What can you setup in Attendance Policy?
The attendance policy, in essence, specifies the basis of how your organization operates in terms of attendance. Specifies if your organization uses a strict or lenient mode, how working hours are to be calculated, what times a payday occurs, and more.
Configuring Attendance Policy
To configure the attendance policy go to Settings > Attendance > Configuration > Attendance Policy.

Calculating total working hours
First check-in and last check-out: This option calculates the time between your first check-in and your last check-out time. In the intervening time, you can check-in and check-out multiple times, which will not be taken into consideration.
Every valid check-in and check-out: This option calculates only the valid check-in and check-out entries. For example, if you check in at 9:00 AM and check out at 11:00 AM and again check in at 12:00 PM, the system will calculate only the hours you were in the office (i.e., between 9:00 AM and 11:00 AM) and will not calculate the hours from the time you checked out (11:00 AM to 12:00 PM).
Expected hours per day
Strict mode: Imposes a fixed number of hours for marking an employee present for half and full days. Select the shift hours option to go as per the shift duration set for half and full days. This is a preferred mode of attendance marking if the organization does not want flexible hours of work.
Lenient mode: Implies that the employee needs to mark their attendance at one fixed time every day. In this mode, a valid check-in or check-out in the system itself means that the employee will be marked as present for the day.
Allow overtime and deviation
Enable this option if you want to include and display overtime or deficit time in the attendance entries and reports. This can be used for any pay calculations as well.
Example 1 - Understanding strict, lenient, overtime, and deviation.
In the strict mode, if you have fixed 4 hours as a half-day and 8 hours as a full-day requirement, then if someone is present only for 7 hours, then the system will capture it as a half-day present and a half-day absent. Showing the 1-hour deficit under deviation time. If someone is present for 5 hours, then it will be shown as half-day present and half-day absent, with the deficit of 3 hours shown under deviation time. On the other hand, if someone has worked 10 hours, then it will be shown as a full-day present with an overtime of 2 hours.
In the lenient mode, if you have fixed 8 hours as the minimum working hours required for a day when an employee works for more than 8 hours, it is calculated as overtime, and anything less than 8 hours is calculated as a deviation.
Impose maximum hours per day
This is used to set the maximum working hours for the employees. The maximum working hours can be fixed for both half and full working days in the strict mode. This option is very helpful when you need to set a limit for employee working hours.
If you have enabled overtime for your organization and also enabled maximum working hours, then overtime exceeding the maximum working hours fixed will not be considered overtime.
Round-off
The Round-off option automatically adjusts employees’ attendance times, such as check-in, check-out, and total working hours to the rounded time. It helps standardize attendance data by rounding times up or down within a small margin, making payroll calculations and time reports more consistent.
To enable round off feature, navigate to
Settings > Attendance > Configuration > Attendance Policy > Round-off
All the following examples are based on a general shift of 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM, with 8 hours as the expected working hours for employees.
1. Round off first check-in time
Automatically adjusts the employee’s first check-in to the shift start time based on the configured buffer.
For early check-in, select any one of the following option as required:
- You can round off any early check-in time to the shift start time by selecting the Round off to the shift start time option.
Example: If the shift starts at 9:00 AM, any check-in time before 9:00 AM will automatically be recorded as 9:00 AM, regardless of how early the employee checks in.
- You can round off an early check-in time to the shift start time if the employee checks in before the shift starts, within the specified number of minutes.
Example: If the shift starts at 9:00 AM and an employee checks in at 8:50 AM with a 15-minute buffer, their check-in time will be recorded as 9:00 AM, if early check-in was made before 8:45 AM it will not be rounded off.
For late check-in, select any one of the following option as required:
- You can round off any late check-in time to the shift start time by selecting the Round off to the shift start time option.
Example: If the shift starts at 9:00 AM and this option is selected, any check-in time after 9:00 AM will automatically be recorded as 9:00 AM, regardless of how late the employee checks in.
- You can round off a late check-in time to the shift start time if the employee checks in after the shift starts, within the specified number of minutes.
Example: If the shift starts at 9:00 AM, and an employee checks in at 9:10 AM with a 15-minute buffer, their check-in time will be recorded as 9:00 AM, if late check-in was made after 9:15 AM it will not be rounded off.
2. Round off last check-out time
Automatically adjusts the employee’s last check-out to the shift end time based on the configured buffer.
For early check-out, select any one of the following options as required:
- You can round off any early check-out time to the shift end time by selecting the Round off to the shift end time option.
Example: If the shift ends at 6:00 PM, any check-out time before 6:00 PM will automatically be recorded as 6:00 PM, regardless of how early the employee checks out.
- You can round off an early check-out time to the shift end time if the employee checks out before the shift ends, within the specified number of minutes.
Example: If the shift ends at 6:00 PM and an employee checks out at 5:50 PM with a 15-minute buffer, their check-out time will be recorded as 6:00 PM. If the check-out was made before 5:45 PM, it will not be rounded off.
For late check-out, select any one of the following options as required:
- You can round off any late check-out time to the shift end time by selecting the Round off to the shift end time option.
Example: If the shift ends at 6:00 PM and this option is selected, any check-out time after 6:00 PM will automatically be recorded as 6:00 PM, regardless of how late the employee checks out.
- You can round off a late check-out time to the shift end time if the employee checks out after the shift ends, within the specified number of minutes.
Example: If the shift ends at 6:00 PM and an employee checks out at 6:10 PM with a 15-minute buffer, their check-out time will be recorded as 6:00 PM. If the check-out was made after 6:15 PM, it will not be rounded off.
3. Round off total working hours to expected work hours
Rounds off the total working hours to the expected working hours if the difference is within the specified number of minutes.
Example: If the expected working hours are set as 8 hours and an employee works for 7 hours and 55 minutes with a 10-minute buffer, their total working hours will be rounded off to 8 hours.

Update older attendance entries
This option comes in handy if you have made any changes to any of the settings and want the settings to reflect in attendance entries within a time frame.
Pay day / hours calculation
Select the options to be included in payroll:
This setting helps you define whether you would like to include weekends, holidays, leave, statutory, and non-statutory weekends while calculating the days/hours for pay calculation.
Based on the above selection, the total expected payable days/hours will be reflected in the attendance data for the payroll report.
Example 3 - Understanding payday calculation inclusions
Your total working days in a week are 5 days. Then the total expected payable days for a month will be 4 x 5.
If you include weekends, it means that your total expected payable days for a month will be the total number of days in the month.
If you also include leave here, then the leave applied to the 'Paid' leave policy category for the month will also be included for pay calculation.
Late-night work hours
Enable and set up late-night work hours for each work location to track employees' late-night work and apply different pay calculations based on the hours worked during this period.
Effective date of policy
Set the date from which the attendance policy that you have curated will become effective in the organization.
Use case
Let’s explore a scenario to understand how this feature handles attendance and work time calculations for your employees
Location: Singapore
Shift time : 9 AM - 6 PM
Shift margin : 1 hour before shift start time and 1 hour after shift end time (8 AM - 7 PM)
Late night hours : 10 AM - 6 AM
Expected hours per day: 7 hours (Full day)
Check-in & Check-out time: 11:00 AM - 11:30 PM
Hours worked outside the shift margin are treated as overtime, provided the minimum required hours for the day are met within the shift margin.
Present hours : 12:30 hours
Regular present hours : 8 hours (11:00 AM - 7:00 PM)
Late night present hours : 1:30 hours (10 AM - 11:30 PM)
Overtime : 4:30 hours
Regular overtime hours : 3:00 (7:00 AM - 10:00 PM)
Late night overtime hours : 1:30
Watch our related help video on Attendance Policy: