Six connected sheets. It pays the month, and the same month comes out in Form IV, the wage register the Code on Wages rules actually require. It also runs the 50% wages test, which decides your provident fund base and which no template written before 21 November 2025 can contain.
Fill the shaded cells on two sheets. The register, the summary and the bank list build themselves.
Every rate, ceiling and divisor in one place, each with the rule it comes from. Change a cell and the whole workbook follows.
The identity fields Form IV needs, a yes-or-no for whether each person is in provident fund and in ESI, then the salary structure. Form I, the full Employee Register, asks for thirty-six fields and is its own document. Thirty rows, and everything downstream reads from here.
Days paid, overtime hours and the deductions that are yours to decide. The 50% test sits in five visible columns rather than inside a formula, and the labour codes are why it is there.
The wage register under rule 51, in the gazette's own column order. If you want to see the blank forms first, the statutory register formats reproduce all three.
Gross, deductions, net and cost to company for the month, what you owe EPFO and ESIC, and a transfer list you can hand to your bank.
Attendo (formerly Petpooja Payroll) runs the month and keeps the register as a by-product.
A spreadsheet that adds up is not the same as a spreadsheet that is right. These two defects survive because the arithmetic stays consistent either way.
The first is provident fund. Computing it on basic pay was the right answer until 21 November 2025 and is not the right answer now, so any file built before that date is wrong in a way its own arithmetic cannot show. Wages now means basic plus dearness allowance plus retaining allowance, and it carries a floor: where everything excluded from wages exceeds half of total remuneration, the excess is added back and counts as wages anyway. Where basic is a small share of the package, which is the structure the floor was written to catch, that raises the contribution. The sheet still adds up perfectly while under-deducting, which is why it survives review.
The second is the register. Rule 51 of the Code on Wages (Central) Rules 2026 requires a Register of Wages, Overtime, Advances, Fines and Deductions in Form IV, kept five years from the last entry. A salary sheet in whatever shape somebody invented is not that register, so it becomes a second document to build at the worst possible moment. This one comes out in Form IV, in the gazette's own column order, including the two oddities: total deductions is printed before others, and professional tax has no column of its own.
There is a third thing, and it is the reason this file exists at all rather than the payslip template we built first. Professional tax is a state levy with different slabs in every state that charges it. We have Maharashtra verified from the state's own copy of the Act and we do not have Karnataka or Gujarat. So nothing here computes it. The column is yours, and the state-wise rates and due dates live separately, where they can be corrected without touching anyone's payroll arithmetic.
Every figure in the workbook is recalculated and checked against hand arithmetic before it ships, because a spreadsheet can look immaculate and be wrong. The overtime columns follow the same rules as the overtime calculation template, the contribution figures reconcile with what you file in your EPF returns, and the ESI side assumes you already have an employer code.
Four of the eight sample employees. The only difference between the two provident fund columns is whether the 50% test was run at all.
| Employee | PF with the floor | PF on basic alone | Wages as a share of gross | Gross earned | Sheet |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Suresh Yadav | ₹1,080 | ₹720 | 33% | ₹18,000 | 03 |
| Nisha Pawar | ₹1,800 | ₹1,440 | 25% | ₹48,000 | 03 |
| Ravi Deshmukh | ₹1,800 | ₹1,800 | 63% | ₹27,000 | 03 |
| Meena Salunke | ₹1,800 | ₹1,800 | 25% | ₹60,000 | 03 |
| All eight | ₹12,458 | 05 |
The register of wages the rules prescribe, read column by column off the gazette. Sheet 4 is that form, filled from the month you just ran.
Source: Code on Wages (Central) Rules 2026, Rule 51(1)(ii) and Form IV, G.S.R. 343(E)Where basic and dearness allowance fall under half of total remuneration, the excess is added back and the provident fund base rises with it.
Source: Code on Wages 2019, Section 2(y), in force 21 November 2025From the date of the last entry. The rules allow the register electronically, so this workbook is a compliant way to keep it.
Source: Code on Wages (Central) Rules 2026, Rule 51(4), G.S.R. 343(E) of 8 May 2026The one on this list that costs money rather than paperwork, and the hardest to see. Wages now carry a 50% floor, so where basic is a small share the contribution is higher than basic alone suggests. The sheet still balances, which is why it survives review after review.
Rule 51 names the form. A spreadsheet in a shape somebody invented is not Form IV, however complete it looks, and the gap only shows up when somebody asks for the register.
The order matters. Run the 50% test first, then cap the result at the provident fund ceiling. Capping first and testing afterwards gives a different answer for anyone whose wages sit below the ceiling.
A slab table for one state, copied into a file used in three, quietly deducts the wrong amount for two of them. It is a state levy and it belongs in an input column, not a formula.
The Ministry has confirmed that overtime forms part of the components that go into the 50% test. A heavy overtime month can push somebody over a line they clear comfortably in a normal one, and the overtime template works through the hours side of it.
A file can carry a formula that has never once been evaluated. Ours is recalculated and checked against hand arithmetic every time it is built, and the first run of that check found the settings sheet wired to the wrong cells.
Whatever shape somebody invented
Built from the gazette
Six connected sheets, Form IV included, every figure checked. Short form, instant download.
Attendo, formerly Petpooja Payroll, is payroll and attendance software used by more than 40,000 businesses in India, across manufacturing, corporate offices, hospitality, retail and education. It runs the wages test every month and keeps the register as a by-product. See what it does, or browse every free download we publish.
The register exists because the software made it, not because somebody remembered.
