School office · reference
The registers a school office actually runs on
There is no single national list of registers an Indian school must keep. Your obligations come from your board’s current bye-laws, your state’s education rules and your last inspection, together, not one of them. What follows is the twelve registers a school office runs on in practice: what each records, why it is the spine of something else, and where we could read the requirement in a primary document, its wording.
Edutris is a school management software company, so read the “what Edutris does” lines as coming from an interested party. Three of these twelve stay on paper and we say so.
At a glance
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Registers described | 12 |
| With wording quoted from a primary document | 4 |
| Edutris keeps as a record | 8 of 12 |
| Stays on paper or elsewhere | 3 of 12 |
| Retention periods | None stated. We could not verify any |
| Checked | September 2026 |
Student records
The spine of the office: who joined, who is present, who left, and with what on record.
Admission register
In Edutriscitedalso called: Admission and withdrawal register, general register
One numbered line per student ever admitted: admission number, date of admission, name, date of birth, parents, address, previous school, class admitted to, and (when they leave) the date and reason, and the TC number issued.
Every other record points back to this one. An admission number issued here is what a transfer certificate, a marksheet and a fee receipt all quote, which is why a gap or a duplicate in this register is expensive to unpick years later.
The 2012 bye-laws list, among the conditions a school seeking permanent affiliation must satisfy: “All admissions and withdrawal registers are properly maintained.”
Edutris, in edutris
The student master is the admission register: admission numbers are minted through one atomic sequence, so two simultaneous admissions cannot collide or reuse a number, and the prefix is configurable per school.
Attendance register
In Edutrisalso called: Daily attendance register, class register
Present, absent or leave for every student, every working day, per section: plus the working-day count the percentage is calculated against.
This is the register that generates arithmetic, and the arithmetic is where the errors live. See the working below.
Edutris, in edutris
Marked once per section per day and resubmit-safe, so correcting a mistake later does not mean redoing the day. Percentages compute as you go. Daily only. Edutris does not do period-wise attendance, and marking needs connectivity.
Transfer certificate register
In Edutrisalso called: TC counterfoil book, leaving certificate register
A numbered counterfoil per certificate issued: TC number, date, student, admission number, class, and the reason for leaving.
A parent who lost the original comes back years later, and this counterfoil is the only thing that lets the office reissue against what was actually written the first time.
Edutris, in edutris
Transfer, bonafide and conduct certificates are issued per student from the student record, so the issued copy and the office’s copy are the same object.
Academic records
What was taught, what was assessed, and what went home to a parent.
Marks register
In Edutrisalso called: Cumulative record, scholastic register
Marks per student per subject per assessment, and the totals, grades and remarks that go on to a report card.
The classic three-copy problem: answer sheet to subject sheet to register to report card, transcribed by hand each time. Every copy is a chance to transpose two digits.
Edutris, in edutris
Entered once and printed in CBSE (A1–E2) or ICSE format, or a standard format. Publishing is controlled per section, so a class is not half-published.
Class and personal log books
In Edutriscitedalso called: Teacher’s diary, programme of instruction
What each teacher planned and actually taught, period by period, against the syllabus.
It is the record that shows the syllabus was covered, and the one most often written up in a hurry the night before an inspection.
The 2012 bye-laws list among a teacher’s duties the maintenance of a “Personal Log Book and Class Log Book, Programme of Instruction and Lesson” plan.
Edutris, in edutris
Lesson plans are a teacher-portal record: topic, objectives, content and homework per section, per subject, per date and period, saved as draft or published. What it does not have is a planned-versus-actually-taught variance field, the plan is the record, so a log book kept to show deviation from the programme of instruction still needs its own note.
Money
Fees in, payments out, and the paper that lets an auditor follow both.
Fee register
In Edutrisalso called: Fee collection register, receipt book
Fee heads and amounts due per student, what was collected, when, by which mode, against which receipt number, and what is still outstanding.
Two books that have to agree: the receipt book a parent sees and the register the school reconciles. The defaulter list is the third thing, usually rebuilt by hand.
Edutris, in edutris
One ledger. Cash, cheque, DD, bank transfer or online via Razorpay, receipts printed or sent, and dues visible as they age rather than at month end.
Cash book and vouchers
Stays on paperalso called: Day book, payments register
Every receipt and payment in date order, with the voucher and bill behind each one, carried to a closing balance.
This is what an auditor works from. Fee collection is only the income side; salaries, purchases and utilities all land here.
Edutris does not keep this
Edutris is not an accounting system. It records fee collection and payroll runs, but there is no cash book, no general ledger, and no Tally or SAP export: your accountant’s books stay where they are. An export to the books you already keep is on the roadmap as an exploring item, which means no date.
Staff records
Appointments, service history, attendance and leave.
Service records
Partlycitedalso called: Service book, staff personal file
Per employee: appointment order, qualifications and verification, pay scale and increments, promotions, leave account, and the date and terms of leaving.
Reconstructing a service history from scattered files years later is the single most painful office job, and it is always needed at the worst moment.
The 2012 bye-laws require, as a permanent-affiliation condition, that “The Service records of teaching and non-teaching staffs are duly maintained and updated.”
Edutris, partly
Edutris holds the staff roster with qualifications, leave approvals, salary and payslips, and mints employee IDs through the same atomic sequence as admission numbers. The statutory service book itself (appointment orders, verification, increments) stays your file, and is on the roadmap as an exploring item, which means no date.
Staff attendance and leave register
In Edutrisalso called: Muster roll
Daily staff presence, late marks, and leave taken against entitlement.
It feeds payroll and it is the record a substitute-teacher argument gets settled with.
Edutris, in edutris
A daily muster per staff member (status, optional check-in and check-out times and a remark, one record per person per day) with a monthly summary, an individual view, and leave requests that route through an approval flow into the same place. It feeds payroll.
Assets and premises
What the school owns and who came through the gate.
Stock register
Stays on papercitedalso called: Dead stock register, inventory register, furniture register
Every durable item the school owns: what, when bought, on which bill, at what cost, where it is, and its condition, with lab and library stock usually kept separately.
It is the answer to “where did the money go”, and it is what a departing teacher is checked out against.
The 2012 bye-laws make the officer handling purchases responsible for the stock register (to “scrutinize the bills and make payments” and to “ensure the maintenance of stock registers neatly and accurately”) and list a teacher’s own “Stock Register of properties held by him/her”.
Edutris does not keep this
Edutris has no inventory or asset module. Library books are tracked as library records, but furniture, equipment and lab stock are not: a stock register is on the roadmap as an exploring item, which means no date.
Library accession and issue register
In Edutrisalso called: Accession register, book issue register
One accession number per book acquired, and who has it out at any time.
Accession numbering is permanent (a book keeps its number for life) so the register is the only complete history of the collection.
Edutris, in edutris
Library records, issue and return, and overdue lists are in Edutris: the principal’s daily view surfaces overdues directly.
Visitor register
Stays on paperalso called: Gate register
Who entered, when, to see whom, and when they left.
A child-safety record before it is anything else, which is why it is kept at the gate and not in the office.
Edutris does not keep this
Edutris does not do front-office or visitor management, so it stays a book at the gate. It is on the roadmap as an exploring item, which means no date.
The arithmetic
Where attendance percentages actually go wrong
Not in the division. In the denominator, which is why two teachers can compute two different percentages from the same register.
- Fix the working days first, per section. A holiday declared mid-term, an exam day, a section that lost a day to an event, if the working-day count is not corrected, every percentage built on it is wrong by the same amount.
- Measure a mid-year admission from their date of admission, not from the start of the year. A student admitted in August against April’s working days looks like a chronic absentee.
- Decide what a half-day is once, write it down, and apply it everywhere. Most disputes are two people using different rules, not bad arithmetic.
- Then it is simply days present ÷ working days × 100, computed per student per period, and if the register is shared rather than copied, nobody computes it twice.
Sources
- CBSE Affiliation Bye-Laws (2012 edition), Read 2026-09-10. A later (2018) edition exists and supersedes it; CBSE publishes that one as scanned images, so it could not be quoted here. Check the current bye-laws on cbse.gov.in before relying on any wording.
!What this page deliberately does not tell you. Retention periods (how many years to keep each register) appear nowhere above, because we could not verify a single one against a primary document. The current CBSE Affiliation Bye-Laws (2018) are published as scanned images rather than text, so nothing here is attributed to them. Your state’s education rules are not covered at all. For anything you intend to rely on, read your board’s current bye-laws and ask your district education office, and if you find a citable source we have missed, tell us and we will add it. The registers Edutris does not keep today are listed on the product roadmap as exploring items, which means no dates.
Frequently asked questions
Which registers must an Indian school maintain?
There is no single national list, and any page that gives you one without naming its source is guessing. Your obligations come from three places at once: your board’s current affiliation bye-laws, your state’s education rules, and whatever your last inspection asked for. This page describes the twelve registers a school office actually runs on and cites the wording where we could read the primary document, for the rest it tells you what the register is for, and to confirm the requirement with your board and your district education office.
How do you calculate attendance percentage from the register?
Days present divided by the working days in the period, times 100, and the errors are almost never in that division. They are in the denominator: whether a holiday declared mid-term was removed from the working-day count, whether a student admitted in August is measured against the whole year or from their date of admission, and whether a half-day counts. Fix the working-day count per section first and the percentage stops being argued about.
Can I keep school registers in Excel instead?
For a single register, yes, and many schools do. It stops working when the same student has to exist in several of them: the admission register, the attendance sheet, the fee book and the marks sheet each hold their own copy of the name and roll number, and they drift. A spreadsheet also has no record of who changed what, which is the thing an audit asks about.
Which of these registers does Edutris keep?
Eight of the twelve as first-class records, admission, attendance, transfer certificates, marks, lesson plans, fees, library and the daily staff muster with leave. One partly: staff service records, where the roster, leave, salary and employee numbering are in Edutris but the statutory service book (appointment orders, verification, increments) stays your file. Three stay on paper or elsewhere: the cash book (Edutris is not an accounting system and has no Tally or SAP export), the stock register (no inventory or asset module), and the visitor register (no front-office module). The per-register detail is above.
Where do I get the formats?
The formats we publish are free and linked from the relevant rows above, admission form, transfer certificate, fee receipt, and the staff appointment letter. They are starting points to adapt to your school’s and your board’s wording, not prescribed forms.
Eight of these twelve, kept once instead of copied.
Admission, attendance, transfer certificates, marks, lesson plans, fees, library and the daily staff muster, one record per student, one login for the office. Simple tiers from ₹2,999/month, no per-student add-ons.