Factory Attendance App for Contractor Crews and Staff

A factory attendance app should let the supervisor mark who turned up, on his phone, at the gate, in under a minute. If marking takes longer, it gets skipped and written up from memory in the evening, which is what the paper register already does. In Fab ERP the supervisor marks the day's crew on the phone, contractor crews and holidays included, and the month's muster fills itself.

Below is one thekedar's crew for one week. The crew, the days and the rate are invented.

Why does the paper register fail at the month end?

It works until the 30th. Then somebody sits with a pen and a calculator, counts ticks, and works out each person's days. A wrong count turns up when a worker comes to the office to argue.

Three weaknesses cause most of it:

• It lives in one hand. The supervisor holds it. If he is at the other end of the shop, nobody else can check who is in.
• It is added up by hand. The 30th becomes a day of adding, and mistakes surface late.
• The contractor's crew sits on a separate sheet. Often it is only the head count the thekedar gives you.

An attendance app has to remove all three, or it is a register on a screen.

What does a factory attendance app need on the floor?

Speed. He is walking the shop with a phone in his hand and thirty other things to do. He opens the day, sees his crew, and marks each person. Nothing else is asked at that moment.

Holidays are set in the system so the muster knows which days are off. The phone app opens with a PIN lock, so someone who picks up an unattended phone does not get the muster. Roles and access decide who can mark, who can look, and who can change a mark afterwards. Give the right to change a mark to one person only.

How does a thekedar's crew fit in?

Crews are part of the Fab ERP muster. The supervisor marks the contractor's crew on the same phone, in the same muster, on the same day as the staff. The attendance is yours, not the contractor's version of it.

Here is an illustrative week for a crew of ten, brought in by a thekedar to weld and grind:

At an illustrative rate of ₹700 a day, the week's bill by the muster is 57 × ₹700 = ₹39,900.

Now the thekedar's bill arrives. If it says 60 days, you have a three-day question, ₹2,100 at the same rate, and you have the muster to settle it with, not a memory. Fab ERP also keeps contractor jobs and payments, so what you owe the thekedar sits next to who actually turned up. You do the days-times-rate check against the muster. We do not claim the system works out the bill.

Does a helper need a smartphone?

The workers do not need one. The supervisor holds the phone and marks the crew. Nobody on the crew signs in or touches the app. Your thekedar's men and your own helpers are marked the same way, by the one person you trust to mark.

What about a weak network at the back of the shop? We have not tested marking without a network and do not claim it works. If that matters to you, ask us before you rely on it.

What does the supervisor's morning look like?

Three steps, the same every day:

1. At the start of the shift, open the day and see the crews.
2. Mark each person. Cross-check the head count against what you see at the gate.
3. Close the phone. That is all.

The only thing that makes this fail is habit. If the supervisor marks at 9, it is right. If he marks at 6 from memory, it is the paper register on a screen.

What happens at the month end?

The muster fills itself. Every day's marks, for every person and every crew, are already in the month. Nobody adds up ticks on the 30th. Your office person checks the muster, corrects what needs correcting and moves on.

This is the part owners feel first. The last day of the month stops being an attendance day.

Which numbers on the muster are worth reading?

Four, once a week:

1. Man-days for each crew, as in the table above.
2. Days present for each regular worker, against the days in the month.
3. Holidays, so a day off is not read as an absence.
4. The gap between a thekedar's bill and his crew's man-days.

The fourth is the one that pays for the habit.

Is this payroll?

No. Fab ERP's Attendance module is the muster: who was present, the crews, the holidays. We do not claim it runs payroll. Take the muster to wherever your salaries are worked out today.

We also name no register, form or legal duty here. Which registers your factory must keep depends on your state and your headcount. Ask your labour consultant.

How do you move off the register without a fight?

Do not throw the register away on a Monday. Run both for a month.

1. Pick one supervisor and one crew first.
2. Mark in the app every day. Keep the register going alongside it.
3. At the month end, compare the two. Where they differ, find out why. Usually the register is wrong.
4. Add the next crew only after the first month matches.

Supervisors do not believe the muster fills itself until they see it once.

What does attendance cost?

Attendance is in the Gold plan: ₹9,999 a month plus 18% GST for a limited time (regular ₹19,999). On Silver you can add Attendance for ₹500 a month for a limited time (regular ₹1,000); Silver is ₹4,999 a month plus GST for a limited time (regular ₹9,999). Every plan has a 14-day free trial. You set up auto-pay when you start, nothing is charged during the trial, and we email you 3 days before every charge. See the pricing page for the table, and the product page for the other modules beside Attendance.

Questions owners ask us

Where to look next

The test of an attendance app is the 30th. If that day is quiet, it works. The start page is open when you want to try one crew for a month.