Time in, payroll out: attendance & leave
Attendance and leave live in one system that payroll reads directly: shift rosters, punches from web, mobile, QR, geofence or RFID, regularisation with approvals, and leave policies that enforce their own accrual and balance rules. Because the same record drives the salary run, month-end stops being an export-and-reconcile project.
How it works
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1
Choose capture per location, not per company
A head office can run web and mobile punches; a warehouse can run QR codes at the gate; field teams can punch inside a geofence around each site; a plant can keep its RFID readers. Capture is configured per location, and every mode lands in the same attendance record. Biometric capture exists as an option where you decide you need it (consent-based and liveness-checked) but nothing about the system assumes it.
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2
Roster shifts the way the floor actually runs
Weekly and rotating shift patterns, night shifts with differentials, split weekly offs and planned overtime are all roster constructs; you define the pattern, assign people or whole teams, and exceptions are edits, not spreadsheet surgery. Coverage view shows who is on which shift across locations, so the gap appears when you plan the week, not when it happens.
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3
Let regularisation carry the exceptions
Forgot to punch, field visit, device out at the gate — employees raise a regularisation request with a reason; managers approve with the day's context visible. Every regularisation is a recorded decision, which means the month closes on approvals rather than on someone hand-editing an attendance register.
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4
Set leave policy once and let it police itself
Casual, sick, earned, comp-off, each type carries its accrual rate, carry-forward limit, encashment rule and negative-balance behaviour. Balances update as leave is approved, applications check the balance before they reach the manager, and year-end carry-forward runs itself against the limits you set. Employees see live balances on self-service, which is most of the reason balance-related questions stop arriving.
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5
Feed payroll without an export step
At cut-off, paid days, LOP days, overtime hours and shift differentials are already reconciled and sitting where payroll reads them. There is no CSV between attendance and salary, which is exactly where most month-end errors are born in tool-per-task setups.
A worked month: one warehouse worker
Illustrative: a picker on a rotating shift works 26 scheduled days, punches in by QR at the gate, misses one punch on a field errand (regularised, approved), takes two casual leaves against a balance of five, and logs six hours of approved overtime. At cut-off the record reads 26 paid days, zero LOP, six OT hours at the roster's multiplier, two CL deducted leaving three. Payroll picks those numbers up as-is: proration untouched, OT paid at the structure's rate, balances already updated. Nobody re-keyed anything; that is the entire point.
Designed to reduce proxy punching — without surveillance theatre
Location-bound QR and geofence punches, device binding and approval trails are designed to reduce proxy attendance: the honest phrase, because no attendance system can promise absolutes. What PeopleDeck deliberately does not do is surveillance: no face-recognition requirement, no attention tracking, no location trails outside the punch itself. Where biometric capture is used, it is consent-based, liveness-checked and limited to the punch event. School and college attendance (students, faculty, biometric devices wired to an ERP) is a different product problem and belongs to SchoolDeck and CampusAlly.
Key terms, plainly
Geofence punch
A mobile punch that only registers inside a radius you define around a work site: attendance bound to presence at the location, without any hardware at the gate.
Regularisation
A recorded request-and-approval that corrects an attendance exception (a missed punch, a field visit) so corrections carry a reason and an approver instead of a silent edit.
Carry-forward
The year-end transfer of unused leave into the next year, limited by policy: the engine applies the cap and expires the excess automatically.
Comp-off
Compensatory leave earned by working a scheduled off day, granted through approval and consumed like any other leave type under its own expiry rule.
Cut-off
The date attendance closes for the payroll month; exceptions after cut-off flow to the next run as arrears rather than destabilising the current one.
What you get
- ✓ Web, mobile, QR, geofence and RFID capture, configured per location
- ✓ Shift rosters with rotation, night differentials and coverage view
- ✓ Regularisation workflows that close the month on approvals
- ✓ Leave types with accrual, carry-forward, encashment and negative-balance rules
- ✓ Reconciled hours and absences feed payroll directly, no export step
| Mode | Best for | Hardware needed |
|---|---|---|
| Web punch | Offices, hybrid teams | None |
| Mobile + geofence | Field teams, multi-site staff | None |
| QR at gate | Warehouses, plants, events | A printed code |
| RFID | Existing card infrastructure | Your current readers |
| Biometric (optional) | Where you specifically choose it | Consent-based, liveness-checked device |
Works with: Payroll engine · Mobile app · Employee self-service
Replacing registers and standalone punch machines
The usual starting point is a paper register at one site, a standalone biometric box at another, and a leave spreadsheet nobody trusts. The migration path respects that mess: keep the RFID readers if they work (their punches flow in), replace registers with QR codes printed the same afternoon, and load current leave balances as opening figures so nobody loses a day they had earned. The cultural change is smaller than expected — employees already punch something; now the punch lands somewhere that feeds payroll without a clerk re-typing it. Give supervisors a week of approving regularisations and the register never comes back.
Rollout checklist
- 1.Choose capture per location — web, QR, geofence, RFID, or a mix
- 2.Define shift patterns and assign rosters to teams
- 3.Configure leave types with accrual, carry-forward and encashment rules
- 4.Load opening leave balances per employee
- 5.Set the monthly cut-off and name regularisation approvers
- 6.Run one cycle in parallel with the old register, then retire it
Is this the right fit?
Built for you if
- ✓ Your sites capture attendance three different ways and payroll reconciles them by hand
- ✓ Leave balances live in a sheet employees cannot see, and dispute at exit
- ✓ Overtime is real money but its approval trail is a WhatsApp thread
Not the fit if
- ✕ You want classroom or student attendance; that is SchoolDeck and CampusAlly territory
- ✕ You want covert workforce surveillance — location trails and always-on tracking are not in this product
Related features
Running a school or college? Staff payroll belongs inside your ERP: SchoolDeck staff payroll or CampusAlly payroll.
Frequently asked questions
Do we need biometric devices?
No — web, mobile, QR and geofence punches cover most teams with zero hardware. Biometric capture is an option where you specifically want it, consent-based and liveness-checked, never a requirement.
How does attendance reach payroll?
It is the same system — reconciled paid days, LOP, overtime and differentials sit where the salary run reads them. No export, no reconciliation meeting.
Can different locations use different capture?
Yes — capture is configured per location. An office on web punches and a warehouse on QR feed the same record and the same payroll run.
What stops buddy punching?
Location-bound punches, device binding and approval trails are designed to reduce proxy attendance — combined with the fact that every exception needs a named approver.
Can employees see their own balances?
Yes — live leave balances, holiday calendars and attendance history sit on self-service and the mobile app, which removes most balance questions from HR's inbox.
How is overtime handled?
Roster-planned or approved-after-the-fact, OT hours carry to payroll with the multiplier defined in the salary structure, and appear as their own payslip line.
How is PeopleDeck priced?
Per employee per month, in rupees: attendance, leave and payroll are one product, not three modules.
Can night shifts crossing midnight be handled?
Yes: shifts are defined with start and end times across the date boundary, and the hours attribute to the roster day so differentials and OT compute correctly.
What about statutory holiday lists differing by state?
Holiday calendars are per location, a Pune plant and a Chennai office each follow their own list, and leave logic respects each calendar.