What an attendance sheet records
An attendance sheet answers one question for every working day: was each person there? It is a grid with employees down the side and the dates of the month across the top. Each cell gets a short code, and the columns at the end count the month for each person, so you can see absences, leave and days present at a glance before payroll or a review.
Small offices, shops, schools, clinics and remote teams all keep one, often alongside a timesheet. The timesheet holds the hours; the attendance sheet holds presence, absence and leave.
Attendance register format
This template follows the usual attendance register format: one row per employee, one column per date from 1 to 31, and a code in each cell.
- P present, A absent and L on leave.
- HD half day, counted as half present and half absent.
- H holiday and WO weekly off, which are not counted as absences.
Under the dates, a row of weekday letters shows where the weekends fall. The last columns count Present, Absent, Leave and Off for each employee, and the bottom row counts how many people were present on each date. A signature line for whoever approves the register sits under the grid.
Attendance sheet example
The filled example covers October 2026 for six people in an operations team, with Saturdays and Sundays marked WO. October 2026 has 22 weekdays, and the totals come out like this:
| Employee | Present | Absent | Leave | Off |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maria Santos | 22 | 0 | 0 | 9 |
| Rahim Uddin | 20 | 0 | 2 | 9 |
| Nur Aisyah | 20.5 | 1.5 | 0 | 9 |
| Tran Minh Anh | 20.5 | 0.5 | 1 | 9 |
| Priya Nair | 19 | 1 | 2 | 9 |
| Carlos Reyes | 20.5 | 1.5 | 0 | 9 |
Nur Aisyah was absent one day and took one half day, so she has 20.5 days present and 1.5 days absent.
How to calculate attendance percentage
Divide the days present by the working days in the month and multiply by 100. Nur Aisyah was present 20.5 of 22 working days: 20.5 divided by 22 is 0.932, or 93.2%. Count only working days, so holidays and weekly offs don't lower anyone's percentage, and decide in your policy whether approved leave counts as present.
Monthly attendance sheet in Excel and Google Sheets
The spreadsheet versions do the counting. Pick the month from a list and type the year, and the weekday letters fill in under each date, while the days a month doesn't have turn gray. Each day cell offers the codes in a dropdown and colors them, so a row of absences stands out. Present, Absent, Leave and Off add up for each person, and the bottom row counts who was present on each date. Start a new copy for each month and keep the old ones.
How long to keep attendance records
In the US, the Department of Labor lists hours worked each day among the records employers keep, and says records that wages are worked out from should be kept for two years and payroll records for at least three. In the UK, GOV.UK says employers need to keep some records about working hours. Check the rules where your team works.
When attendance tracks itself
A paper register depends on someone marking it every day. Staffic's attendance tracking fills the record from the desktop app instead: each member's first tracked session of the day is their clock-in and the last is their clock-out, listed by date on Clock In/Out. Planned absences go through leave management, and for hours rather than presence, use the weekly timesheet template.
