What is HR and payroll software?
HR and payroll software is the system of record for the people a company employs. It holds who each person is, where they work, who they report to and what documents the company keeps on them; it records when they worked and when they were on leave; and at the end of the month it turns those facts into salaries, statutory deductions and payslips. Around that core sit the processes that start and end employment: hiring, onboarding, letters, exits and the final settlement.
AtashiTech's HR and payroll platform is built for companies of roughly ten to a thousand people, with several companies, branches and shifts under one account. It runs as a web portal for HR, managers and owners, an Android app for employees, and an Android tablet that works as a shared employee self-service (ESS) kiosk for staff who never sit at a computer. It is offered with a 14-day free trial: we set up your account and email you the login.
Why HR still runs on spreadsheets in growing companies
Most companies of this size already have pieces of an HR system. What they rarely have is one place where those pieces agree with each other.
The old way
Attendance comes from a biometric clock whose export is pasted into a sheet. Leave is approved over chat and recorded later, if at all. Salaries live in another sheet with formulas that only one person understands, and payslips are made by mail merge. Offer letters are edited copies of the last offer letter. When someone leaves, nobody is sure whether their laptop came back or how much leave should be paid out. Work permits and passports expire without anyone noticing until an inspection.
Each of these gaps is small. Together they mean that HR spends the last week of every month reconciling numbers instead of looking after people, and that staff on the shop floor, who have no company email and no laptop, have no way to see their own records at all.
The AtashiTech way
One employee record feeds everything. A punch at the kiosk, a leave approval on a manager's phone and a salary revision in the portal all land in the same database, so attendance, leave balances and payroll are computed from the same facts. Approvals move on their own and escalate when they stall. Employees see their own payslips, leave and attendance in their language, on their phone or at a shared tablet. HR keeps control of what changes, because every self-service request that touches personal data waits for HR to approve it.
How it works, month by month
Four stages, in the order they happen. Each writes to the same employee record, which is why the payroll run does not start with a reconciliation.
Set up people and policies
Companies, branches, departments, shifts, holidays and leave types are configured once. Employees are added by hand or imported from Excel, with a preview of every row before anything is saved.
Capture time and leave
Staff punch in at the kiosk or on the app. Leave and attendance corrections go to the line manager, then to HR where the leave type requires it. Each day's status is worked out from punches, shifts, leave and holidays.
Run and approve payroll
The run calculates earnings, deductions and arrears, warns about anything missing, and is approved by the owner with a one-time code sent by email. Payslips are then emailed through your own mail server.
Report and look ahead
Reports export to Excel, a daily or weekly digest goes to the people you choose, and expiring documents raise alerts long before they become a problem.
What the platform covers
Everything below is part of the platform today. Optional modules are switched on per company, so a small office and a multi-site employer can run the same software.
Employees and documents
A full employee record with reporting lines and employee codes per company. Documents are stored privately and opened only after a permission check; bank and identity numbers are masked on screen and hidden from managers.
Attendance and shifts
Punches from the kiosk or app, day and night shifts, week-offs and holidays per branch, correction requests with manager approval, and a monthly register HR can recalculate at any time.
Leave with approvals
Accrual and carry-forward per leave type, balances from one ledger, approval by the line manager and then HR where needed, escalation when a request waits too long, and loss of pay when a request exceeds the balance.
Payroll and payslips
Salary structures, revisions with back-dated arrears, an approval step, payslip PDFs, bank and statutory files, and a "paid on" date per run. Indian statutory deductions (PF, ESIC, professional tax and income tax) are calculated by the platform.
Onboarding and exit
Checklists start when someone joins or resigns, and tasks such as missing details or verified documents tick themselves. The full-and-final settlement covers final pay, leave encashment, notice shortfall and gratuity.
Letters and e-sign
Letter templates with placeholders produce numbered letters that are frozen once issued. Agreements are signed electronically with a typed name and a code sent by email, with the time and address recorded.
Recruitment
Openings approved by the owner, a public apply page that shows only your company name, private CV storage, interview panels with scores, offer letters, and a Hire button that creates the employee and starts onboarding.
Self-service and help desk
Announcements, policies that must be acknowledged, requests to change personal details that HR approves, and an HR help desk with numbered tickets, all available on the app and at the kiosk.
Portal, app and kiosk
HR and owners work in the web portal. Employees use the Android app, or a shared Android tablet in kiosk mode if they do not carry a phone. All three read and write the same records.
A kiosk for staff without a desk
A tablet enrolled as a kiosk opens straight into a home screen in your company's branding. To punch in or out, a worker picks their name and enters a short PIN, scans the QR code on their ID card, or simply looks at the camera if face sign-in is switched on. Face sign-in needs the person's consent, which is recorded, and their face data can be removed at any time. If the network drops, punches are kept on the tablet with their original time and uploaded when the connection returns.
The same tablet lets a signed-in worker see payslips explained in plain words, apply for leave, check attendance, read and acknowledge policies, raise an HR ticket and complete a safety induction. Sessions end after a minute of inactivity and nothing personal stays on screen for the next person. The full journey is described on the ESS kiosk page.
Languages
The app and kiosk speak 26 languages, including Arabic and Urdu laid out right to left, and each company chooses which ones its staff are offered. Each person sees the app in their own language unless they pick another on the device. The HR portal itself is in English.
Already have an HR system? Keep it
Many companies already run payroll in another HR system and only lack a way to reach staff on the floor.
In mirror mode, that other system stays the source of truth. The employee list, leave balances, attendance, document records and payslip PDFs come in from an Excel workbook, with column presets for common HR systems and a preview of every change before it is applied. Staff then punch, request leave and read their payslips through our app and kiosk, and the punches, corrections and leave requests go back out as Excel, on demand or by scheduled email. Screens that would edit the master data show which system manages it instead.
This is often the quickest way to start: no data migration project, no change to the payroll provider, and the deskless part of the workforce gets self-service at once.
Documents, inductions and country rules
An optional compliance module keeps a document list per country for the Gulf states, the United Kingdom, Singapore and Malaysia as well as India: passports, visas, work permits, labour cards and similar papers. HR and the employee are both alerted well before a document expires, and an employee can photograph a renewal on the app for HR to check. For UK employers there are right-to-work checks with an audit record and sponsor-licence reminders; for agency labour, an agency register with invoice-versus-attendance checks; and in the UAE, a WPS salary file can be produced from an approved payroll run. These tools follow published guidance, and your HR or legal adviser should confirm the settings for your company.
The safety induction module lets HR upload a video or audio briefing per language, add a short quiz with a pass mark, and require the worker to sign off with their typed name. A pass is stored as a training record with an expiry date. For larger site programmes, see our employee induction software and the safety training and compliance kiosk.
Integration API and webhooks
Other systems can read employee data through an API key issued per company, and receive signed webhooks when employees join, change or leave. Only a defined set of work fields leaves the platform. Our sales CRM software uses this link to keep its list of salespeople in step with HR, so a leaver's login is switched off and their open work is handed over. Connections to a particular HR or ERP system are scoped with our cloud and integration team.
| Need | How the platform handles it |
|---|---|
| New HR system | Native mode: the platform holds employees, leave and payroll |
| Payroll stays with another provider | Mirror mode: Excel in, punches and leave requests out |
| Another system needs employee data | Integration API with keys, plus signed webhooks |
| Your own brand for staff | Your logo and colours after sign-in |
Where it fits
Factories, warehouses and sites
Shift workers punch at a tablet near the gate, see their payslips there and complete the site induction before their first shift. Managers approve corrections from their phone during the month instead of at month end.
Multi-branch service businesses
Retail, hospitality and facilities companies with many small branches get one leave policy and one payroll with local shifts and holidays underneath, and a branch manager sees only their own team.
Employers of migrant and agency labour
Document expiry alerts, agency checks and staff-facing screens in the languages workers actually read make it easier to keep records in order. More sectors are described on our industries pages.
Trial, setup and support
Ask for the 14-day free trial from this page. We set up your account and email you the login; the trial comes with sample data, so you can try the kiosk and the app before importing your own staff. After the trial, an account can be converted to a paid subscription and keeps its data. Setup help, data import, custom reports and integrations are covered by our consulting and AMC support service, and changes to the mobile apps by our app development team. Pricing depends on headcount and modules and is quoted after a short conversation.
See your own payroll month in it
Start the free trial, or tell us how many people, companies and branches you run and which HR system you use today. We will show you native or mirror mode with your own setup in mind.
Frequently asked questions
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