Affordable HR software for Indian small businesses. Replace Excel attendance and WhatsApp leave approvals — auto payslips, PF/ESI compliance even for 10-person teams, zero implementation cost. Self-onboard in a day.
Even a 10-person company in India is legally required to register for PF (EPFO) once it crosses the threshold and for ESI once it has 10 or more employees (20 in some states) with eligible salaries. Many small businesses avoid proper payroll software because they think it's for large companies. Avani is designed from the ground up for small Indian businesses — it handles PF at 12% of basic, ESI for employees earning ≤ ₹21,000/month, TDS under Section 192, and state Professional Tax, whether you have 10 employees or 150. No payroll accountant required.
Most small businesses in India track attendance in a shared Excel sheet — or worse, a physical register. This means LOP calculations are manual, overtime is guessed, and month-end payroll takes the owner or accountant 2 full days. Avani replaces the attendance Excel sheet with mobile attendance (clock-in, clock-out, selfie verification), auto-calculates LOP days, links attendance to payroll, and generates salary slips that already account for actual working days. What used to take 2 days now takes 20 minutes.
Small businesses typically generate salary slips manually in Word or Excel and email them individually — or employees have to ask for them and wait days. Avani auto-generates professional salary slips for every employee the moment payroll is approved. Each slip shows earnings (Basic, HRA, allowances), deductions (PF, ESI, TDS, PT, advance recovery), gross pay, net pay, and company details with PAN and CIN. Employees download their slip from their self-service portal — no HR involvement, no email attachments.
Enterprise HRMS tools like Darwinbox and Keka often require a consultant for implementation — a process that takes weeks and costs ₹50,000–₹2,00,000. Avani is designed for self-onboarding. Sign up, add your company details, import employees from a CSV (or add manually), configure salary structures using pre-built templates, set up your leave policy, and enable attendance. A 30-person business can be fully onboarded in under one hour. The setup wizard guides you through every step.
Small businesses often lack a dedicated HR team — the owner, the accountant, or a single HR executive handles everything. Avani is built for this reality. PF, ESI, TDS, and PT are all calculated automatically. The EPFO ECR file is generated monthly. The ESIC challan amount is computed. TDS data is ready for quarterly returns. You don't need to know the percentage, the threshold, or the filing deadline — Avani handles it and alerts you when action is needed.
In most small businesses, leave requests happen over WhatsApp — and approvals are informal, untracked, and forgotten. This leads to disputes, unpaid leave confusion, and payroll errors. Avani's leave module gives every employee a proper leave balance dashboard (casual, sick, earned), a digital leave application flow, and manager approval via app. Approved leaves sync to attendance and payroll automatically — no manual adjustment. Leave history is auditable and transparent.
Yes, if you have 10 or more employees, ESIC registration is mandatory in most states (20 employees in some). PF registration is mandatory from 20 employees. TDS on salary is mandatory from the first employee if the salary exceeds the basic exemption limit. Many small Indian businesses try to manage this on Excel, which leads to calculation errors, missed filings, and EPFO/ESIC penalties. Avani makes payroll compliance automatic — you don't need to know the rules, the software handles them.
greytHR is primarily a payroll and compliance tool — good, but HR-only. Keka is strong on HR and payroll but is complex to configure and priced per-employee, which gets expensive. Both require some implementation effort. Avani is designed for small businesses that want quick self-onboarding, and it includes CRM, project management, and finance tracking on top of HR and payroll — so you don't need separate tools for your sales team or finance function. For a 20-person business, Avani provides more value at a lower total cost.
Yes, and this is one of the most common reasons small businesses switch to Avani. Mobile attendance with geo-fencing replaces the attendance register or shared Excel. Leave applications via the app replace WhatsApp messages and informal approvals. Manager approvals are one-click from the mobile app. Approved leaves auto-update attendance records, and payroll deducts LOP automatically. Your leave history is stored and auditable — much better than scrolling through chat history.
Avani is free to start — you can sign up, onboard your team, and use the platform without paying anything upfront. Paid plans scale affordably for growing teams. Unlike Keka or greytHR which charge per employee per month (costs that scale quickly), Avani's pricing model is designed to remain affordable as your team grows from 10 to 200 employees. There is no implementation fee, no consultant cost, and no mandatory annual contract to start.
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