Free employee attendance register (Excel)
A month of daily attendance for your whole team on one sheet. Mark each day present, absent, sick, annual leave or bank holiday, and the monthly totals count themselves.
Employee attendance register
Excel format (.xlsx) • Ready to download
No signup required. Works with Excel, Google Sheets and LibreOffice.
This template is a record-keeping tool, not legal or payroll advice. It does not calculate minimum wage, holiday pay or statutory sick pay for you, and it does not check working time limits. Check GOV.UK, or take advice, before relying on a spreadsheet for compliance. It does not constitute legal, HR, or professional advice and should not be relied on as a substitute for advice specific to your business, workforce, or circumstances.
Roster and track hours in one place
A timesheet only records what already happened. Roster the shifts first and the hours record themselves — free, no signup.
What's in this template
A formula-backed monthly attendance sheet
Employee name and role
One row per person, with space for a payroll number or job title beside the name.
A full calendar month
Every day of the month runs across the top, with weekends shaded and Monday-start weeks.
Drop-down absence codes
Each cell is a validated drop-down, so nobody invents a new code halfway down the sheet.
Automatic code totals
COUNTIF columns tally days present, absent, sick and on leave for each person as you type.
Bank holidays pre-marked
England and Wales bank holidays are shaded, with a note on where Scotland and Northern Ireland differ.
A notes column
Room to record the reason for an absence — which is what you will need if it becomes a pay or SSP question.
How attendance is recorded
Each employee gets a row and each day a column. Mark every cell with a code — P present, A unauthorised absence, S sick, AL annual leave, BH bank holiday, TOIL time off in lieu. The totals on the right update as you go.
| Employee | Mon 5 | Tue 6 | Wed 7 | Thu 8 | Fri 9 | Present | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Priya Sharma | P | P | S | S | P | 3 | Self-certified, SSP from day 1 |
| Callum Reid | P | P | P | AL | AL | 3 | Annual leave, approved 12 Aug |
| Bea Okoro | P | A | P | P | P | 4 | No contact — return-to-work needed |
Keep the reason in the notes column, not just the code. A run of S days is a sick pay question; a run of A days is a conduct one, and six months later the code alone will not tell you which it was.
How to create an attendance register in Excel
Four steps if you would rather build your own
1. Set up the grid
Names down column A, calendar dates across row 3. Freeze the top rows and the name column so both stay visible as you scroll.
2. Add the code list
Put your codes on a second sheet and point Data Validation at them, so every cell becomes a drop-down and typos cannot creep in.
3. Add the totals
Use =COUNTIF(range,"P") for days present and repeat it for each code. One column per code, at the right-hand end of the row.
4. Shade weekends and bank holidays
Conditional formatting on the date row keeps non-working days visually distinct, so a blank Saturday does not read as an absence.
Rather not build it? The template above already has the grid, the validated drop-downs, the COUNTIF totals and the bank holiday shading.
Who uses this template
UK teams keeping a daily attendance record
Pubs, cafés and restaurants
Track no-shows and last-minute absence across a rotating front-of-house team.
Retail
Keep an absence record across several shop floors without a separate system per site.
Schools and training providers
A simple staff register alongside whatever system already covers pupils or learners.
A register answers who was here. It says nothing about how long they worked — for that you need a weekly timesheet, and for the 48-hour average you need the staff hours tracker.
When marking a register stops being enough
A register is filled in by a manager, from memory, usually at the end of the week. RosterElf records attendance as it happens — clock-in, clock-out, and absence flagged the moment someone does not arrive.
Absence and sick pay
What to do with what the register shows you
Statutory sick pay
What SSP is worth, when it starts, and what you need in the absence record to pay it.
Read the guideThe Bradford Factor
Scoring short, frequent absences — and the trap of using the score as an automatic trigger.
Read the guideEmployee records and UK GDPR
How long to keep each kind of record, and the lawful basis for holding it.
Read the guideMore free UK templates and tools
The rest of the set
Free rota templates
Weekly, monthly, rolling and blank staff rotas in Excel — the planning side of the same job.
Browse the rotasHoliday entitlement calculator
Pro-rata 5.6 weeks for part-time, irregular and part-year workers.
Open the calculatorAll free UK tools
Calculators and generators for planning and costing your workforce.
See all toolsAttendance register FAQ
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Put employee names down the first column and the calendar dates across the top row. Mark each cell with a code, then use
=COUNTIF()at the end of each row to total the days per code. Freeze the header row and the name column so both stay on screen. The four steps above walk through it, or download the template and skip the build. -
P present, A unauthorised absence, S sick, AL annual leave, BH bank holiday, TOIL time off in lieu and UNP unpaid leave. The same seven codes are used across every template on this shelf, so a manager moving between them is not relearning them.
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Yes. Upload the .xlsx to Google Drive and open it with Google Sheets — the drop-downs, the COUNTIF totals and the conditional formatting all carry over. It works in LibreOffice Calc too.
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Yes. Insert rows inside the existing block rather than adding them underneath the last row, and the COUNTIF formulas extend automatically. If you add rows below the table you will need to drag the formulas down.
Before you download
General information only — not legal advice
This document is a general HR template provided for informational purposes only. It is not legal advice and may not reflect the latest changes in legislation or apply to every workplace situation. RosterElf Pty Ltd and the template provider accept no liability for any loss arising from reliance on this document. Users should seek independent legal advice and customise the template to ensure it complies with all relevant laws and workplace requirements.