Chapter 13

Glossary

This chapter defines the words you will meet in MusterHR, in three parts: product terms that are specific to this software, Indian HR and payroll terms as the product uses them, and a consolidated list of every status you can see on a record, with what it means and where it is explained in full. It is written for everyone — look a word up here and follow the link to the chapter that covers it properly. Nothing here assumes you have read another chapter.

This chapter defines the words you will meet in MusterHR, in three parts: product terms that are specific to this software, Indian HR and payroll terms as the product uses them, and a consolidated list of every status you can see on a record, with what it means and where it is explained in full. It is written for everyone — look a word up here and follow the link to the chapter that covers it properly. Nothing here assumes you have read another chapter.

Throughout MusterHR, times are Indian Standard Time (IST), money is in rupees shown with two decimals and Indian digit grouping (₹1,80,000.00), and the year runs April to March.

Product terms

Term	What it means
Workspace (also tenant)	Your company's own copy of MusterHR, created when someone signs up at musterhr.com. All your people, leave, payroll and documents live inside it and no other company can see them. The branding on it — logo and brand colour — is set under Company settings. See Getting started.
Employee record	The record of a person: their employee code, name, contact details, employment details, address, bank and identity details, documents and salary. Held under People → Employees. Every employee has exactly one. See Employee records and profiles.
User account (also login)	The sign-in itself: an email address, a password, roles and an account status. It is a separate thing from the employee record — an account can exist with no employee record linked (the screen says "No employee record linked"), and an employee record can exist with nobody able to sign in for it. Accounts are managed under People → User accounts. See Reports, company settings and administration.
Employee code	The identifier printed next to a person's name everywhere in the app, for example `FDT-2026-0001` or `FDT-INT-2026-0001` for an intern. It is allocated automatically when the record is created; the year in it is the financial year of the joining date, and the last part is a running number.
Role	What an account is allowed to do. The six roles are Super Admin, HR / Ops, Manager, Finance, Employee and Reporting. One account can hold several. Only a Super Admin can change roles. See Roles and permissions.
Reporting manager	The person set on an employee's record who approves their leave and attendance corrections and sees them under Approvals → My team. An employee can have no manager.
Self-service	The part of the app you use on your own behalf, grouped in the sidebar under My space — your profile, attendance, leave, payslips, documents, assets and reviews. Every role except Reporting has it.
Change request	A request from an employee to change a field HR holds for them: Preferred name, Current address, Permanent address, City, State or PIN code. It is raised from My profile and lands in People → Change requests for HR to approve or reject. Your mobile number, alternate number and personal email you edit yourself without a request.
Correction request	A request to fix a day's attendance when the clock was not used properly. You send the times you should have had; approving it replaces the recorded times for that day. Managers and HR see these under Approvals → Attendance approvals. See Attendance.
Review cycle	A named performance period with a rating scale, created by HR under Reviews → Review cycles. It is created as a draft; opening it enrols every active employee with their manager as reviewer. Types are Probation, Quarterly, Half-yearly, Annual and Ad-hoc. See Performance reviews and probation.
Competency	One of the five areas a review rates: Communication, Ownership, Quality of work, Collaboration, Growth & learning. Ratings run from 1 to the cycle's highest rating (between 3 and 10; 5 is usual), labelled 1 Needs improvement, 2 Developing, 3 Meets expectations, 4 Exceeds expectations, 5 Outstanding.
Clearance	The checklist an exit case works through, one line per area — IT (email and access, then devices), Finance (advances and dues), Manager (handover), HR (exit interview and documents) and Admin (access card and office assets). Each line is signed off as Cleared or Flagged, and any dues entered against a line are recovered from the final settlement. See Assets and offboarding.
Settlement (final settlement, full and final)	The closing money statement for someone leaving. MusterHR works it out as last salary + leave encashment + gratuity + bonus, minus deductions and minus the dues recovered during clearance, giving the net payable.
Acknowledgement	A recorded confirmation that you have read something, kept against your employee record with your name, the version and the date and time. You acknowledge policies, a finalised review, and your own final settlement statement. You cannot undo an acknowledgement yourself — ask HR if you acknowledged something in error.
Audit log	The internal record of who did what: creations, changes, deletions, sign-ins, exports, permission changes and every time somebody reveals a masked bank or identity number. It is written automatically and is not a screen you browse. What you can see of your own trail is Sign-in activity. See Reports, company settings and administration.
Masked field	A sensitive value shown only in part — a bank account as `XXXX9012`, an IFSC or Aadhaar as dots — with a Reveal action for people permitted to see it. Bank, identity, tax and two-factor details are encrypted where they are stored, and each reveal is written to the audit log.
Restricted holiday quota	The number of optional (restricted) holidays you may take in a financial year — 2 by default. The Holidays page shows the optional list with an Avail button and tells you how many days you have left. Each availed day still needs manager approval. See Leave and holidays.
Comp-off credit	A day (or half day) of leave you earn for working on a public holiday or a weekly-off day. You claim it from Leave; once your manager approves, it is added to your Comp Off balance and you can avail it as leave for up to 90 days after the day you worked. Credits are spent soonest-expiry first.
Payroll run	One month's payroll for the company. You create a run for a month and year, generate payslips into it from everyone's salary structure, finalise it, publish it and record the payment. One run covers one month. See Payroll and payslips.
Salary structure	An employee's monthly pay broken into components. Payroll copies the current structure into every payslip it generates. Anyone with no structure falls back to the monthly amount on their employee record, as a single line; anyone with neither is skipped by payroll.
Revision	A version of a salary structure. Saving the first one creates revision 1; every later change is saved as a new revision rather than overwriting the old one, so past figures stay readable.
Pay component	A line in a salary structure or on a payslip. Each is an Earning, a Deduction or an Employer contribution, and earnings are marked taxable or not.
Employer contribution	Money the company pays on top of your salary — employer PF, ESI, gratuity funding — rather than out of it. It raises the monthly CTC but does not reduce net pay, and it is never seeded automatically: HR adds it if the CTC you quote includes it.
Payslip adjustment	One-off money added to a single payslip instead of the recurring structure: Performance Bonus, Other Incentive, Reimbursement, Arrears, Deduction / Adjustment or Advance Recovery. Adjustments are only possible while the run is a Draft and the payslip is a Draft. Lines that came from the salary structure cannot be removed.
Exit case	The record of one person's departure, from the day it is raised through clearance to the final settlement. Found under Approvals → Offboarding; employees see their own under Resignation & exit.
Asset tag	The inventory code you give a piece of equipment, for example `FDT-LT-001`. It is unique within your company.
Command palette	The search box opened with ⌘K (Ctrl+K), or by typing `/`. It searches every page you are allowed to open.
Directory	The company-wide people list under Company → Directory. It deliberately leaves out addresses and other personal details.

Indian HR and payroll terms

MusterHR runs your payroll and produces payslips. It does not calculate statutory rates and it does not file PF, ESI or TDS returns — you enter the amounts, and your CA or filing agent still does the filing.

Term	What it means in MusterHR
CTC (cost to company)	The full monthly cost of employing someone: gross earnings plus employer contributions. MusterHR works in monthly figures throughout — the Add employee form says "Rupees per month, not annual CTC", the salary form totals a month, and the payroll report is headed "Current monthly CTC". If you are used to quoting an annual figure, divide by twelve before entering it.
Gross (gross earnings)	The total of every earning line for the month — Basic, HRA, allowances, bonus, reimbursement and so on — before any deduction.
Taxable gross	The part of gross earnings marked taxable. A reimbursement is money you receive but not income, so it counts in gross and in net pay but stays out of taxable gross.
Deductions	The total of every deduction line — the employee's PF share, TDS, Professional Tax, advance recoveries.
Net pay	Gross earnings minus deductions: the amount actually paid to the employee. Employer contributions do not reduce it. Net pay is never shown as negative.
Basic	The base of the salary. Other components are usually set as a proportion of it.
HRA (House Rent Allowance)	An allowance paid towards rent; part of it may be exempt from income tax.
Special allowance	The balancing earning that brings gross up to the agreed figure once Basic, HRA and the rest are set.
Stipend	What an intern is paid instead of a salary. MusterHR seeds an intern's structure with Internship Stipend and deliberately leaves out PF, ESI and HRA.
PF (Provident Fund)	Retirement savings. The employee's own share is a deduction on the payslip; the employer's share is an employer contribution and is not seeded — add it if your CTC includes it.
ESI (Employees' State Insurance)	State medical insurance for lower-paid employees. Not seeded on any structure; add it as an employer contribution (and a deduction for the employee share) if it applies to you. It is not applied to interns.
Gratuity	The statutory lump sum for long service. In MusterHR it is not a salary component: it is a line you enter on the final settlement when someone leaves, and optionally an employer contribution if you fund it monthly.
TDS (Tax Deducted at Source)	Income tax withheld each month, entered as a deduction. MusterHR does not calculate it or the rate — for contractors the rate is normally under section 194C, for consultants 194J, and for salary 192. Confirm with your CA.
Professional Tax (PT)	A state levy deducted monthly. The amount depends on the state, so you enter it yourself.
LWP (Leave Without Pay)	A seeded leave type with no annual quota and no pay attached — you can apply for it at any time because there is no balance to draw on.
Leave encashment	Payment for unused leave, entered as a line on the final settlement.
Arrears	Back pay for an earlier month, added to a payslip as an adjustment rather than into the salary structure.
Advance recovery	Money the company is taking back from a salary advance, added as a deduction adjustment on a payslip, or recovered through clearance dues on an exit.
Notice period	The period between resignation and last day. MusterHR does not calculate it: the exit case carries an agreed last working day, and until one is agreed the case shows "not agreed".
Full-and-final settlement	See Settlement above — the closing statement covering last salary, leave encashment, gratuity, bonus, deductions and recoveries.
Probation	The initial period a new joiner serves before employment is confirmed. MusterHR works out the confirmation due date from the joining date plus the probation period on the employee record; if either is missing, the Probation screen shows "Not set".
Confirmation	Ending probation successfully. Confirming sets the employee's confirmation date and their status to Active.
Financial year	April to March. Leave balances, the restricted-holiday quota and the holiday calendar all run on it, and the Holidays page is headed, for example, "FY Apr 2026 – Mar 2027".
Form 16	The annual TDS certificate for salaried employees. MusterHR does not produce Form 16. It produces a PDF payslip per employee per month. If your CA issues a Form 16, it can be filed against the employee under the Tax document category in the document vault.

Statuses at a glance

Every state a record can be in, with the wording you actually see on screen.

Employee record

Covered in Employee records and profiles.

Status	What it means
Onboarding	The record exists but the person has not been made active yet.
Active	A current employee.
On notice	An exit case has been approved for them and they are working out their last days.
Exited	They have left. Set when the exit case is finalised, along with their exit date.

Worth knowing. Someone added through Add employee starts as Onboarding, and no screen in the app can move them to Active — they never appear on the Onboarding list. The route that works end to end is inviting them from People → Onboarding. See Hiring, offers and onboarding.

User account

Covered in Reports, company settings and administration.

Status	What it means
Invited	The account has been created and the person has been sent a link, but they have not set a password yet.
Active	They can sign in normally.
Suspended	A temporary block. They are signed out of every device and cannot sign in until an admin activates the account again.
Deactivated	The same block, used for someone who has left. Set automatically when an exit case is finalised.

Neither blocking state touches the employee record.

Candidate onboarding

Covered in Hiring, offers and onboarding. The joining flow runs through these nine stages in order.

Status	What it means
Invited	HR has sent the candidate their secure link.
Offer sent	An offer letter has been issued to them.
Offer accepted	They have accepted and signed the offer.
Details pending	Waiting for them to fill in their joining details.
Documents pending	Waiting for the documents they must upload.
Under verification	They have submitted everything; HR is checking it.
Ready to join	HR has verified them and they are cleared for their first day.
Joined	Their first day has been recorded, and their employee record becomes Active.
Completed	Onboarding is finished — nothing further is outstanding for them.

In practice a candidate's record moves from Offer accepted straight to Under verification when they submit their details and documents together, so you may never see Details pending or Documents pending on a real candidate. The progress panel still lists all nine so you can see what is left to do.

Offer letter (what the candidate sees on their link)

Status	What it means
Not yet sent	The offer is still a draft on HR's side.
Awaiting your response	The offer has been sent, or opened, and is waiting on the candidate.
Accepted	The candidate has accepted and signed it.
Declined	The candidate has turned it down.
Expired	The link has passed its expiry, which is set at 14 days from sending.

Attendance

Covered in Attendance. A day you clock in and out on is recorded as Present or Half day; the other values describe days that were not ordinary worked days and appear in the month view and the attendance report.

Status	What it means
Present	A full day was worked — eight hours by default.
Half day	Less than a full day was worked.
Absent	No attendance for a working day.
On leave	The day is covered by approved leave.
Holiday	A public holiday, so the office was closed.
Weekly off	A non-working day of the week — Saturday and Sunday by default.
Work from home	Worked, away from the office.
Missing clock-out	The day was recorded with no clock-out time.

The clock itself and the My team view show a live state rather than a status: Not clocked in, Working, On break or Clocked out.

Leave requests and comp-off claims

Covered in Leave and holidays.

Status	What it means
Pending	Waiting for your manager or HR to decide. The days are held against your balance meanwhile.
Approved	Granted. For a comp-off claim, the credit is now spendable and shows a "valid until" date.
Rejected	Turned down, and the held days are returned to your balance.
Cancelled	Withdrawn. You can cancel a leave request while it is Pending or Approved.

Attendance corrections and profile change requests

Both use the same three states: Pending (waiting for review), Approved (applied — for a correction, the day's recorded times are replaced) and Rejected (declined, nothing changes). See Attendance and Employee records and profiles.

Documents

Covered in Documents, policies and announcements.

Status	What it means
Pending	Waiting for HR to check this file.
Verified	HR has checked this file and accepted it.
Rejected	HR could not accept this file. Upload a replacement.

Policies and announcements

Both use Draft (written but nobody can see it), Published (live for its audience) and Archived (withdrawn from the live list; a policy's earlier versions stay on the record). Covered in Documents, policies and announcements.

Payroll runs and payslips

Covered in Payroll and payslips.

Run status	What it means
Draft	Payslips can be generated, adjusted and regenerated. The only state in which figures can change.
Finalised	The figures are locked. Publish the run to release payslips, or mark it paid.
Paid	The payment has been recorded against a pay date. A paid run cannot be cancelled.
Cancelled	The run was abandoned and its payslips are frozen as they were. It cannot be reopened and its month cannot be run again.

Payslip status	What it means
Draft	Inside a draft run, still adjustable, not visible to the employee.
Published	Released — the employee can see and download it under My payslips.
Cancelled	Its run was cancelled. Nothing on it can be changed.

Reviews and probation

Covered in Performance reviews and probation.

Cycle status	What it means
Draft	Created, but nobody is enrolled or notified yet.
Active	Open — employees and managers are writing their reviews.
Closed	The cycle is finished.

Review status	What it means
Not started	Nothing has been submitted yet.
Self-review submitted	The employee has submitted theirs; the manager's is awaited.
Manager review submitted	The manager has submitted theirs; HR can finalise.
Finalised	The manager's feedback has been shared with the employee, who is asked to acknowledge it.
Acknowledged	The employee has confirmed they have read it.

Probation status	What it means
On probation	Still serving probation, no decision taken.
Confirmed	Employment confirmed.
Extended	Probation extended to a new date.
Terminated	Employment ended at the probation decision; the employee moves to On notice and offboarding finalises the exit.

Assets

Covered in Assets and offboarding.

Status	What it means
Available	In inventory and free to assign.
Assigned	Issued to someone.
In repair	Out for repair.
Retired	Taken out of service permanently.
Lost	Missing or unrecoverable.

Condition is recorded separately as New, Good, Fair, Poor or Damaged.

Worth knowing. An asset marked In repair cannot be put back to Available — no screen offers that move, so the only way out of the state is to retire the asset. Bear that in mind before choosing it.

Exit cases, clearance and settlement

Covered in Assets and offboarding.

Case status	What it means
Initiated	The exit has been raised and is waiting for HR to approve it and agree a last working day.
In clearance	Approved. The six clearance lines are being signed off, and the employee is now On notice.
Clearance complete	Every clearance line has been cleared.
Settlement pending	The final settlement has been worked out and is going through approval, acknowledgement and payment.
Completed	The exit is finalised: the employee is Exited and their sign-in is deactivated.
Withdrawn	The employee withdrew their resignation before HR approved it. The case stops there.
Cancelled	HR cancelled the case. If it had moved the person to On notice, they go back to Active. Raise a new case if the exit goes ahead.

A sixth value, Approved, exists in the system but a case never rests there — approving it moves it straight to In clearance, which is why the progress panel shows five stages.

Clearance line	What it means
Pending	Not yet signed off.
Cleared	The area has signed off.
Flagged	Something is outstanding on this line.

Settlement status	What it means
Draft	Worked out, not yet sent for approval.
Pending approval	Waiting for sign-off.
Approved	Signed off and ready to pay.
Paid	Paid, with a payment reference recorded.

A few figures worth remembering

Thing	Value
Free trial	14 days
Plans	Starter, Growth, Enterprise — priced per active employee per month
Comp-off validity	90 days from the day you worked
Restricted holiday quota	2 per financial year, by default
Default leave quotas	Casual Leave 12, Sick Leave 12, Earned Leave 15
Document upload	PDF, JPG or PNG, up to 10 MB; download links expire after five minutes
Profile photo	PNG, JPG or WebP, up to 5 MB
Company logo	PNG, JPG, WebP or SVG, under 2 MB
Password reset link	Valid for one hour
Offer link expiry	14 days from sending
Sign-in activity shown	Your own Sign-in activity page lists the 50 most recent events; an admin looking at somebody else's account sees the 25 most recent

Worth knowing. The Payroll summary report is headed "Current monthly CTC" for a reason: it always totals the salary structures in force today, whatever period you are thinking of. It is not a record of what a past month cost. See Reports, company settings and administration.

If a word you are looking for is not here, try the FAQ and troubleshooting chapter, or the ⌘K command palette, which will usually take you to the screen the word belongs to.

Something unclear on this page? Tell us.