Free Attendance Sheet Excel Template and How to Fill It In

An attendance sheet (or timesheet) is a document that records, day by day, whether each employee came to work, was late, didn't show up, was on sick leave or on vacation. In a small team it can be a single sheet, but payroll, discipline and trust between the manager and the team all rest on it.

We've put together a ready-to-use attendance sheet template in Excel. It covers 30 employees, you mark each day of the month with a code, and the totals are calculated automatically by formulas. Below we explain how to use it, which mistakes to avoid and when Excel stops being enough.

What an attendance sheet is and why you need one

An attendance sheet is a daily record of how employees use their working time. Its main job is simple: at the end of the month, you know exactly how many days each person worked and how many they missed.

• Payroll. Your accountant takes the number of days worked from the sheet instead of relying on memory.
• Discipline. You can see at a glance who is regularly late or absent without a reason.
• Sick leave and vacation tracking. Sick days and vacation days don't get mixed up with unexcused absences.
• Evidence in disputes. A written record is more reliable than "I'm sure I was at work that day".
• Planning. You can see on which days and at which branch you're short of people.

Without an attendance sheet, managers and accountants rely on guesswork. And every month, that guesswork turns out to be unfair to someone on the team.

What's inside the template

The file has two sheets. The main work happens on the attendance sheet ("Davomat"), while the instructions sheet ("Ko'rsatma") briefly describes the codes and filling rules. Column labels in the file are in Uzbek; the codes are short Latin letters, listed below.

The attendance sheet

• "Month" and "Year" cells at the top — fill them in at the start of each month.
• "No." — the row number.
• "Full name" — the employee's full name.
• "Position" and "Branch" — handy for sorting and filtering if you have several branches.
• Day columns from 1 to 31 — one code goes into each cell.
• Total columns: "Present", "Late", "Absent", "Sick", "Vacation" — calculated automatically with COUNTIF formulas.
• 30 rows for employees.

Code table

How to fill in the attendance sheet: step by step

1. Download the template and make a copy. Keep the original clean and create a separate file for each month (for example, "Attendance_2026_09.xlsx").
2. Fill in the "Month" and "Year" cells. This prevents confusion once you have many files.
3. Enter your employee list: full name, position and branch. You only need to do this once and then carry it over to the following months.
4. Mark days off in advance. For example, put "D" for all employees on Sundays. If the month has 30 days, leave the 31st column empty.
5. Every day, after the shift starts, fill in the column for that day: "K" for those who came, "KCH" for those who were late, "Y" for those who didn't show up.
6. When you learn about sick leave or vacation, enter "B" or "T". If an absence is later confirmed as sick leave, replace "Y" with "B".
7. At the end of the month, check the total columns and hand the sheet over to accounting. There's nothing to count by hand.

Example: over the month, an employee came on time 20 days, was late twice, missed 1 day without a reason and was on sick leave for 3 days. The totals will automatically show: Present — 22, Late — 2, Absent — 1, Sick — 3.

Practical tips

Fill it in daily, not at the end of the month

The most common problem is a sheet filled in from memory on the last day of the month. Nobody remembers exactly who was late three weeks ago. As a result, everyone gets a "K" — or someone unfairly gets a "Y". Five minutes every morning costs far less than hours of arguments at the end of the month.

Assign one responsible person

When several people take turns filling in the sheet, codes get mixed up and nobody knows who made which change. Assign one responsible person per branch and agree in advance who covers for them when they're away.

Protect the formulas

It's easy to accidentally delete the formulas in the total columns. Use sheet protection in Excel (Review → Protect Sheet): allow editing of the day columns and lock the total columns.

A few more tips

• The day cells in the template already have a drop-down list, and each code is highlighted in its own color — you can't enter a wrong code, and the sheet is readable at a glance.
• Save a PDF copy of the sheet at the end of each month so you always have an unaltered version.
• Write the reason for a late arrival in a cell comment, especially if it keeps happening.
• Keep the file in a shared folder, but give editing rights only to the responsible person.

Common mistakes

• Writing codes in different ways ("K", "k", "+", "here") — the formulas won't count them.
• Leaving days off blank — later it's unclear whether a blank cell is a day off or a forgotten mark.
• Typing a number over a formula — the total looks "right" but no longer depends on the codes.
• Adding a new employee below the last row — the formulas only cover the template's rows.
• Overwriting last month's file — the history is lost and you have nothing to back you up in a dispute.
• Not distinguishing unexcused absence from sick leave — this leads to payroll errors.

Limitations of an Excel attendance sheet

An Excel template is a good start for a small team. But as the number of employees and branches grows, its weak spots become obvious.

• Manual entry. Every code is typed by a person, so errors and gaps are inevitable.
• Disputes. "I came at 9:05, not 9:20" — Excel has nothing to confirm or refute it.
• No proof of presence. The cell simply says "K". There's no way to check whether the employee was actually on site.
• Multiple branches. Each branch has its own file and its own responsible person, and merging them at the end of the month means extra work and new errors.
• Late minutes. The template only records the fact of being late; how many minutes and what fine applies under your rules has to be calculated by hand.
• Copying errors. When you carry the file over from month to month, formulas shift, rows disappear or old data stays behind.

When to switch to automatic attendance tracking

If at least two of the points below sound familiar, your manual attendance sheet is no longer saving time — it's costing you time:

• Filling in and checking the sheet takes several hours every month.
• At the end of the month there are arguments with employees about late arrivals and absences.
• You have two or more branches and have to merge their sheets together.
• You have fines for lateness or bonuses for punctuality, and you calculate them by hand.
• The only way for a manager to know who's at work today is to call around.

In Attendy, every branch has its own QR code. Employees scan it through a Telegram mini app — nothing to install. A check-in is accepted only within 150 meters of the branch and only with the current QR code, suspicious check-ins are flagged, and location is captured only at the moment of scanning.

As a result, today's attendance is visible in real time, late minutes and fines are calculated automatically according to your company's rules, and each branch gets its own schedule (09:00–18:00 by default). At the end of the month, the same kind of monthly sheet is exported to Excel automatically — no manual codes required.

If Excel is enough for now, download the template and fill it in following this guide. The key is consistency: every day, one responsible person and the same codes.