What this attendance register is for and who must keep one
An attendance register is different from an attendance sheet. The sheet is for you; the register is for the inspector. Labour laws in India require employers to maintain a register of attendance (often called a muster roll) in a prescribed or near-prescribed form, keep it at the workplace, and produce it on demand. This template reproduces that form in Excel so that a small establishment can print, fill and sign it every month without buying pre-printed registers.
It applies to almost every employer: shops and commercial establishments under the state Shops and Establishments Act, factories under the Factories Act, contractors and principal employers under the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, and security agencies that must keep a guard register under PSARA. The muster roll and attendance register glossary entries explain how the two terms overlap.
Who fills it: usually the timekeeper, site supervisor or HR executive, with the employee initialling their own cell each day. That daily initial is what distinguishes a register from a sheet, and it is why the day cells in this template are taller than usual.
What is inside: header and columns explained
The header block carries the details an inspector checks first: Name of Establishment, Address, Registration or Licence Number (your S&E registration, factory licence or contract labour licence), Name of Employer or Contractor, and the Month and Year. For contract labour there is also a line for Name of Principal Employer. Fill these once and they print on every page.
The table columns run: Sr No, Emp Code, Name of Employee, Father's or Spouse's Name, Designation, Department, Date of Joining, then Day 1 to Day 31. Each day cell is meant for the employee's initial or a code such as P, A, WO, L or H when initials are not practical (for example for a night shift where the supervisor marks on their behalf and the employee signs the next day). After the days come Total Days Present, Weekly Off, Leave, OT Hours, Signature of Employee (month-end confirmation) and Remarks.
Total Days Present uses =COUNTIF(H6:AL6,"P") if you use codes; if you use initials, mark absences and offs explicitly with A, WO, L or H and count present days as the remainder: =31-COUNTIF(H6:AL6,"A")-COUNTIF(H6:AL6,"WO")-COUNTIF(H6:AL6,"L")-COUNTIF(H6:AL6,"H")-COUNTBLANK(H6:AL6). OT Hours is entered manually or linked from your overtime sheet because a register records the total, not the daily calculation.
- Father's or Spouse's Name is retained because several state forms and the Contract Labour rules still require it for identity
- Date of Joining is needed to compute leave eligibility and gratuity later; keep it on the register so it travels with the record
- Signature of Employee at month end is the employee's confirmation that the recorded days are correct, which protects both sides in a wage dispute
How to use and maintain the register
Print one copy per month per establishment or site, on A3 landscape if you have more than 15 employees, and keep it at the workplace. Employees initial their cell on arrival, or the timekeeper marks the code and the employee countersigns at the end of the week. Do not leave past days blank: a blank cell is read as an unmarked day, which is worse for you than an A.
At month end, fill the totals, take the employee's signature in the last column, and have the employer or manager sign the foot of the page where the template has a signature line. File the signed register by month; the wage register and wage slips for the same month should sit behind it so that the three reconcile.
If you keep the register electronically instead of on paper, most state rules and the Code on Wages rules permit it provided the record can be produced on demand, is authenticated and cannot be altered silently. A plain Excel file meets the first condition but not the last two, so if you go digital, keep a signed PDF per month or use a system with an audit trail. The guide on replacing the paper register covers the transition.
- Number the pages and never reuse a serial number for a new employee within the same year
- Strike through and initial corrections rather than overwriting; do not use correction fluid on a register
- Keep the previous 36 months of registers accessible, longer if a dispute or PF inquiry is open
How to customise for your state or contract
State forms differ in small ways. Some ask for the employee's sex or age, some for the rate of wages on the register itself, some for the ESIC or UAN number. Insert the columns you need between Date of Joining and Day 1 so the day grid stays intact. The Remarks column can hold a leaving date when an employee exits mid-month.
Contractors supplying manpower should add the Principal Employer name and the work order number in the header, and consider one register per site because the principal employer will want to inspect only their site. For a security agency the same layout works as the guard register, but see the security guard attendance register rules for the additional PSARA fields.
If your workers are daily-rated, add a Rate per Day column and a Wages Due column (=Total Days Present x Rate) so the register doubles as the basis for the wage register. Keep the formulas visible; inspectors are comfortable with Excel totals as long as the underlying daily marks are there.
- Rename the codes to match the codes on your wage register so the two documents use one vocabulary
- For factories, add a Shift column (I/II/III or G) since the Factories Act register asks for the relay or shift
- Insert a Weekly Holiday Fixed On column where the Shops and Establishments Act of your state requires a declared weekly off day
Register rules you should know
The Code on Wages 2019, effective 21 November 2025, consolidates the registers formerly required under the Minimum Wages Act, Payment of Wages Act and others. Its rules require an employer to maintain a register of employees, a muster roll or attendance register, a wage register and to issue wage slips, and allow these to be kept electronically. Until state rules are fully notified, the older Acts and forms continue for matters not yet covered, so the safest course is to keep this format, which satisfies both the old forms and the new consolidated requirement.
Under the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act 1970, every contractor must maintain a muster roll, wage register, deduction register and overtime register for each establishment where they supply labour, and the principal employer must ensure this is done. The OSH Code 2020 moved the licensing threshold to 50 contract workers but the register duty remains. Where the contractor fails to pay wages or PF, the principal employer is liable, which is why principal employers should insist on seeing this register monthly. See the contract labour compliance guide.
For factories, the Factories Act requires an adult worker register showing the group or relay and the shift, and overtime beyond 9 hours a day or 48 a week must be paid at double rate; the OT Hours column here is what an inspector reconciles against the overtime register. Retention periods vary by state, commonly three years; check your state's rules or the local labour office rather than assuming.
When the paper or Excel register stops working
A register kept by hand at one site is manageable. A register kept for 4 sites, 120 workers and two contractors is not: pages go missing, initials are filled in on Friday for the whole week, and the month-end signature column becomes a formality nobody reads. When the labour officer or a principal employer asks for the register for a particular date six months back, finding it becomes a half-day job.
A digital attendance register with an audit trail solves the two problems that Excel cannot: authentication and tamper-evidence. Attend Mitra records each employee's punch with face or selfie verification and site GPS, so the day mark is made by the worker and timestamped, not entered by a clerk. Corrections go through an approval flow and are logged. The register view exports as XLSX or PDF per site, per contractor and per month, in a layout close to this template, and the same data flows to the salary register and payslips. The digital attendance register software page shows the register view, and the digital muster roll page covers the contract-labour case.