Count the working days first
Salary for a part month is paid as monthly salary × paid days ÷ working days. So the number of working days isn't a detail — it sets the value of every day of leave, absence and late deduction.
Take October 2026. It has 31 days, starts on a Thursday, and has five Saturdays (3, 10, 17, 24, 31) and four Sundays.
| Work week | Saturdays worked | Working days |
|---|---|---|
| Monday–Friday | none | 22 |
| 2nd and 4th Saturday off | 3, 17, 31 | 25 |
| 1st and 3rd Saturday off | 10, 24, 31 | 25 |
| Monday–Saturday | all five | 27 |
Take off Gandhi Jayanti (Friday, 2 October) and each line drops by one. Two things stand out:
- The 5th Saturday is a working day under both alternate patterns. "Alternate" means the 1st/3rd or 2nd/4th by count, not every other week — a month with five Saturdays has three working ones.
- The two patterns can give the same total but different dates. That matters when someone applies leave on a Saturday: under 2nd/4th off, 10 October is a holiday; under 1st/3rd off, it's a working day and the leave counts.
Why the divisor matters
Suppose Basic + DA is ₹12,000 and an employee is absent one day without leave in October (24 working days under alternate Saturdays, after the holiday):
| Divisor used | Value of one day |
|---|---|
| Actual working days (24) | ₹500.00 |
| Fixed 26 days | ₹461.54 |
| Calendar days (30 or 31) | ₹400.00 or less |
Each method is used somewhere; what matters is that it is written down and applied the same way every month. If you pay on working days, the working days must come from the real calendar — work week, alternate Saturdays and holidays — not from a number someone types.
Seven-day weeks and Sunday working
Hospitals, retail and many field teams work every day with a weekly off per person instead of a common Sunday. The same rule applies: working days come from that employee's own week. Get the calendar right and the rest of payroll follows.
How KYE HR handles it
Pick the work week once — Monday–Friday, Monday–Saturday, 1st/3rd or 2nd/4th Saturdays off, Sunday working — and add your holiday list. Working days for every month are worked out from that, leave can be blocked on non-working days, and the salary uses the same count. Try the arithmetic in the salary calculator, or see how payroll works.