Key takeaways
- For a ten-person Indian firm, salary-day chaos comes from attendance split across gate register, supervisor memory, and head-office spreadsheet.
- Free or low cost HRMS is realistic for ten employees, but multi-location attendance fragmentation, not software price, is the real barrier.
- Compare vendors by minimum billable headcount, inactive-employee billing, statutory computation from your salary structure, filing support, and clean data export.
- Shortlist Indian HRMS tools with permanent free editions or entry plans, then confirm current employee caps and whether payroll is included.
The real problem: salary day on the 1st, and attendance lives in three places
Short answer: For a ten-person Indian firm, salary day chaos stems from attendance data split across a gate register, a supervisor's phone memory, and a head-office spreadsheet. The founder then reconciles overtime slips, disputed late marks, and new-joiner documents at night, so payroll errors damage trust more than software costs.
Yes, a free or low cost HRMS for a 10 person company in India is realistic. Indian vendors publish free editions and entry plans that cover attendance, leave and payroll, so price is rarely the barrier. The real barrier is that ten employees usually means two or three locations, and the attendance record is split across a gate register, a supervisor's memory and a head-office spreadsheet.
At ten employees the cost of manual HR is not money — it is the founder's evenings and the goodwill lost every time a salary comes out wrong. The work is split across too many hands: the manager at one site ticks a register, a shift supervisor agrees to leave over a phone call, and someone at head office assembles all of it the night before payroll.
What goes wrong is specific. A helper's overtime for the last week of the month sits on a slip that never reaches head office. A late mark gets disputed because the register shows a tick and nobody knows who made it. A new joiner's Aadhaar and PAN copies sit in a WhatsApp chat, and when a vendor audit or a bank asks for proof, the file is a shoebox. Record-keeping duties in India rest on exactly these documents — attendance, wage registers, leave — and they are the ones most likely to be missing.
None of this is a discipline problem. It is a data problem: the same fact gets written down in three places by three people, and no version agrees with the others.
Buying questions for a ten-person company
Short answer: Compare what a vendor charges for, what it files, and how it supports payroll failure. Ask the minimum billable headcount, whether inactive or exiting staff are billed full month, if statutory computations come from your salary structure, which returns are filed, and whether data exports cleanly when you leave.
The useful comparison is not free versus paid, and not a feature count. It is what the vendor charges you for, what it actually files on your behalf, and how it behaves on the day payroll fails. Below is the comparison in the form you can carry into a demo call, one row per item, with the question that gets a straight answer.
What to compare before choosing an HRMS for a ten-person company What to compare What it means Ask the vendor Pricing model Per employee per month, or a slab What is the minimum billable headcount? Free tier versus trial Permanent free edition, or a timed trial Is the free plan free forever, and what is its employee cap? Inactive employees People on long unpaid leave, or exiting mid-month Are they billed for the full month? Statutory computation PF, ESI, professional tax and salary TDS worked out from the salary structure Does it compute these from my structure, or do I enter them? Statutory filing Whether the product submits returns and challans, or only calculates Which returns does it file, and which sit with my accountant? Attendance capture Biometric, mobile GPS, or web punch Does it work on a mid-range Android phone on patchy data? Multi-location billing One login across sites versus separate billing per branch Is each location billed separately? Data location and export Where employee records sit, and how you get them out What is the region, and can I export everything if I leave? Support on salary day The channel and the response window Who answers if payroll fails on the 1st? Payslip language Whether staff can read a payslip in their own language Which languages are available out of the box?The shortlist: free and low-cost options that actually exist
Short answer: Indian HR software vendors offer permanent free editions, timed trials, or entry plans covering attendance, leave, and payroll for small teams. Shortlist two or three by checking current employee caps, whether payroll is included or separate, and if the free plan remains free forever.
Five tools are worth a demo at ten employees, and each one is priced differently. Free-tier caps, entry pricing and tier status below were checked on vendor pricing pages on 1 June 2025; vendor caps change without notice, so re-confirm each one on the pricing page before you sign anything. Treat the list as a starting shortlist, not a ranking.
Zoho People — free edition, free forever
Zoho People publishes a permanent free edition rather than a trial, capped at a small headcount, with per-employee-per-month paid plans above it. The free tier covers employee records, attendance and leave; payroll is a separate Zoho product and is not part of the free edition. Confirm the current employee cap, since that cap is the whole decision for a ten-person team.
greytHR — free plan for very small teams, then per-employee paid plans
greytHR publishes a free plan aimed at small headcounts and paid plans billed per employee per month with a minimum billable headcount. Its paid payroll plans are marketed around statutory processing and filing, which is the main difference between it and a plain attendance app. Confirm the free plan's cap and the minimum headcount on the paid tiers.
Keka — trial only, no free-forever tier
Keka runs on a free trial rather than a permanent free plan, then moves to per-employee-per-month pricing with a minimum number of employees on the contract. It is positioned as a full HR suite covering core HR, attendance, payroll and hiring, so for a ten-person team it sits at the upper end of 'low cost'. Confirm trial length and the minimum employee count.
RazorpayX Payroll — a small free band, then per-employee pricing
RazorpayX Payroll publishes a free band for very small teams and switches to per-employee-per-month billing above it. The product markets itself as computing and filing PF, ESI, professional tax and salary TDS as part of payroll. Ask for that in writing, naming the specific returns, and confirm the current free band.
sumHR — trial, then per-employee pricing
sumHR offers a trial period rather than a free-forever plan, with per-employee-per-month pricing afterwards. Its coverage leans towards attendance, leave and payroll essentials for small teams. Ask whether the entry plan includes statutory filing or only computation, and confirm trial length.
Free forever versus trial only, in one line: Zoho People's free edition and greytHR's free plan are free forever within their caps; Keka and sumHR are trial-then-paid; RazorpayX Payroll's free band is a starter band.
For a ten-person company, the realistic shortlist is Zoho People's free edition, greytHR's free plan, or RazorpayX Payroll's free band, depending on whether you need payroll built in. If payroll matters more than attendance, greytHR or RazorpayX Payroll are the stronger candidates; if attendance and leave alone are enough, Zoho People's free edition is the most straightforward.
Disclosure: AnudaHRM, sold by this website, offers a separate free five-employee setup and a ₹30 per employee per month paid tier, but it is not part of this neutral comparison. Evaluate it on its own merits alongside the five tools above if you wish.
The manual process against the software process, line by line
Short answer: Manual payroll means handwritten registers, phone approvals, and a head-office spreadsheet rebuilt monthly by the founder. Software replaces that with one employee record, digital attendance capture, approved leave, and payroll calculated from the same data. The line-by-line gain is one source of truth instead of three conflicting versions.
The honest comparison is not how many features you get. It is how many times the same fact gets written down, and by how many people, before it reaches a payslip. Each of the five failures below belongs to a different person at a different moment in the month, which is why buying software removes the failure and buying a template does not.
The security guard at the gate. He ticks a name on the register as the shift changes, and the register stays in the cabin until someone carries it to head office. The failure moment arrives on the 30th, when the second week's page is missing or the ticks are unreadable. With GPS attendance on a phone, the punch is the record, and no page has to survive a journey.
The shift supervisor on the phone. A worker calls at eleven at night asking for a day off, the supervisor says yes, and nobody writes it down. The failure moment is the 1st, when the payslip shows a deduction the worker disputes and the supervisor cannot date the call. A leave module keeps the request, the approval and the balance on one line, with a timestamp.
The accountant at head office. On the last evening of the month she rebuilds the salary sheet from scratch, working the PF and ESI components by hand and asking a colleague to cross-check. The failure moment is a transposed digit that surfaces as a complaint a week later. Software holds the salary structure once and pulls the month's attendance into it.
The new joiner and the folder of photocopies. Documents are collected by the branch, filed by branch, and lost when the person transfers. The failure moment is a vendor audit or a bank query, when the proof exists somewhere but cannot be produced on the day. Digital onboarding keeps the offer, the documents and the verification inside one employee record instead of a folder.
The labour inspector or the lender at the counter. Wage and attendance registers are reconstructed only when someone asks for them, which is the worst possible time. The failure moment is an inspection with a deadline attached. Software keeps these registers as a by-product of daily use, ready to export.
Statutory coverage: what these tools calculate, and what they file
Short answer: Most low-cost Indian HR tools calculate provident fund, employee state insurance, professional tax, and salary tax deducted at source from your salary structure. Filing is separate: some products submit returns and challans, while others only compute figures your accountant files. Confirm each return and challan before relying on the software.
Most low-cost Indian HRMS products compute statutory deductions from the salary structure you configure, and far fewer file the returns. Under the Employees' Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952, coverage is mandatory for employees whose wages fall at or below the monthly ceiling notified by the EPFO under Section 2(f) read with Section 6; above that ceiling, PF coverage is generally a choice made by the employer and employee, not an automatic obligation, unless the establishment has opted for wider coverage under the Act. ESI applies to employees below the wage ceiling notified by the ESIC under the ESI Act, 1948. Professional tax is a state levy, and every state runs its own rule.
Take Maharashtra as the state example. Professional tax there is deducted from salary under the Maharashtra State Tax on Professions, Trades, Callings and Employments Act, 1975, at slabs published by the state, and the employer deposits it with the state government. Source: the Act text and the state's profession tax schedule. The moment you operate in a second state, the slab and the return change, which is why a vendor's answer on multi-state professional tax matters more than its feature list.
On salary TDS, the obligation sits under Section 192 of the Income-tax Act: the employer deducts tax at source on salary and files the statement of deduction. A payroll tool can compute the deduction, but the filed return is the employer's responsibility, whether done in-product or by your accountant.
So split the question in two when you talk to a vendor. Computation: does the tool derive PF, ESI, professional tax and TDS from the structure you already use, with a human review step before payslips are released? Filing: does it upload the PF ECR, the ESI return, the state professional tax return and the TDS statement, or does it hand you figures to file elsewhere? greytHR, Keka and RazorpayX Payroll market filing support in their payroll plans; Zoho People's free edition has no payroll; for sumHR, ask directly. Get the answer in writing, naming the returns.
The checklist before you sign up for anything
Short answer: Before signing, verify the free plan's employee cap, whether payroll costs extra, how attendance works on mid-range Android phones with patchy data, and if multiple locations need separate billing. Test data export, check who answers on salary day, and confirm payslip languages your staff can read.
Run this before you commit, free or paid, because the migration costs more time than the subscription costs money. It takes one afternoon. The three groups below are ordered by when they happen, not by importance.
Before you export anything
- Pull your last three months of attendance and salary sheets, in whatever messy form they exist, and try importing them into the demo account.
- Check that employee documents are stored against the employee, not against a branch — people transfer between sites.
- Write down the breakpoint at which you will review the decision: a second location, attendance that changes what someone is paid, or a client asking for records.
Before you sign the contract
- Confirm the tool computes PF, ESI, professional tax and salary TDS from the salary structure you already use, and lets a human review before payslips are released.
- Get the filing answer in writing, naming each return, and note which ones your accountant still owns.
- Ask what happens to your data if you stop using the product, and confirm you can export it.
- Check whether a second location is billed separately, and whether inactive employees are counted in the monthly bill.
After you sign
- Test what happens when two people edit the same day's attendance.
- Run one full payroll cycle in parallel with your existing method before you abandon the spreadsheet.
- Decide who owns the tool internally — software does not assign that.
Limits of HR software: when a notebook still works
Short answer: Software will not fix unclear reporting, a supervisor who approves leave verbally, or employees who ignore punch rules. A notebook remains fine for a tiny team working one shift at one site with stable attendance. Buy software only when multiple locations, shifts, or statutory payroll records create real reconciliation work.
Software cannot settle whether a worker actually turned up, and it cannot decide whether a contractor's crew belongs on your rolls or the contractor's. Those are judgement calls. The four labour codes and the ESIC contribution rules are written for the employer to apply, not for a tool to interpret, and a vendor's sales demo will not transfer that responsibility to the vendor.
What a dashboard gives you is a record of punches, leaves and deductions — it does not give you discipline, attendance culture, or a supervisor who actually enforces the rules. An org chart in software does not resolve reporting confusion; it just displays the confusion more neatly. The trade-off is real: software solves the record-keeping problem, not the management problem. If you buy it expecting the tool to make people show up on time or to decide who is an employee versus a contractor, you have bought the wrong thing.
There is also a real case for doing nothing yet. If everyone works in one room, the founder signs a single attendance sheet each evening, salaries barely change month to month, and no client has ever asked for a document, a notebook and a competent accountant are enough. The case for software starts at the first breakpoint: a second location, or attendance that changes what someone is paid. Both arrive before any headcount target does.
The outcome: what the 1st of the month looks like two months later
Short answer: Two months later, salary day on the 1st becomes a short review instead of an all-night rebuild. Attendance, leave, and overtime already sit in one system, so the founder approves a calculated payroll, checks exceptions, and releases payslips. Disputes shrink because every deduction traces to a visible record.
The first change is that salary day stops being a reconstruction job. Attendance is already recorded, leave balances are already approved, and running payroll becomes a review rather than an entry exercise. The second change is quieter: when an auditor, a bank or a vendor asks for records, someone exports them in a few minutes instead of promising to send them next week.
Picture a three-branch pharmacy chain in Nagpur with about a dozen staff, two of them part-time. Same fourteen people, same monthly salary outgo, same two part-time helpers whose hours used to be disputed — but the founder is no longer the layer that holds the whole thing together.
Sources
Short answer: Check vendor pricing pages, official provident fund and tax department portals, and a local payroll accountant's written confirmation. For feature claims, read the vendor's own product documentation and current terms, then verify employee caps yourself. Government labour department guidance clarifies record-keeping duties.
- Income Tax Department — Returns Applicable to an Individual — Income Tax Department, Government of India
- ESIC — Contribution — Employees' State Insurance Corporation
- Ministry of Labour & Employment — Labour Law Reforms — Ministry of Labour & Employment, Government of India
Official references, checked on 25 September 2026. Statutory rates and thresholds change — confirm against the source before acting on them.
Frequently Asked QuestionsIs a free HRMS actually enough for a 10-person company in India?For attendance, leave and document storage, usually yes — a small team rarely needs more than that. The gap appears at payroll, where statutory deductions have to be computed correctly and records kept, so check whether the tool handles payroll and exports rather than attendance alone. If it does not, you still need a second process alongside it.
Do we need digital KYC for employees, or is a photocopy enough?A photocopy works until you have to prove who verified it and when. Keeping the document, the verification and the date inside the employee record makes that answer immediate, and it makes onboarding at a second branch identical to onboarding at head office. The same records are what an auditor or a lender will eventually ask for.
Can one person handle HR and payroll for 10-20 employees without a dedicated HR hire?Yes, if the data is entered once and reused. Small teams struggle not because of volume but because of duplication — attendance ticked in a register, retyped into a spreadsheet, then typed again into a payslip. Removing the retyping is what actually returns the hours.
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