Absent, half day and how daily status is set
Updated 2026-11-07
What it is
Every employee gets one status per day. PunchMe sets it from their punches and your settings. Two settings control most of it:
- Mark absent after decides when people with no punch are marked absent.
- Half day below (hours) decides when a short day becomes a half day.
The status matters because payroll uses it. An absent day is one day of loss of pay. A half day is half a day of loss of pay. See Payroll.
Who uses it
| Who | What | Permission |
|---|---|---|
| Admin or HR | Change the two settings | settings.edit |
| HR or manager | See daily status, edit a day | attendance.view, attendance.manage |
| Employee | Sees their status in the app's Attendance tab | None |
Where to find it
- Settings: Settings, Work policy card. Fields Mark absent after and Half day below (hours).
- Daily status: Attendance, Daily tab. Pick a date and filter by status.
- Employee app: Attendance tab shows a month calendar coloured by status.
How each status is set
| Status | When |
|---|---|
| Present | Checked in on time |
| Late | Checked in after shift start plus grace minutes |
| Half day | Checked out with fewer worked hours than Half day below (hours) |
| Absent | No punch by the Mark absent after time, or a flagged punch was rejected |
| On leave | Approved leave for that day |
| Holiday | Set by HR when editing a day |
Present or late
The status is set at check-in. If the check-in time is strictly after shift start plus grace minutes, the day is Late. Otherwise it's Present. With a 9:30 shift and 10 grace minutes, 9:40 is present and 9:41 is late. If the employee has no shift, every check-in is Present. See Shifts.
Half day
The half-day check runs once, at check-out:
- PunchMe counts the minutes from check-in to check-out.
- If the day is Present or Late and the worked time is below Half day below (hours), the day becomes Half day.
Example: threshold 4 hours, check-in 9:30, check-out 13:00. That is 3 h 30 min, so the day is a half day.
A half day replaces Late. Payroll counts a half day as half a day of loss of pay.
Absent
After the Mark absent after time each day, PunchMe looks at every active employee who has no attendance record for today. For each one:
- If they have approved leave today, the day is marked On leave.
- If today is an office day for them, the day is marked Absent.
- Otherwise nothing is written.
It skips:
- Days that are not working days for the company
- Holidays for the whole company or for the employee's home office
- Work-from-home days, including the WFH days of hybrid staff
- Employees whose joining date is after today
The job runs every 15 minutes, so the mark appears within 15 minutes after the time you set. It runs once per day per company.
Turning it on or off
| Setting | Default | Off |
|---|---|---|
| Mark absent after | 20:00 | Leave blank. Nobody is ever auto-marked absent. |
| Half day below (hours) | 4 | Set to 0. No day becomes a half day automatically. |
Half day below (hours) accepts 0 to 24, in steps of 0.5.
What happens when it's on
- People who never show up get Absent without HR doing anything, so payroll is ready at month end.
- Short days become Half day at check-out, with no manual review.
What happens when it's off
- With Mark absent after blank, a day with no punch simply has no record. The Daily tab won't list that person for the day. Payroll does not count a day with no record as loss of pay, so missed days are paid unless HR marks them absent by hand.
- With the threshold at 0, short days stay Present or Late.
Changing it midway
- Changing the absent time takes effect from the next run. If today's run already happened, the new time applies from tomorrow.
- Changing the half-day threshold only affects check-outs after the change. Past days are not recalculated.
- Late arrivals after auto-absent: if someone is marked absent by the job and checks in later the same day, the check-in still works. The day becomes Present or Late.
- Leave approved after the fact: if a leave is approved for a day the job already marked absent, that day changes to On leave automatically.
- Manual edits win. If HR sets a day's status in the dashboard, or approves a correction, that status is final. PunchMe does not recalculate it.
Limits and edge cases
- Timezone. The absent time is read in each employee's home office timezone. Employees without a home office, or whose office has no timezone set, use the company timezone in Settings.
- Working days for auto-absent come from the company's working days. See Working days and holidays.
- Forgotten check-out. If a check-in stays open for more than 20 hours, PunchMe closes it at the shift end time, or 23:59:59 if there is no shift. The half-day check does not run on these automatic check-outs, so the status stays as it was at check-in.
- Undo checkout. If your company allows undoing a check-out, undoing it also removes a half day that check-out caused. See Punching.
- Rejected flagged punch. Rejecting a punch in Flagged punches marks that day Absent.
- Night shifts. The day belongs to the check-in date. A check-out after midnight still closes the right day.
- Already checked in. An employee who checked in and out can't check in again the same day. They see "You've already checked in today".
Related
Common questions
Someone was marked absent but they were at work.
Usually they forgot to punch, or punched after the absent time on a different device that failed. Ask them to send a correction request, or edit the day yourself under Attendance.
Why is a WFH employee not marked absent when they don't punch?
Auto-absent only marks office days. On work-from-home days, nobody is auto-marked absent. Check their punches on the Daily tab.
Can I set different half-day hours per shift?
No. Half day below (hours) is one value for the whole company.
What time should I pick for Mark absent after?
Pick a time after your latest shift's start plus a buffer, for example 2 to 3 hours. Too early and late arrivals show as absent until they punch.
Does a half day use leave?
No. A half day from short hours is half a day of loss of pay in payroll. If the employee wants it paid, they apply for a half-day leave.