Attendance penalisation rules

Penalisation automatically deducts leave — or books loss of pay — when attendance rules are broken, for example every 3 late marks in a month cost half a day. It is off by default. Employees always get a buffer of days to regularize before anything is deducted.

Before you start

• You need manage access to attendance and to shifts.
• Leave must be set up, including at least one unpaid (loss of pay) leave type — see Create leave types.

Set up the policy

1. Go to Time & Attendance → Shifts and open the Attendance policy tab (open the policy).
2. Scroll to Penalisation policy.
3. Set Effective from — the policy only looks at days from this date. Leaving it empty keeps the policy off.
4. Under Paid leave deduction order, choose which paid leave types are used first, in order. Choose — none (always loss of pay) — to always deduct as loss of pay.
5. Choose the Loss-of-pay leave type (or keep First unpaid type).
6. Tick the rules you want and set their numbers:
   • No attendance — per working day with no punch, no leave and no WFH / on duty: 1 day or ½ day, after a buffer of days.
   • Late arrival — every K late marks in a calendar month cost ½ or 1 day, from Paid leave or as loss of pay, after a buffer.
   • Work hours — a complete day below H effective hours costs ½ day, after a buffer.
   • Missing swipes — more than N days with a missing punch in a Monday–Sunday week cost M days of loss of pay, after a buffer counted from the end of the week.
7. Click Save penalisation policy.

The preview next to the form shows the policy in plain English — the same text employees see under Attendance policy in their portal.

How deductions are booked

• A rule fires only after its buffer, so employees have time to send a regularization first.
• Each deduction is booked as automatic ("system") leave: from the paid types in your order while one has enough balance, otherwise as loss of pay.
• Payroll reads these like any other leave.
• Deductions run in the daily attendance job, after each buffer ends. To run them right away, click Run now on the Penalisations page and confirm — it books due deductions and reverses ones that no longer apply.

Review and reverse

1. Go to Time & Attendance → Penalisations ( open Penalisations).
2. Filter by Status (Applied, Waiting for approval, Cancelled by HR, Reversed, Withdrawn, All), Rule, Month or Employee, then click Filter.
3. Each row shows the date, the rule with details, the deduction (Paid leave or Loss of pay) and its status.
4. To undo one, click Reverse, enter a Reason and click Reverse.

Reversing revokes the automatic leave: paid leave goes back to the balance and the day is recalculated.