Payroll & attendance (India)
Loss of pay (LOP) calculator
LOP is the most error-prone line in Indian payroll because it depends entirely on the attendance record. The arithmetic itself takes three inputs.
- Per-day salary
- ₹2,000
- LOP deduction
- ₹4,000
- Payable after LOP
- ₹56,000
Runs entirely in your browser — nothing you type is sent or stored. Indicative arithmetic, not legal, payroll or tax advice.
The formula
- Per-day salary = monthly gross ÷ divisor days
- LOP deduction = per-day salary × LOP days
The divisor decides more than the days do
The same two LOP days deduct ₹4,000 with a 30-day divisor and ₹5,455 with a 22-working-day divisor on a ₹60,000 gross. Neither is wrong — but the policy must name one convention and payroll must apply it every month. Divisor drift between months is how identical absences produce different deductions and destroy trust in payroll.
Under the Code on Wages, 2019, deductions for absence from duty are permitted but must be proportionate to the absence. LOP is a proportionate absence deduction — it must never be used as a disguised fine, which is a separately regulated (and mostly prohibited) category.
Preventing wrongful LOP
Most wrongful deductions trace to a missed punch or an unfiled regularisation, not to a real absence. The fix is procedural: give employees visibility of their pending unaccounted days before the payroll cut-off, with a regularisation window that closes a few days before the cycle locks. A deduction the employee saw coming and could contest is a policy; one they discover on pay day is a grievance.
Stop calculating this by hand
Workclave computes LOP from approved sessions and leave records, shows employees their unaccounted days before the cycle locks, and keeps the trail that makes every deduction defensible.
Loss of pay (LOP) calculator — common questions
Which salary base should LOP deduct from — gross or basic?
Most Indian policies deduct from monthly gross (or a defined LOP base that mirrors the earning components). Deducting from basic alone understates the absence; the policy should name the base explicitly and payroll should reference it.
Can LOP days also reduce the weekly off?
Some policies treat absence adjacent to a weekly off as consuming the off day too (the 'sandwich' rule). It compounds the deduction and is a frequent source of disputes — if you apply it, it must be written, communicated and applied uniformly.
Is there a legal limit on total deductions?
Yes. The Code on Wages caps total deductions in a wage period at 50% of wages. Absence deductions must also stay proportionate to the period of absence. Large accumulated recoveries need to be spread across cycles.
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