and H mean on an attendance sheet?

P is present, A is absent without pay, L is sanctioned leave that is paid, and H is a holiday or weekly off that counts as a paid day. Some registers add HD for half day, WO for weekly off and OD for on duty outside the office. Whatever codes you use, print a legend on the sheet so a new supervisor or an inspector can read it without asking.

Is an attendance register mandatory for a small business?

Most state Shops and Establishments Acts and the Minimum Wages Rules require employers to maintain a muster roll or attendance register, and PF and ESI inspectors ask for it to verify the days for which contributions were paid. Very small shops with family members only may be exempt in some states. If you employ anyone on wages, keeping a monthly register is the safest practice; check the thresholds with your CA.

How are paid days calculated from attendance?

Paid days are present days plus paid leave plus weekly offs and holidays in the month. Absent days and leave without pay are subtracted from the calendar days. If an employee has 31 calendar days, 4 Sundays, 1 holiday, 24 present and 2 absent, paid days are 29. The salary slip then pays 29/31 of each earning head. VyaparKit totals this for every row.

Are Sundays counted as paid days?

Yes, a weekly off is a paid day for a monthly-rated employee, which is why the sheet marks Sundays separately from absences. If your establishment has a different weekly off, such as Tuesday for a salon, mark that day instead. Daily-rated workers are a different case: they are usually paid only for days worked, though the Minimum Wages Rules require a paid weekly off in many states.

Should the month be treated as 26, 30 or actual days for salary?

Use whatever your employment terms state, and apply it consistently. Most companies prorate on actual calendar days (28 to 31) with weekly offs paid. Some factories use 26 working days for daily-rated workers. VyaparKit prorates monthly salary on calendar days by default; for a 26-day basis, enter the paid days out of 26 on the salary slip.

Does the attendance sheet feed into payroll automatically?

Yes. The paid-day totals from the sheet for a month are available when you make a salary slip or run payroll for the same month, so you do not retype them. You can still override paid days for an individual employee in the payroll run, for example to add a day that was approved after the register was closed.

Attendance Sheet

Print a monthly attendance register with employees by days, P/A/L/H codes and Sundays marked. Paid days flow into payroll. Free to start.

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In short

An attendance sheet is a monthly register with employees down the side and days of the month across the top, where each cell records present, absent, leave or holiday. VyaparKit's Attendance Sheet tool builds the grid from your saved employees, marks Sundays and holidays, uses P, A, L and H codes, totals paid days for each person and prints a PDF; the paid days feed straight into salary slips and payroll.

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Sign in once with Google or email. Your business name, GSTIN, logo, bank details and saved customers fill in automatically. Download a PDF or share a link on WhatsApp. 3 documents a month are free, forever.

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✓Saved customers, vendors and items, so no retyping
✓Share link with WhatsApp button and UPI QR
✓Converts to related documents in one click

About the attendance sheet tool

Attendance is where payroll starts. Every small establishment in India, from a workshop with eight fitters to a clinic with three staff, needs a monthly record of who came to work, because paid days decide the salary and the register is what a labour inspector or ESI officer asks to see. The traditional muster roll is a ruled register kept at the counter; the Excel version is a grid emailed to the accountant at month end. Both are fine as long as the totals are right and the sheet is kept for the required years.

Hand-drawn grids go wrong in small ways: a February sheet with 31 columns, Sundays not marked so a worker is docked for a weekly off, and paid-day totals that were counted by eye. VyaparKit generates the sheet for the month you choose, with the correct number of days, Sundays shaded, and any holidays you declare marked as H. Fill P, A or L per cell, or print the blank sheet and mark it by hand on the shop floor, then enter the totals. Paid days are added up per employee, so the number that goes into salary is not a guess.

The paid-days column connects to the Salary Slip and Payroll Run tools, where earnings are prorated for loss of pay. The register itself is filed under Documents for the month, giving you a record that lines up with the slips and the PF and ESI returns filed on the 15th.

How to make an attendance sheet in VyaparKit

1
Choose the month
Open Attendance Sheet and pick the month. The grid shows one column per calendar day with Sundays already marked as the weekly off.
2
Confirm the employees
Every saved employee appears as a row. Click Add employee for anyone missing, or untick people who have left.
3
Mark holidays
Add public holidays or a factory shutdown; those days are marked H for everyone and counted as paid.
4
Fill the grid
Mark each cell P, A or L. Paid days per employee are totalled at the end of the row, along with counts of absences and leave.
5
Print or save
Click Create and Download PDF to print the register for the notice board or the inspector's file. Paid days are available when you make salary slips or run payroll for the same month.

What a monthly attendance register should show

Establishment name and address on top, with the month and year and the total working days.
Employee name, employee code and designation for each row, in the same order as the payroll register.
One column per calendar day (28 to 31), with weekly offs and declared holidays marked so they are not mistaken for absences.
Clear codes: P present, A absent, L paid leave, H holiday, and a legend printed on the sheet.
Row totals: days present, leave, absent and total paid days, which drive the paid-days proration on the salary slip.
Space for the employee's or supervisor's initials where your Shops and Establishments rules require a signed muster roll.
Retention: keep registers for at least three years under most state rules, longer if your PF or ESI inspector asks.

Who uses the attendance sheet

Fabrication workshop in Rajkot

The supervisor prints a blank sheet on the 1st, marks it daily on the shop floor, and the owner enters totals at month end so that fitters paid on daily rates get exactly the days they worked.

Beauty salon in Chandigarh

Stylists rotate weekly offs; marking Sundays and the extra off days on the sheet keeps leave records clean when someone claims unpaid leave was actually a scheduled off.

Security agency in Noida

Guards posted at client sites are listed per site on separate sheets, and the paid-day totals are attached to the client's monthly bill as proof of deployment.

School in Guwahati

The office prints the attendance register for teaching and non-teaching staff and files it with the PF challan every month.