What a salary slip must show
A complete slip has four blocks. Identity: employer name and address, employee name, code, designation, department and location. Attendance: pay period, days in the month, paid days, LOP days, leave taken and overtime hours. Money: each earning component (basic, DA, HRA, other allowances, overtime, arrears), each deduction (employee EPF, ESI, professional tax, TDS, LWF, advances) and the net pay. Statutory identifiers: UAN, ESI insurance number, PAN and the bank account used for transfer.
The attendance block is what makes the slip auditable. A slip that shows ₹18,989 net without showing 28 paid days out of 30 cannot be checked by the employee or by an inspector, and it is the first thing a payroll query is about.
- Earnings and deductions listed component-wise, never as a single gross and net figure
- Paid days, LOP days and overtime hours stated on the slip
- UAN and ESI number so the employee can match EPFO and ESIC records
- Employer name and the pay month, so the slip works as proof of income
The statutory basis
Wage slips were already required for minimum-wage employments and for contract labour under the older rules. The Code on Wages makes the wage slip a general obligation for every employer and prescribes its form through central and state rules, which allow electronic issue. A PDF payslip that the employee can download from a self-service app or receives by email satisfies this where the rules are notified.
The slip must agree with the wage register. Inspectors and PF and ESI auditors compare a sample of slips against the register and the ECR, and a mismatch between the EPF shown on the slip and the amount remitted is a common finding.
Why employees depend on it
Outside compliance, the payslip is an employee's main proof of income. Banks ask for three to six months of slips for personal and home loans, embassies ask for them with visa applications, and landlords ask for them before signing a lease. At year end the employee reconciles twelve slips against Form 16, so the TDS on the slip must match what was deposited.
For daily-rated and contract workers, the slip is also the evidence in a wage dispute: it records the rate, days and deductions the employer applied, which is why a clear, consistent format matters more than a decorative one.
Gross salary is ₹22,000: basic ₹11,000, DA ₹1,000, HRA ₹5,500 and other allowance ₹4,500. The supervisor has 28 paid days out of 30 and 2 LOP days, so earned gross is ₹20,533. Employee EPF at 12% of the earned basic plus DA (₹11,200) is ₹1,344. Gross above ₹21,000 means no ESI. Maharashtra professional tax is ₹200 for the month. Net pay is ₹20,533 minus ₹1,344 minus ₹200, which is ₹18,989. The slip shows every one of these lines, plus the UAN and the last four digits of the salary account.
Attend Mitra generates payslip PDFs from the attendance-linked payroll run, singly or as a ZIP for the whole company, with paid days, LOP, overtime and each earning and deduction listed. Employees see and download their slips in the self-service app, so the payroll executive is not emailing files one by one.