Payroll Attendance
The hinge between Time Management and Payroll. Pick a pay cycle and a pay period, create the sheet, and it counts every absence, late, half day, early leaving and leave day into one figure per man, lets the leave balance absorb what it can, and leaves the salary days payroll will pay.
What it is for
Every other screen in this module records what happened. This one decides what it costs.
It is made once a month, after the punches are in, the corrections are approved, the leave is recorded and the exemptions are released. It reads the whole period for every employee in the slice, counts each kind of shortfall, and produces one line per man with a single number at the end of it: how many days he is paid for.
The order it does that in is worth understanding, because it is the order a client will question.
First it counts the days that went wrong, each as a number of days. An absence is a day. A sandwich day is a rest day trapped between two absences. A run of lates, half days, early leavings or short hours is turned into days by the slabs on his time template, so three lates might become one day if that is what the client set.
Then it adds them up and offers the total to his leave balance. Whatever the balance can cover becomes a leave adjustment, which consumes leave rather than money. What the balance cannot cover stays as deduction days, and that is what payroll takes off his pay. A man with twelve days of casual leave left and two absences loses two days of leave and no money. A man with nothing left loses two days of pay.
Leave taken without pay is handled on its own, after the balance. A day of a leave type whose Paid Leave is unticked is a deduction day outright, and the leave balance cannot absorb it: the day was taken without pay because there was no entitlement behind it, so letting a spare balance cover it would pay it twice. Leave of a paid type costs nothing.
Last it works out his days in the period and subtracts the deduction days, and what remains is his salary days.
Two things happen alongside the sheet and neither is obvious from looking at it.
The leave the sheet consumed is written as a leave adjustment against the man, taking from each of his balances in the order set on his Leave Group, casual before sick or whatever that client ordered. It is visible afterwards on Employee Leave Entitlement as an adjustment naming this sheet.
The attendance allowances the calendars promise are raised as one payment document per sheet, whole or at the slab percentage the man's calendar earns him. The rule is below, under Scenarios, because it is where clients get surprised.
The sheet is also a document, not a report. It is saved, it can be read, it can be deleted and made again, and until payroll has been processed for the period that is exactly what to do when something changes.
Every field, in plain words
Basic Data
| Field | What it means | What to put in it | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transaction | The document number. | Fills itself. Leave it. | |
| Pay Cycle | Which payroll cycle the sheet belongs to. | The monthly staff cycle | Required. Only a cycle that is ready to be used appears in the list. |
| Pay Period | Which period inside that cycle. | March 2026 | Required. The period's own start and end dates are the days counted, so the sheet never needs a date range of its own. |
| Pay Scale | Narrows the sheet to one pay scale. | Leave it empty for everybody, or the factory workers' scale | Optional. Use it only where the client genuinely runs payroll in separate slices. |
| Pay Area | Narrows the sheet to one pay area. | Leave it empty, or the Karachi plant | Optional. Same advice. |
| Notes | Anything worth recording about this month. | Eid holidays 20 to 22 March, bus breakdown on the 18th exempted for 30 men | Worth filling. In a dispute six months later this is the only account of what the month was like. |
Pay Scale and Pay Area together with the cycle and the period are what makes a sheet unique. Two sheets for the same four values are refused. Leaving both empty, which is the usual answer, means one sheet covers the whole period and nobody has to remember which slice is missing.
Details
One line per employee, all of it produced by the screen. Nothing on a line is typed except the line text.
| Field | What it means | What to put in it | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Line # | The line number. | Fills itself. Leave it. | |
| Employee | Who the line is for. | Fills itself. Leave it. | |
| Name | Their name. | Fills itself. Leave it. | |
| Absent Day | Days he was absent. | Fills itself. Leave it. | A scheduled working day with no punch, no leave and no exemption. A day in the future is not an absence, so a sheet made mid-month does not accuse everybody of the rest of the month. |
| Sandwich Days | Rest days and holidays that fall between two absences. | Fills itself. Leave it. | A man absent on Saturday and Monday loses the Sunday too, where the client has asked for it. Zero where the client has not. |
| Late Deduction | Days deducted for arriving late. | Fills itself. Leave it. | Not the number of lates. It is the days his lates came to under the Late slab on his time template, such as "every three lates, deduct one day". |
| Half Day Deduction | Days deducted for half days. | Fills itself. Leave it. | From the Half Day slab on his time template, the same way. |
| Early Deduction | Days deducted for leaving early. | Fills itself. Leave it. | From the Early Leaving slab. |
| Short Hours | Hours he was short of his shift across the period. | Fills itself. Leave it. | Counted only on days he actually attended, because an absent day is already counted as an absent day. A nine hour shift clocked at five hours contributes four. It is shown so the figure can be argued with, and the deduction beside it is what payroll uses. |
| Short Hours Deduction | Days deducted for those hours. | Fills itself. Leave it. | From the Short Hours slab on his time template, such as "from eight hours short, deduct one day". Zero where that time template has no Short Hours slab, which is every client until one is added. |
| Leave Days | Days he was on approved leave, paid and unpaid together. | Fills itself. Leave it. | A day of a paid leave type costs nothing. A day of a type whose Paid Leave is unticked on the Leave Type is counted into Total Deduction Days as well, so an unpaid day appears in both columns - this one to show the month, that one to charge it. |
| Adjustment Days | A column on the line whose meaning could not be established. | Nothing. Leave it. | It is not produced when the sheet is created and it is not part of the arithmetic below. Treat it as unused and do not explain it to a client. |
| Leave Adjustment | The part of the shortfall his leave balance absorbed. | Fills itself. Leave it. | Days, not money. It is taken from his balances in the order set on the Leave Group and recorded against him as a leave adjustment. |
| Total Deduction Days | The part the balance could not absorb, plus the days taken without pay. | Fills itself. Leave it. | This is the figure that costs him money. Absences, sandwich days and the four slab deductions feed into it and the leave balance is subtracted from them. Days of an unpaid leave type are then added on, outside that subtraction, because a balance cannot pay for a day taken without pay. |
| Pay Period Days | His own days in the period. | Fills itself. Leave it. | The whole period for an ordinary employee. From his joining date for a man who joined inside it, and up to his last working day for a man who left inside it. |
| Salary Days | The days payroll pays. | Fills itself. Leave it. | Pay Period Days less Total Deduction Days, and never below zero. This is the number the payslip follows. |
| Line Text | A note on the line. | Last three days unpaid, confirmed with the plant manager | The only typed field on a line. Use it where a figure needs explaining. |
The one sum worth being able to recite in front of a client:
Absences plus sandwich days plus the four slab deductions, less whatever the leave balance covered, plus the days taken without pay, is Total Deduction Days. Pay Period Days less Total Deduction Days is Salary Days.
The order matters and it is the part worth saying slowly: the balance is offered the absences, not the unpaid leave.
How to configure it
- Settle the month's attendance first. Approved corrections, recorded leave, released exemptions, approved on duty and shift change requests. Everything this sheet counts is read when it is created, not afterwards.
- Check the slabs on the time templates behind the Shift Roster. Late, half day, early leaving and short hours are turned into days there, and a client who has set none of them will see four zero columns and ask why.
- Check the Absent Order grid on each Leave Group. It decides which balance a deduction eats into first, and a client who cares about casual before sick cares about this.
- Make sure the pay period is open and the cycle is ready.
- Open the screen, pick the Pay Cycle and the Pay Period. Leave Pay Scale and Pay Area empty unless the client runs payroll in slices.
- Create the sheet. The lines come back filled for everybody in the slice.
- Read it before saving. Sort by Total Deduction Days and look at the top of the list, then look for anybody with zero Salary Days. Those two checks catch almost every configuration mistake.
- Save it. The leave adjustments are written and the attendance allowance payments are raised.
- Run Payroll for the same cycle and period.
- If anything in the month changes before payroll is processed, delete the sheet and make it again. Correcting a figure on the sheet by hand is not how this screen is meant to be used.
Scenarios
"An allowance that should stop the month a man goes on long leave"
This is the attendance allowance, and it stops by itself. Two of them exist and they are set per calendar, on the Calendar screen, which is also where the amount and the wage type come from.
A basic attendance allowance needs the man present for the whole period, with no absence and no leave at all. A perfect attendance allowance needs all of that and additionally no late, no early leaving and no half day. On a calendar with no slab lines a perfect month pays both.
A weekend or a public holiday costs nothing, because nobody was scheduled to work it, and a day forgiven by a released Exemption Request counts as present here for the same reason it is kept out of the deduction counters.
So a man who takes two weeks of annual leave in March earns neither allowance in March, and earns them again in April. Nothing has to be stopped and nothing has to be restarted.
On a calendar with no slab lines there is no tolerance at all: one day of leave costs the whole allowance, and a man who earns it gets the full amount while a man who misses it gets nothing.
"Up to one absence forgiven", or two lates at three quarters of the money, is a setting and not a change to the system. It is the Allowance Slabs grid on the Calendar: each line is a set of ceilings and a percentage, a man inside every ceiling on a line earns that percentage, where two lines fit the one paying more money wins, and a man who fits no line earns nothing. A line may also name its own wage type and its own amount, which is how a client pays a differently named allowance per band off one set of ceilings. Once a calendar carries slabs the grid is the single place every condition is written, perfect attendance included: the clean period is a line with every count 0, carrying the perfect attendance wage type and amount, and the two Perfect Attendance fields on the calendar must be switched off. The screen will not save them together, because the two would pay a clean month twice.
One thing no setting changes: a mid-period joiner or leaver does not qualify at all, slabs or no slabs, because he was not on the payroll for the whole period.
"A man who joins on the fifteenth"
His Pay Period Days are counted from his joining date, so a man who joins on 15-Mar-2026 in a 31 day month has 17 days, not 31. The first fourteen days are not absences and they are not paid, and nothing in the sheet accuses him of anything.
Two things that go wrong around this and are worth checking on his first sheet.
If his organisation assignment is dated earlier than his joining date, the days between read as unscheduled rather than as working days. Keep the assignment date and the joining date the same.
He will not earn either attendance allowance for March even if he was perfect from the fifteenth, because he was not on the payroll for the whole period. Clients find this out in month one and it is better said in advance.
A leaver is the same arrangement at the other end. His days are counted up to his last working day.
"He was absent three days and lost no pay"
His leave balance absorbed them. Look at Leave Adjustment on his line, which will read 3, and Total Deduction Days, which will read 0. The days came out of the balance the Leave Group ordered first. If the client did not want absences silently eating leave, that is Convert Absent To Leave and the Absent Order on the leave group, not this screen.
"Our factory is six days and the office is five"
Both are on the same sheet and both come out right, because each man's days are read from his own calendar and shift. A factory worker's Sunday is his rest day and an office worker's Saturday and Sunday are both his, and neither is counted against him. One sheet per period is still the right answer, and splitting it by Pay Area is only necessary where the client genuinely pays them in separate runs.
"The figures were right and then somebody approved a correction"
Remake the sheet. Payroll reads what the sheet produced, not the punches, so a correction approved after the sheet was made changes nothing until the sheet is made again.
"Three lates cost him a whole day and he says that is not our policy"
It is the Late slab on his time template. The sheet only applies it. Change the slab, then delete the sheet and make it again.
What it is connected to
- Employee Attandance is where every day counted here comes from, with its punches, its hours and its verdict.
- The time templates behind the Shift Roster carry the slabs that turn lates, half days, early leavings and short hours into days.
- The Calendar decides which days were working days, and carries the attendance allowance and perfect attendance allowance flags, amounts and wage types, and the allowance slabs that decide whether a part of the allowance is paid.
- The Leave Group orders which balance a deduction eats into, and the leave it consumes appears against the man on Employee Leave Entitlement.
- Employee Leaves supplies the leave days, and whether a leave type is paid is decided on the Leave Type.
- Payroll reads what this sheet produced and not the punches themselves, so a punch corrected after this sheet was made does not reach pay until the sheet is made again.
- Approved Exemption Request, Employee Attendance Request, On Duty Request and Shift Change Request documents all change what this sheet will count, and all of them need the sheet remaking if they land late.
- Re-saving the same sheet rebuilds its allowance payment rather than raising a second one, so a remake does not pay anybody twice.
If something looks wrong
- "It says a sheet already exists for this pay cycle and period" - one has been made for the same cycle, period, pay scale and pay area. Find it and either read it or delete it. Do not make a second slice to get around it.
- "It names an employee and says he is already on another sheet for this period" - he is on a narrower sheet made earlier, probably by pay scale or pay area. Delete that one and make one sheet for the whole period.
- "It will not save and it will not delete" - payroll has been processed for the period. The sheet is locked deliberately, because changing it after pay has been worked out would leave the two disagreeing. Reverse the payroll run first.
- "Everybody shows as absent for the rest of the month" - the sheet was made mid-period. Future working days are not counted as absences, so check the period dates rather than the attendance.
- "The late and half day columns are all zero" - the time templates have no slabs. The marks are on the days, there is simply no rule turning them into days.
- "Short Hours Deduction is zero although Short Hours is large" - that time template has no Short Hours slab. The hours are shown for information until one is added.
- "A man has zero salary days" - his deduction days reached or passed his days in the period. It is usually a man absent all month who should have been put on leave without pay, or a joining date and an organisation assignment that disagree.
- "His leave balance dropped and he took no leave" - the sheet absorbed his shortfall into it. Read Leave Adjustment on his line.
- "He was on approved leave and still lost a day's pay" - the leave type has Paid Leave unticked. Approval is not payment: an unpaid type is approved, consumes a balance, keeps the day from reading as absent, and is still a deduction day. Check the tick on Leave Type.
- "He took leave without pay and lost nothing" - the same tick, the other way round. Before this was enforced an unpaid type was paid like any other, so a client who went live earlier may have the tick wrong on several types. Read the whole list once.
- "He was present every day and got no attendance allowance" - he had a leave day, or a late, a half day or an early leaving where the perfect allowance is concerned, or he joined or left inside the period.
- "He was paid part of the attendance allowance" - his calendar carries Allowance Slabs and his period fitted a line paying less than 100 percent. The grid on the Calendar is where that is decided, not here.
- "The allowance came through under a different wage type than I expected" - the slab line he earned names its own Wage Type, which is what it is for. The calendar's own Attendance Allowance Wage Type only applies to the lines that name none.
- "The payslip disagrees with the sheet" - the sheet was remade after payroll ran, or payroll ran before the sheet was saved. Check which is older.