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Labour Law & Compliance · Glossary

Attendance Register

Also called: attendance book, hazri register, daily attendance register, employee attendance record

Definition

An attendance register is the record, on paper or electronic, in which an employer marks each employee's presence, absence, leave and holidays for every day of the month, with the columns and signatures that the applicable labour law prescribes. It differs from an informal attendance sheet in that it is a statutory document open to inspection and forms the basis of the wage register.

Register vs sheet: the legal difference

Any grid of names and dates is an attendance sheet. It becomes a register when it is the document the law requires you to maintain – prescribed columns, kept at the establishment, available to an inspector, retained for the required period. The Factories Act rules, each state's Shops and Establishments rules and the Contract Labour rules all prescribe a register of attendance in some form, and many also require a separate leave register and overtime register.

The practical consequence is that a WhatsApp photo of a whiteboard or an unlabelled Excel file does not satisfy an inspection. The register must identify the establishment, the wage period, and each worker, and the entries must be contemporaneous. A monthly attendance sheet template and the more formal attendance register format show the difference in layout.

Columns and signatures

Core columns are serial number, employee name and code, designation, department, and a daily cell for each date with a status code. Many state forms add arrival and departure time columns – the Shops and Establishments rules in several states require time in and time out, not just a tick – plus rest interval and overtime hours. Totals at month end give days present, leave taken, weekly offs and holidays.

Signatures depend on the form. Some states require the employee's signature or thumb impression daily; others require only the employer's or manager's attestation of the month. Where employees sign, the register doubles as evidence in wage disputes. In electronic registers, a verified face or biometric punch plays the role of the signature, and the export should say so.

  • Identity: serial, name, code, designation, department, date of joining
  • Daily: status code and, where required, in-time, out-time, rest interval
  • Monthly: present, leave, WO, holidays, OT hours
  • Attestation: employee signature/thumb where prescribed; manager or employer sign-off

Register vs muster roll, and retention

A muster roll is an attendance register by another name, used in contract labour, MGNREGA and government contexts and often with contractor details in the header. If you employ contract workers through a contractor, you will maintain your own attendance register for direct employees and inspect the contractor's muster roll for theirs.

Retention is set by the applicable rule and varies by Act and state; keep registers for the longest period that applies to you and be able to produce any month on request. Electronic maintenance is accepted under the central Ease of Compliance rules and most state rules. The attendance register rules and format for security guards covers the PSARA-specific additions. See also replacing the paper attendance register.

Example: a shop register under a state S&E Act

A 14-staff retail store in Indore keeps a register with in-time and out-time columns. On 15 September the register shows a sales associate in at 10:05, out at 19:10, rest interval 14:00–14:30, which is 8 h 35 m worked. The store's shift is 9 hours with a 30-minute break, so no overtime. The associate's 10:05 arrival against a 10:00 opening falls within the store's 10-minute grace, so no late mark is recorded.

How Attend Mitra handles this

Attend Mitra produces the attendance register for each branch or department from verified punches, including in-time, out-time and overtime columns, exports it as PDF or Excel for inspection, and retains monthly registers in the console for as long as the company needs.

Frequently asked questions

What is an attendance register?
It is the statutory record of each employee's daily presence, absence, leave and holidays for a wage period, kept in the format the applicable labour law prescribes, available for inspection and retained for the required period. It is the base for the wage register and differs from an informal attendance sheet in being a legal document.
Which law requires an attendance register?
Several, depending on the establishment: the Factories Act rules for factories, each state's Shops and Establishments Act for shops, offices and services, and the Contract Labour rules (now under the OSH Code) for contract workers. Check your state's prescribed form for the exact columns and whether employee signatures are needed.
Can the attendance register be electronic?
Yes. Central Ease of Compliance rules and most state rules allow electronic registers as long as they can be produced in the prescribed layout during inspection and are retained for the required period. Registers generated from biometric or face-verified punches are stronger evidence than a typed Excel sheet.
What is the difference between an attendance register and a muster roll?
They serve the same function. 'Muster roll' is the term used for contract labour, MGNREGA and government casual workers and often appears as the form title; 'attendance register' is the everyday name for direct employees. The columns are decided by the prescribed form under your state rules in both cases.

Related terms

Muster Roll
A muster roll is the statutory daily attendance register an employer or contractor must maintain for workers, listing each worker by name and serial number with a mark for every day of the wage period showing present, absent, leave or holiday, together with days worked and often hours and overtime. It is the base document from which the wage register is prepared and the first record a labour inspector asks for.
Attendance Management System
An attendance management system is software that records when employees start and finish work, applies the company's shift, late-mark and leave rules to those records, routes corrections through approvals, and produces the attendance reports and paid-day counts that payroll depends on. It replaces paper registers, Excel sheets and WhatsApp messages with one auditable record per employee per day.
Punch In / Punch Out
Punch in and punch out are the timestamped events that mark the start and end of an employee's working time – historically a card stamped by a mechanical clock, today a biometric scan, face match, QR scan or app tap. The pair of events, matched to the employee's shift, is what attendance software converts into hours worked, late arrival, early exit and overtime.
Late Mark
A late mark is the entry recorded against an employee when their punch-in falls after the shift start time plus any grace period. Late marks are counted per month and most Indian companies convert a set number – typically three – into a half-day deduction, while others deduct proportional minutes. The rule and its consequence must be stated in the attendance policy.
Contract Labour
Contract labour means workers hired by or through a contractor to work in an establishment, rather than employed directly by it. Security guards, housekeeping staff, canteen workers and loaders are common examples. The Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act 1970 and now the OSH Code 2020 regulate who must register, who must hold a licence, and who is finally liable for wages, PF and ESI.
PSARA (Private Security Agencies Regulation Act, 2005)
PSARA is the Private Security Agencies (Regulation) Act 2005, the central law under which every private security agency in India must hold a licence from the state Controlling Authority before deploying guards. The licence is valid for five years, applies per state or district, and comes with duties on guard verification, training, a statutory register of guards and clients, and compliance with wage and social-security laws.

Go deeper

Attendance register format (Excel)How to replace the paper attendance registerSecurity guard attendance register rules and formatMonthly attendance sheet template

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Verified attendance, shift rosters, leave, and payroll-ready reports in one platform built for Indian teams.

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