How to make an employee attendance program

Quick answer

An attendance program records when each employee checks in and out, compares that with their assigned schedule, and produces a monthly report of hours, lateness and absence for whoever prepares payroll. Common methods are a fingerprint device, a phone app, or a shared PC with a code and PIN. For a small office or shop, PC check-in is enough: Fanann has an Employee attendance template you change by describing and download as a Windows program. It does not connect to fingerprint devices, so if biometrics are a must, choose a ready system that ships with its device.

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What are the ways to record attendance, and which suits me?

Before searching for attendance software, see the real question: how will an employee prove they arrived? There are four main methods, each with a price:

Illustration: a bright modern office in a Gulf city. In an office this size, one PC near the entrance is enough for check-in.

Method	Its strength	Its limit
Paper sign-in sheet	No cost, nothing to learn	Filled in from memory at week's end, and tedious to total
Fingerprint or face device	Proves the person was there	A device, installation and its own software, and it can fail
Phone app with location	Suits reps and field teams	Needs each employee's phone and consent to share location
Shared PC with code and PIN	Fast, no extra hardware, runs on a PC you own	Relies on honesty: a PIN can be given to a colleague

For an office of 5 to 30 people entering through one door, a shared PC is very practical. Field teams are better served by a web or phone app, covered in build an attendance and HR app.

What must an attendance program record?

Employee: Name, code, department, assigned schedule
Event: In, out, break start and break end
Time: From the PC clock, not typed by the employee
Exception: Permission, leave, off-site task, missed punch
Correction: Who changed it, when and why

The last line matters more than it looks. One day an employee will forget to check out and ask the manager to fix it. If the fix erases the original record, you lose trust in every number. Ask for the original time to stay visible, with the correction added on top under the manager's name and reason.

Which rules should I settle before choosing any software?

Most attendance problems are not technical. They are unwritten rules that each side reads in its own favor. Answer these on paper and agree them with your team first:

When does work start and end for each group? Are there shifts or a split day?
How many minutes of grace before lateness counts? Is lateness totaled monthly or handled daily?
Is the break counted in hours or deducted? Is it recorded?
When does overtime count, and who approves it first?
What happens after a missed punch, and who may correct it?
How are off-site tasks, leave and permissions recorded?
Which days are your weekend and public holidays, and how do hours change in Ramadan?

How does check-in on the office PC work in practice?

7:55The check-in screen is open
The PC by the entrance shows one field and the current time in large type. No menus, no distraction.
8:02An employee checks in
They type their code and PIN and press Enter. A message shows their name and time, then the screen clears for the next person.
13:00Break
If breaks are recorded, the same code offers the fitting option: start break or return.
17:05Check-out
Same steps. The program totals the day's hours at once.
Month endThe manager exports the report
From their own PC they review exceptions, approve corrections and export a file for payroll.

What this method does well

Seconds per employee, no queue
No hardware to buy or maintain
A to-the-minute record in place of estimates
A monthly report with no manual math

What it does not do

It cannot prove who typed the code
It does not connect to fingerprint devices
It does not record from outside the office
It does not run payroll or apply labor law for you

To reduce buddy punching: place the PC in open view, change PINs periodically, and review check-ins from two people that land seconds apart. In a small team, trust plus random review is usually enough.

Which reports do the manager and payroll need?

Report	Contents	Who uses it
Today's attendance	Who is in, who is late, who has not checked in	The manager every morning
Monthly employee summary	Days present, total hours, late minutes, absences, overtime	Payroll
Exceptions	In with no out, a workday with no record, pending corrections	The manager before closing the month
Repeated lateness	Who is late most, and on which days	The manager at periodic review
Correction log	Every manual change with name and reason	The owner or an auditor

Ask for the monthly summary to export to a file Excel opens, with one column per value payroll needs. The attendance program stays simple, and payroll stays with whoever knows its rules.

Should I buy an attendance system or build my own?

What matters most to you?

Pick the one that sounds like you to see the advice.

Ready systems are usually priced per employee per month. That makes sense for a company wanting everything, and is costly for a shop that only wants to know who came and when.

Where is attendance data kept, and who may see it?

Animated explainer: a local database on one PC that works with no internet, next to a cloud database shared between several PCs that needs internet and sign-in.

Animated explainerThe check-in PC and the manager's PC: separate local data, or one cloud record both can see.

With attendance, staff check in on one PC and the manager reviews on another, perhaps in another branch. So the cloud database is the usual choice: one record for everyone who signs in, and it needs internet. If everything happens on a single PC, check-in and reports together, local data is enough and works offline.

Employee: checks in and sees only their own record.
Supervisor: sees their team and proposes corrections.
Manager: approves corrections and exports reports.
Everyone: no access to colleagues' data without a work need.

Attendance data is personal data under your country's data protection law. Tell staff what you record and why, and keep it only as long as needed. A practical list is in the Saudi PDPL checklist, and permission design in roles and permissions.

How do I build the attendance program with Fanann?

The Employee attendance template in the Windows app templates brings the core: a code and PIN per employee, check-in and check-out from the keyboard, a record of every event, and attendance reports. Open it, try it inside a Windows-style window in your browser, then add your working-time rules by describing them.

Attendance program for a small office

I want an attendance program for an office of 14, in Arabic (right to left) with English. A full-screen check-in screen with a large clock and one field: the employee types their code and PIN and presses Enter, a message shows their name and the event type (in, break start, return, out), then the screen clears. Working days Sunday to Thursday, 8:00 to 17:00, with a 10-minute grace period and a one-hour unpaid break. Option to define a different schedule for Ramadan. A password-protected manager screen: today's attendance, the employee list with PINs, and correcting an event while the original time stays visible and a reason is required. Recording permission, leave or an off-site task for a given day. A monthly report per employee: days present, total hours, late minutes, absent days, and overtime hours after manager approval, exportable to a file. An exceptions report: in with no out, and a workday with no record.

Try it in Fanann

After downloading the installer, install it on the entrance PC and the manager's PC. Rollout steps are in installing a program on staff computers.

How do I introduce it without the team feeling watched?

An attendance rollout is a communication task before it is a technical one. Present it as a tool that protects an employee's overtime and the accuracy of their pay, not a trap for lateness.

Before using the program for payrollTap an item when it is done. Your progress is kept in this browser.

Working-time rules are written, agreed and announced
Every employee checked in personally and changed their PIN
I ran a trial month next to the old method
I reviewed the trial month's report line by line with payroll
The check-in PC clock sets itself and staff cannot change it
I decided who approves corrections and when the month closes
I told staff what is recorded and who sees it

An attendance program does not create discipline. A clear rule applied fairly to everyone does.

Key takeaways

Software cannot settle a working-time dispute you have not settled: write down the grace period, breaks and overtime first.
Check-in on a shared PC with a code and PIN is the simplest and cheapest method. Its limit is that it cannot stop one colleague checking in for another.
The exportable monthly report is the goal, not the check-in screen.
The manager needs to see everyone's attendance from their own PC, which is why cloud data is the usual choice here.
Attendance data is personal data: decide who sees it and keep it only as long as needed.

Frequently asked questions

How do I make an attendance program for my employees?

Write your working-time rules first (hours, grace period, breaks, overtime), then choose a check-in method. For check-in on the office PC you can build the program with Fanann from the Employee attendance template and download it for Windows.

Does the program work with a fingerprint device?

A program built with Fanann does not connect to fingerprint devices. Check-in happens on the PC with a code and PIN. If biometrics are a must, choose a ready system that ships with its device.

How do I stop one employee checking in for another?

Code-based check-in cannot prevent it technically. Reduce it by placing the PC in open view, changing PINs periodically, and reviewing check-ins seconds apart. If that is not enough, biometrics are the answer.

Does the program calculate salaries?

Not unless you ask for it and define the rules. Usually it produces a monthly report of hours, lateness and absence that is exported to payroll, which applies labor law and your contracts.

Can the manager see attendance from another branch?

Yes, with the cloud database: every PC that signs in sees the same records, and it needs internet. With local data the record stays on the PC where it was entered.

What if an employee forgets to check out?

It appears in the exceptions report as an in with no out. The manager corrects it with a reason, and the original record stays visible. Decide in advance how long correction requests are accepted.

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Terms in this article

Desktop app Role-based access controlRBAC Installer Personal Data Protection LawPDPL Workflow