Attendance regularisation, and keeping the correction visible
Fixing a missed punch is routine. Doing it in a way that leaves the register trustworthy is the part that needs designing.
What it is
A request to correct an attendance record — a missed punch, a wrong time, a day marked absent in error.
Who decides
The employee raises it; the manager approves. It is not something HR should be typing in directly.
The trap
Editing the punch itself. A silently altered timestamp destroys the evidential value of the whole register.
Attendance regularisation is the process of correcting an attendance record after the fact — a punch that was missed, a time that was captured wrongly, or a day marked absent when the employee was working elsewhere.
It is unavoidable. People forget to punch, devices fail, and staff are sent to a site with no reader. What matters is how the correction is made.
Correct, but do not overwrite
The value of an attendance register is that it was made contemporaneously. If a timestamp can be quietly changed afterwards, the register stops being evidence of anything — for the employee disputing a day just as much as for an inspector.
So the original punch record stays, and the regularisation sits on top of it as a request that was raised by somebody, approved by somebody, on a date, with a reason. The register shows the corrected position and the fact that it was corrected.
Route it through the manager
The person who knows whether an employee was actually at the customer site on Tuesday is their manager, not HR. Regularisation belongs in the ordinary approval chain, with cover for absent approvers and escalation on silence — otherwise requests pile up until the day before payroll.
HR entering corrections directly is quick and is the arrangement most likely to be challenged, because there is no independent confirmation that the day was worked.
Watch the pattern, not just the request
One regularisation a quarter is a person who forgot. Six a month is either a broken device or a habit, and both are worth knowing about. A regularisation that is routinely approved without examination is simply attendance by declaration wearing a process.
Close it before the cut-off
Regularisation requests approved after payroll has run turn into corrections in the following cycle. Approving them through the month, when they are raised, is what keeps the run clean — and is the single change that most shortens a payroll cycle.
Attendance regularisation FAQs
Can HR edit a punch directly?
It should not be the normal route. A correction raised by the employee and approved by their manager leaves a record of who confirmed the day was worked; an HR edit leaves only an altered number.
Does the original wrong punch stay in the system?
Yes. The corrected position is what payroll uses, but the original record and the approved correction both remain visible. That is what keeps the register defensible.
How many regularisations are too many?
There is no fixed number, but a pattern is informative: a spike at one location usually means a device problem, and a spike for one person usually means something else. Both are worth looking at rather than approving reflexively.
Should employees be able to fix their own attendance?
They can request a correction; someone else should approve it. Self-service that writes directly to the register removes the only control the register has.
How long should regularisation stay open?
Until the month is closed for payroll and no longer. Reopening a settled month to adjust attendance breaks the register and anything filed from it.
What evidence should a correction carry?
A reason, at minimum, and a record of who approved it. A silent edit is indistinguishable from a mistake later.
Stop working this out by hand
Klok applies these rules on every payroll run, from your own attendance and salary data, with the working shown.