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Guides for HR teams moving off spreadsheets

Practical, structural guides — not case studies with names we can't verify, not a disguised product pitch. Where a guide connects to a PeopleNova module, that's noted explicitly at the end, not woven in throughout.

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PF, ESI, PT & TDS — payroll compliance basics every Indian employer should know

By the PeopleNova Team · Last updated

For any Indian employer running payroll, four acronyms come up constantly: PF, ESI, PT, and TDS. Here's the structural basics — not exact current rates, which are revised periodically and should be confirmed with a compliance advisor or chartered accountant, not a guide like this one.

What PF is

Provident Fund (PF), administered by the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), is a retirement savings scheme. Both employer and employee contribute a percentage of the employee's basic wage each month into the employee's PF account, accessible on retirement, resignation (under certain conditions), or specific circumstances like a home purchase. PF registration becomes mandatory once an organization crosses a defined employee-count threshold; smaller organizations can register voluntarily.

What ESI is

Employee State Insurance (ESI), administered by the Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC), is a social security and health insurance scheme for employees earning below a defined wage ceiling. It covers medical care and cash benefits during sickness, maternity, and employment injury, funded by employer and employee contributions.

What Professional Tax and TDS are

Professional Tax (PT) is a state-level tax on salaried income — rules and slabs are set by each state government individually, not centrally, which is part of why it trips up multi-state employers. TDS (Tax Deducted at Source) is income tax the employer withholds from salary each month and remits on the employee's behalf, reconciled at year-end via Form 16. Unlike PF and ESI, neither is optional based on organization size — they follow the employee's income and location.

Where payroll usually actually breaks

Contribution rates, wage ceilings, and applicability thresholds are revised periodically and vary by organization structure and state — but the common failure mode isn't employers not knowing the rules. It's the data. UAN numbers, ESI numbers, and PAN details get collected once at onboarding, then re-typed by hand into a spreadsheet every payroll cycle — and that's where numbers get transposed, employees get missed, and payslips need reissuing.

Not compliance advice. Rates, wage ceilings, state-specific PT slabs, and applicability thresholds change periodically. Confirm current figures with a compliance advisor or chartered accountant before acting on them.

Where PeopleNova fits in: PF (via UAN), ESI, Professional Tax, and PAN details are captured once at onboarding and reused automatically every payroll cycle, so the data entered on day one is what's still in use in month forty. TDS is calculated and Form 16 summary data is available, payslips generate from that record, Tally exports include TDS ledger mapping, and salary disbursement exports as a bank-ready file. See payroll features →

Choosing HR software: what actually matters, by industry

By the PeopleNova Team · Last updated

Most comparison articles list generic checklists — does it have leave management, does it have payroll. Nearly everything on the market has those. The more useful question is which feature matters first for how your organization actually runs.

Education (schools, colleges, universities)

Priority: attendance and leave that map to an academic calendar, not a standard corporate one, plus document management for staff records across departments. Payroll complexity is usually lower unless you're managing many part-time or visiting faculty on variable pay.

Healthcare (hospitals, clinics)

Priority: shift-based attendance that handles round-the-clock rosters, not a 9-to-5 assumption baked into the software. Asset tracking matters more here than in most industries — equipment, not just laptops.

IT, Corporate & Professional Services

Priority: performance management and goal tracking usually matter more than attendance mechanics, since most of these teams are salaried and office- or remote-based. Role-based approval workflows matter for expense and access control.

Manufacturing, Construction & Logistics

Priority: attendance that works without a front desk — geofencing or biometric hardware integration, not a self-reported check-in. Shift scheduling for rotating crews and asset tracking for equipment and tools are close behind.

Retail, Hospitality & Food Service

Priority: fast onboarding and payroll that handle high turnover and multiple locations without breaking. Mobile-first sign-in matters — frontline staff often won't have a company email address.

Government & Non-Profit

Priority: audit trails and role-based permissions over speed. Approval workflows and document management usually matter more than how fast the attendance check-in is.

The pattern across all of these: the module list matters less than whether the software can be configured for how your organization runs, instead of forcing you into someone else's default workflow. See who PeopleNova is built for →

Attendance tracking: biometric vs. geofencing vs. manual — what actually works

By the PeopleNova Team · Last updated

Every organization eventually has the same argument about attendance: install biometric devices, use phone-based geofencing, or just trust a manual register? Each has a real failure mode — and most organizations that scale past a single location end up needing more than one.

Manual registers / self-reported check-in

Zero hardware cost, works anywhere. But there's no way to verify accuracy — a colleague can mark someone present, or forget entirely. Fine for very small, high-trust teams; breaks down past a certain size.

Biometric devices (fingerprint / face)

Hard to fake, familiar to employees who've used them before, works well at a single fixed location. But it only verifies presence at that one device — no help for field staff, multiple sites, or remote work, and hardware needs maintenance.

Geofenced mobile check-in

Works anywhere with a phone, no extra hardware, handles multiple sites and field teams naturally. Relies on phone GPS accuracy, and on its own doesn't verify who is checking in — only where.

Selfie verification

Closes the "who" gap that geofencing leaves open, with minimal hardware. Adds a small amount of friction to every check-in.

What actually works: in practice, most organizations past a certain size combine methods — biometric devices at fixed locations that already have them installed, geofenced check-in with selfie verification for field and multi-site teams — layered together rather than picking just one. See how PeopleNova's Attendance & Time module handles this →

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