HR software in Karnal, planned around the crop year
Offrd is HR software for Karnal's rice mills, agri dealerships, dairy and food processors. Staff strength here moves with the season, so the software charges by use: Rs 99 per document, or Rs 50 per active employee per month, and the bill drops when headcount drops. Payslips calculate EPF and ESI. Attendance runs on the free Atndnz app. 50 free credits on signup.
Karnal sits in one of India's strongest basmati belts, with NDRI in town and mandis feeding a ring of processors. Hiring follows the crop. So instead of a feature list, here is the employer's year, month by month, as it runs on Offrd.
What does the HR year look like for a Karnal employer?
- April, May
The quiet stretch. Increment letters go out in a batch, so the promises made at the mill gate exist on paper. Leave balances close cleanly because the app kept the ledger all year.
- June, July
Hiring starts for the kharif cycle at dealerships and input firms. Offer and appointment letters generate as fast as the interviews happen. Each joiner's Aadhaar, PAN and bank details get collected and verified on his phone before the first wage is due.
- August, September
Headcount grows, payroll grows with it. Payslips calculate EPF and ESI per person without anyone reopening a formula sheet. New staff under Rs 21,000 gross come onto ESI correctly from month one.
- October to December
Paddy arrives and the mills run flat out. This is when attendance is hardest to keep, so the app keeps it. QR at the mill gate, GPS for drivers and field staff, biometric sync where a machine exists. The muster builds itself while everyone does actual work.
- January, February
Season staff start leaving. Every exit gets a separation letter and a full and final settlement calculated from the payslip's own salary heads. A fixed term worker who crossed one year of service gets gratuity counted in, as the labour codes require.
- March
Year close. Form 16 for each employee generates from your TRACES Part A and the locked tax declarations. Your CA gets EPF ready payroll files for the filings. The season's paper is finished before the next sowing talk starts.
Do seasonal workers need proper HR paperwork?
Yes, and more than before. The habit in agri towns is cash, a notebook and a handshake for short season workers. The labour codes, in force since 21 November 2025, go the other way. Appointment letters are compulsory for every employee, whatever the tenure. Fixed term workers earn gratuity after one year of service. Doing the paper properly is not extra work any more, it is just earlier work, and at Rs 99 a letter it is cheap.
One relief: Haryana has no professional tax, so a Karnal payslip carries EPF, ESI where it applies, and the Labour Welfare Fund line of Rs 35 employee and Rs 70 employer per month, the rate since January 2026. Deposits and filings stay with your CA. Offrd's job is making sure the numbers he deposits from are right. State rules are on the Haryana hub.
Is it sized for a Karnal firm?
That is the point of it. A mill office of 6. A dealership with 22 across sales and service. A processor with 70 in season and 40 after. Pay Rs 99 per document when volume is low, or Rs 50 per active employee per month when the season swells, and the count falls when people leave. No slab to grow into. No modules to configure before harvest. Setup takes about two minutes plus a CSV of your staff list. Over 4,000 companies in 350+ Indian cities run this way, most of them this size. What the platform does outside Haryana is on Offrd's India wide HR software page.
Questions from Karnal employers
Season workers join for four months. Is formal paperwork worth it?
The labour codes make appointment letters mandatory regardless of tenure, and a fixed term worker who crosses one year of service earns gratuity. At Rs 99 a letter, the formal version costs less than one argument about what was agreed.
Our accountant runs everything his own way. What changes for him?
Nothing forces a change. Offrd computes the payslips and gives him EPF ready payroll files to deposit and file from. He stops rebuilding numbers in his own sheet and starts checking ready ones.
Does the subscription cost drop when season staff leave?
Yes. Rs 50 per month counts active employees only. When the milling season ends and headcount falls from 70 to 40, the bill falls with it.
Is the app available in Hindi?
The interface is English only today. In practice that matters less than it sounds: checking in is scanning a QR code or one tap with GPS on, and applying for leave is a short form.
Can leave rules differ between mill staff and office staff?
Entitlements come from your leave policy, which the guided builder generates. Day to day, leave stays deliberately simple: the employee applies in the app and one manager approves from email.
Set up in the slow weeks
Do it now and October's attendance and payroll will run themselves. 50 free credits on signup.