How is attendance recorded on land with poor mobile coverage?

GPS check in within a 500 metre radius works wherever there is a signal, and QR check in at a gate, shed or weighbridge needs only a camera. Where neither is practical, attendance can be imported from a CSV so a supervisor's daily count is entered once rather than transcribed into a register and then into payroll.

Do farm workers need written appointment letters?

Written appointment letters became compulsory for every employee under the Labour Codes that took effect on 21 November 2025. Whether a particular engagement is employment or something else can be a genuinely difficult question on a farm, so take that one to your legal advisor rather than assuming either answer.

How do you handle a harvest crew that works for six weeks?

Bulk import brings the crew in from one CSV, and onboarding collects Aadhaar, PAN, bank details and UAN from a phone browser. Fixed term employees become eligible for gratuity after one year of service under the Labour Codes rather than five, which matters if the same crew returns every season.

Can we run separate records for two estates in different districts?

Each estate is a site with its own geofence radius, and professional tax follows the state that estate's PIN code resolves to. One payroll cycle covers both, with payslips tagged to the estate the person worked at.

Does the system handle output linked wages?

Payroll runs in an Excel style editor with custom earning and deduction columns, so an output or quantity linked component goes in as its own column and flows to the payslip. Statutory heads compute separately, so the variable component does not distort the EPF or ESI base.

Do EPF and ESI apply to an agricultural operation?

Coverage depends on the nature of the establishment and on state notifications, and agriculture is one of the areas where the answer is genuinely not uniform. Confirm your own position with your CA. Where contributions do apply, Offrd computes EPF at 12 percent from each side and ESI at 3.25 plus 0.75 percent against the published wage ceilings.

What does it cost for an estate with 60 workers?

3,000 rupees a month at 50 rupees per active worker during a working season, and less in a quiet month because billing follows who was actually active. There is no seat block, no minimum headcount and no setup fee.

HR software for farms and estates with seasonal crews

Farm labour is seasonal, paid on variable terms and often recorded in a supervisor's notebook. Offrd puts that record into a system that works from a phone at a field gate, keeps one employee record across seasons, and produces the appointment letters and wage records that are now compulsory, at ₹50 per active worker a month.

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Last updated 24 August 2026

The notebook is the system

On most Indian farms and estates, workforce records live in a supervisor's notebook. Names, days worked, advances given, a rough tally at the end of the week. It works, in the sense that people get paid, and it fails in every other sense: nothing is auditable, nothing carries from one season to the next, and nobody can answer a question about last March.

That was tolerable when the paperwork obligations were vague. It is less tolerable now. Written appointment letters became compulsory for every employee under the Labour Codes that took effect on 21 November 2025, and fixed term employees became eligible for gratuity after one year rather than five.

Whether a particular engagement on a farm counts as employment is a real question and not one software can answer. Take it to your legal advisor. What software can do is make sure that where you do employ people, the record exists and holds together.

Attendance that works at a field gate

Three routes, and you can mix them. GPS check in within a 500 metre radius works from a worker's own phone wherever there is a signal. QR check in at a gate, shed or weighbridge needs only a camera and nothing installed. Where neither is practical, attendance imports from a CSV, so a supervisor's daily count is entered once instead of being transcribed into a register and again into payroll.

Each estate or block is a site with its own name, code, latitude, longitude and geofence radius. Shifts are named schedules with grace periods, which is how an early start during harvest becomes a defined thing rather than an argument. Break splits are recorded.

Six reports come out: attendance log, attendance summary, monthly attendance, field work attendance, geofence and leave requests. The field work report is the one estates use most, because it shows who was where.

Crews that come back every season

A harvest crew of forty arrives for six weeks and leaves. Next year, largely the same forty arrive again. Handled as forty fresh entries each time, the record is worthless and the gratuity question is being answered by accident.

Bulk import brings a crew in from one CSV. Onboarding collects Aadhaar, PAN, bank details and UAN from a phone browser, so a worker without a laptop or an email address is not a blocker. Where a worker returns, the existing record is reused rather than duplicated, which keeps service history in one place where your auditor can look at it.

Appointment letters generate from the salary structure, so a crew of forty is one operation rather than forty. Basic defaults to 50 percent of CTC under the Code on Wages 2019 rule and the estate's PIN code resolves the professional tax state.

Where contributions apply, the arithmetic is built in. Provident fund at 12 percent from each side against the ₹15,000 wage ceiling under Para 26A, ESI at 3.25 percent employer and 0.75 percent worker up to a ₹21,000 gross, professional tax from the state the estate's PIN code sits in, and gratuity on the formula of wages by 15, by years of service, over 26. Filing is not included and is not claimed. The ECR to EPFO and the 24Q to TRACES remain your CA's, who receive payroll in EPF return format.

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Wages, advances and the payroll month

Payroll runs in an Excel style editor in Calendar Days or Working Days mode, with custom earning and deduction columns. An output or quantity linked component goes in as its own column, and an advance recovery goes in as a deduction column, both flowing to the payslip while the statutory heads compute separately.

Payslips download as PDFs to be handed over, which on an estate is how it actually happens, or go out by email where addresses exist. Payroll exports in EPF return format for your CA.

An estate running 60 workers in season

₹3,000 a month in season

Less out of season, because billing follows who was actually active rather than a licence count. Attendance, documents, payroll calculation and leave included. No seat block, no minimum.

Signup gives you 50 free credits with no card, enough for one appointment letter, one onboarding and about a dozen payslips. If you run technology and field teams alongside the growing operation, the agritech page covers that shape instead.

Questions from estate managers and owners

How is attendance recorded on land with poor mobile coverage?: GPS check in within a 500 metre radius works wherever there is a signal, and QR check in at a gate, shed or weighbridge needs only a camera. Where neither is practical, attendance can be imported from a CSV so a supervisor's daily count is entered once rather than transcribed into a register and then into payroll.
Do farm workers need written appointment letters?: Written appointment letters became compulsory for every employee under the Labour Codes that took effect on 21 November 2025. Whether a particular engagement is employment or something else can be a genuinely difficult question on a farm, so take that one to your legal advisor rather than assuming either answer.
How do you handle a harvest crew that works for six weeks?: Bulk import brings the crew in from one CSV, and onboarding collects Aadhaar, PAN, bank details and UAN from a phone browser. Fixed term employees become eligible for gratuity after one year of service under the Labour Codes rather than five, which matters if the same crew returns every season.
Can we run separate records for two estates in different districts?: Each estate is a site with its own geofence radius, and professional tax follows the state that estate's PIN code resolves to. One payroll cycle covers both, with payslips tagged to the estate the person worked at.
Does the system handle output linked wages?: Payroll runs in an Excel style editor with custom earning and deduction columns, so an output or quantity linked component goes in as its own column and flows to the payslip. Statutory heads compute separately, so the variable component does not distort the EPF or ESI base.
Do EPF and ESI apply to an agricultural operation?: Coverage depends on the nature of the establishment and on state notifications, and agriculture is one of the areas where the answer is genuinely not uniform. Confirm your own position with your CA. Where contributions do apply, Offrd computes EPF at 12 percent from each side and ESI at 3.25 plus 0.75 percent against the published wage ceilings.
What does it cost for an estate with 60 workers?: 3,000 rupees a month at 50 rupees per active worker during a working season, and less in a quiet month because billing follows who was actually active. There is no seat block, no minimum headcount and no setup fee.

Try it on one block this season

Fifty free credits on signup, no card. Set up a site, mark a week of attendance, and see what the wage record looks like when it builds itself.

Start free with 50 credits Book a demo See field attendance options

Statutory rates follow published rules from the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation and ESIC, and the Labour Codes notified by the Ministry of Labour and Employment. Several thresholds vary by state. This is general information, not legal advice. Confirm your own position with your CA or legal advisor. Questions to service@offrd.co.