Payroll for your office staff and your site labour

Salaried staff and daily-wage workers are paid differently, and BuildAura handles both. Pay is worked out from the attendance and leave already recorded, labour cost lands on the sites where the work was done, and nothing is paid until someone other than the person who prepared the run approves it.

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buildaura.management/payroll

Payroll: September run

Draft, calculated

Attendance locked on approval

Site engineer
Staff, 29.5 of 30 days
₹38,085
PF, ESI −₹3,915
Mason, Riverside Heights
Labour, 26 days + 9 hrs overtime
₹25,676
PF, ESI −₹194
Helper, two sites
Labour, 24 days
₹15,483
PF, ESI −₹117

Net pay, 3 people

₹79,244

Approve

Payslip, September

PS/2026-27/000184

Earnings

Basic₹21,000
HRA₹8,400
Special allowance₹12,600
Loss of pay, 0.5 day−₹700

Deductions

Provident fund₹2,520
Professional tax₹200
Advance instalment₹1,000

Net pay₹37,580

PF ECR file readyEPFO text format

Note A: Approving a run locks that month's attendance and leave against edits.
Note B: Maker-checker: whoever prepares the run cannot approve it.
Note C: Payslips are numbered by financial year and published to each employee's own login.

Illustration with sample data.

What payroll covers

Salary structures for staff: Build components such as Basic and HRA as a percentage of total, a percentage of basic, a fixed amount or the remainder, and mark each as taxable, counted for PF or ESI, and reduced for unpaid days.
Daily wages by skill and site: Set daily rates per skill, with site-specific rates that override the company default. Labour overtime is paid from recorded hours at a multiplier, 2× by default, with a warning if you set it lower.
Pay from attendance and leave: Present days count in full and half days as half. Paid leave is paid, unpaid leave shows as loss of pay, and holidays follow your settings.
Labour cost by site: A worker who moved between sites is costed to each project for the days worked there.
PF, ESI and TDS: PF with the employee and employer split and wage ceilings, ESI with the eligibility limit, and monthly TDS for staff under the old or new regime. Professional Tax slabs are included for Gujarat and Maharashtra.
Advances repaid in instalments: Employees request salary advances, someone else approves them, and they are recovered in monthly instalments from later runs.
Pay the way you pay today: Pay by bank transfer, cheque, cash or site petty cash, in part or in full, and hold anyone's pay until it is released. Payments post to the project's books.
Registers and filing files: Salary register, muster-cum-wage register, year-to-date summary, PF ECR in EPFO's text format, the ESI contribution file, PT return data and the TDS 24Q annexure. Anyone missing a UAN, ESIC number or PAN is listed, not silently skipped.

A payroll run

1
Set up pay profiles
Mark each person as staff or labour, with PF and ESI numbers, tax regime and payment mode.
2
Calculate
The run reads the month's attendance and leave. Missing rates, missing punch-outs and negative pay are flagged before it can be submitted.
3
Approve
Someone other than the preparer approves it, and the month's attendance locks.
4
Pay
Record payments by bank, cheque, cash or petty cash.
5
Publish
Payslips go to each employee's login, and the registers and filing files are ready to download.

Who uses it

HR or accounts: Prepares the run, fixes flagged issues and records payments.
Owner: Approves the run and sees labour cost by project.
Employees: See their own payslips, yearly pay history and tax summary, and request advances.

Good to know

Payroll is switched on per company in Settings.
Salary amounts are hidden from anyone without the View Salary Amounts permission, even if they can work on payroll.

Common questions

Does BuildAura file PF and ESI returns?

It prepares the files: the PF ECR in EPFO's text format and the ESI contribution file. You upload them on the government portals.

Which states' Professional Tax is included?

Gujarat and Maharashtra slabs are included.

Can supervisors pay wages at the site?

Yes. A supervisor with the Pay Site Wages permission can pay labour from petty cash on the projects they are assigned to.

Can employees see their payslips?

Yes. Published payslips appear in each employee's own login, along with their yearly pay history and a summary of tax deducted.

Ask about payroll

Tell us how you handle this today, or what you need it to do. We'll answer on the phone or by email.

Works with

Guides

Geofenced attendance on construction sites: how it works and where it fails

See BuildAura on one of your own projects

Bring a real site. In the demo we walk one purchase from the site's request to the payment, using your materials and your way of working, and answer questions on setup and pricing.

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