The buffer period is the number of full calendar days after an attendance incident (or after a completed period) before Asanify applies late-arrival or shortage-of-hours penalties configured on your policy. It gives employees time to regularize attendance or fix data before penalization runs.
Step 1 – Know where buffer period is set
Buffer period appears in two places, depending on which rule you use. Both are configured while you create or edit an attendance policy.
Late arrival (Loss of Pay or Loss of Leave): In the policy wizard, open the Shifts step. Under Handling late arrivals, after you indicate that employees are penalised for late arrival and choose LOP or LOL, you will see Buffer Period in days. The heading asks how many days after the incident Loss of Pay or Loss of Leave should apply—the number you enter is the buffer length.
Incomplete work hours (shortage of hours): In the Advance step, under Work Hour Details, if you penalise LOP or LOL for not completing required hours, you will see a separate Buffer Period field for that rule.
When you view an existing policy, these sections appear in the policy detail screen (including Work Hour Details and Handling late arrivals where applicable).
Step 2 – What the buffer period means in practice
Asanify shows an on-screen example: if the buffer is set to 5 days, the employee has 5 full calendar days after the incident to correct or regularise attendance before the penalty process runs for that incident.
Use 0 if penalties should be evaluated without waiting for an extra buffer window (subject to how often your organisation’s attendance penalization job runs).
Higher values give more time for admins and employees to fix or regularise records before late or shortage rules create violations and move toward payroll or leave deductions.
Note: Buffer period is separate from grace minutes for late clock-in (how late someone can clock in before being marked late). Buffer applies after the day is already treated as late or after hours are short—it controls when penalization is evaluated, not the lateness threshold itself.
Step 3 – Late arrival and Loss of Leave (LOL) timing
For late arrival rules:
Loss of Pay (LOP): The buffer days answer “how many days after the late incident should LOP apply?”—meaning the system waits that many days before that late day is included in penalization for your policy.
Loss of Leave (LOL): You set the same Buffer Period, and you can also choose when penalized leaves are deducted—either right after the penalty rule is met and the buffer period ends, or at the end of the payroll cycle, depending on the options shown for your policy. If you use end-of-cycle deduction for LOL, leave balances are updated when the cycle timing matches your rule (including buffer), not necessarily on the day someone was late.
Step 4 – Work hour shortage (monthly or weekly)
For shortage of hours, the buffer is still counted in days, but evaluation happens when a completed week or payroll period lines up with your rule (for example, monthly rules use your entity’s payroll period boundaries). The buffer is the waiting period after that period before the shortage is evaluated for penalties—again so teams can complete corrections before deductions.
Tip: If you use night shift policies, the product applies an extra day adjustment when deciding which calendar date to evaluate, so night-shift teams stay aligned with how workdays are attributed.
Additional Information
Prerequisites
Only users with access to Attendance → Policies can set buffer period (typically admins). If you are new to attendance setup, see As an Admin, how do I set up Leave and Attendance.
Buffer applies only where you have enabled LOP or LOL penalization for late arrival and/or work-hour shortage. If those rules are off, buffer fields do not apply.
Summary
Late arrival: Set under Shifts → Handling late arrivals when LOP or LOL is turned on. It delays penalization tied to late days.
Shortage of hours: Set under Advance → Work Hour Details when LOP or LOL is turned on. It delays penalization tied to shortage over the configured week or payroll period.
Penalization runs on an automated schedule in the background; the buffer defines how many days after the incident (or period) the system is allowed to act, not the exact clock time of a daily job.