Work Week, Timezone & Fiscal Year

These foundational settings determine how Udyamo HRMS calculates working days, interprets timestamps, processes payroll cycles, and organizes financial data. Getting them right at the outset prevents cascading errors in attendance records, leave calculations, and payroll processing. This chapter covers work week configuration, timezone selection, date format preferences, pay schedule settings, and the fiscal year start month.

What You Will Learn

• How to configure the work week (working days and weekly offs)
• How to set your organization's timezone
• How to choose a date display format
• How to configure the pay schedule (pay day)
• How to set the fiscal year start month
• How each setting impacts payroll, leave, and attendance

Prerequisites

Required: You must be logged in with an Administrator role.

Required: Complete Chapter 5: Organization Profile & Branding before proceeding. The Organization settings page is where most of these configurations live.

Accessing These Settings

All settings covered in this chapter are on the Organization settings page.

1. Log in to Udyamo HRMS.
2. Click Settings in the navigation sidebar.
3. Click Organization.
4. Scroll to the relevant section for each setting.

Work Week Configuration

The work week defines which days of the week are working days and which are weekly offs (non-working days). This is one of the most important settings in the system.

What the Work Week Affects

Configuring the Work Week

1. Navigate to Settings > Organization.
2. Find the Work Week section.
3. You will see a row of seven days: Monday through Sunday.
4. For each day, mark it as a Working Day or Weekly Off.
5. Click Save.

Common Work Week Patterns in India

Note: For the 5.5-day or alternate Saturday patterns, mark Saturday as a working day in the work week configuration. Manage the half-day or alternate pattern through shift and attendance policies. See Chapter 14: Creating & Assigning Shifts for more details.

Example Configuration

5-day work week:

6-day work week:

Warning: Changing the work week after employees have started recording attendance or taking leave can cause inconsistencies. The change applies going forward, but historical records are not recalculated. Plan your work week carefully before going live.

Tip: If different departments or offices follow different work week patterns (e.g., the factory works 6 days but the head office works 5 days), you may need to manage this through shift configurations rather than the global work week setting.

Timezone

The timezone setting ensures that all timestamps in Udyamo HRMS — check-in/check-out times, leave application dates, payroll processing dates — are interpreted correctly.

Setting the Timezone

1. Navigate to Settings > Organization.
2. Find the Timezone field.
3. Select your timezone from the dropdown list.
4. Click Save.

Common Timezones for Indian Organizations

Warning: Almost all Indian organizations should select Asia/Kolkata (Indian Standard Time). Selecting the wrong timezone causes every timestamp in the system to be offset, making attendance records, leave dates, and payroll calculations incorrect.

What the Timezone Affects

Warning: Set the timezone before any employee records attendance or applies for leave. Changing the timezone after data has been recorded does not retroactively adjust existing timestamps, which can cause confusion.

Date Format

The date format setting controls how dates are displayed across the entire Udyamo HRMS interface, including reports, payslips, and employee-facing screens.

Selecting the Date Format

1. Navigate to Settings > Organization.
2. Find the Date Format field.
3. Select your preferred format from the dropdown.
4. Click Save.

Available Date Formats

Tip: For Indian organizations, DD/MM/YYYY or DD-MMM-YYYY are the most natural choices. The DD-MMM-YYYY format is particularly useful because it eliminates the day/month ambiguity that occurs with purely numeric formats.

What the Date Format Affects

• All date fields displayed in the user interface
• Dates shown on payslips (PDF and on-screen)
• Report headers and date columns
• Leave application and approval dates
• Employee profile dates (date of birth, date of joining)

Note: The date format is a display setting only. It does not affect how dates are stored internally. You can change it at any time without affecting existing data.

Pay Schedule

The pay schedule determines the day of the month on which employees are paid. This setting is used by the payroll module to determine pay period boundaries and payment dates.

Configuring the Pay Schedule

1. Navigate to Settings > Organization.
2. Find the Pay Schedule or Pay Day field.
3. Enter the day of the month (1-30) on which salaries are typically disbursed.
4. Click Save.

Pay Day Options

How the Pay Schedule Affects Payroll

Tip: Choose a pay day that gives your finance team enough time to process attendance, calculate deductions, and run the payroll after the month ends. A pay day of the 5th or 7th of the following month is a practical choice for most organizations.

Warning: If you change the pay day mid-cycle, communicate the change to all employees well in advance. Unexpected changes to salary payment dates can cause financial hardship for employees.

Fiscal Year Start Month

The fiscal year start month defines the beginning of your organization's financial year cycle. This is a critical setting that affects leave accruals, payroll summaries, tax calculations, and all financial reports.

Setting the Fiscal Year Start Month

1. Navigate to Settings > Organization.
2. Find the Fiscal Start Month field.
3. Select the appropriate month from the dropdown.
4. Click Save.

Common Fiscal Year Configurations

Warning: For Indian statutory compliance (income tax, EPF, ESIC), the fiscal year is April to March. Even if your internal reporting uses a different cycle, ensure that statutory reports align with the Indian financial year. Set the fiscal start month to April unless you have a specific reason not to.

What the Fiscal Year Affects

Warning: Changing the fiscal year start month after the system has been in use for a full year can cause significant complications with leave balances, tax calculations, and compliance reports. Set this correctly during initial setup and avoid changing it.

Fiscal Year and Leave Balance Example

If the fiscal year starts in April and an employee's annual Earned Leave entitlement is 18 days:

At the start of the next fiscal year (April), the leave balance is either carried over (up to the carry-over limit) or reset, depending on the leave policy configuration.

Settings Summary

All settings covered in this chapter are found on the same Organization settings page. Here is a consolidated view.

Tips & Best Practices

Tip: Configure all five settings in this chapter during your first session. They take only a few minutes to set and are foundational to everything else in the system.

Tip: If your organization follows Indian labor law and tax regulations, use these values: Work Week per your actual schedule, Timezone = Asia/Kolkata, Date Format = DD/MM/YYYY or DD-MMM-YYYY, Fiscal Start Month = April.

Warning: Do not experiment with these settings in your production organization. If you need to test different configurations, create a separate test organization.

Tip: Document your chosen settings and the rationale behind them. When a new administrator takes over, they will need to understand why the system is configured the way it is.

Warning: The work week, timezone, and fiscal year settings are best configured once and left unchanged. If business requirements force a change, plan the transition carefully and communicate it to all stakeholders.

Tip: After saving these settings, verify them by checking a few areas of the system: open the attendance calendar to confirm working days are marked correctly, check that dates display in the expected format, and confirm the fiscal year period in any available report.

Quick Reference