Who this is for
Ankastra is the shop-floor layer of HR: attendance from faces and existing biometric terminals, shifts, contract labour and statutory payroll, in one record. Groups with 1,000 or more employees get volume rates, on-premise or hybrid deployment, single sign-on and a contractual SLA.
It suits a manufacturer with plants in more than one state, a mix of permanent, contract and daily-wage workers, and biometric terminals already on the walls. It runs alongside the HR or ERP system you already use for the rest: payroll output goes to Tally or SAP.
What Ankastra does not do: recruitment, performance appraisals or learning management. If you need one suite for the whole employee lifecycle, it is not that suite.
What is live today, and what is planned
Buyers ask this first, so here it is in one place.
| Live today | Plan |
|---|---|
| Face recognition attendance with liveness check, on a phone or a kiosk tablet, offline capable | Every plan |
| Shifts, including night shifts that cross midnight, late marks, overtime and missed-punch flags | Every plan |
| Leave, comp-off, holiday calendars and approvals | Every plan |
| GPS geo-fenced check-in and work-from-home check-in with a selfie | Every plan |
| Contractor management: contractor portal, gate pass, headcount by contractor | Every plan |
| ESSL, ZKTeco, Matrix COSEC, Hikvision and Suprema terminals, plus CSV import for any other brand | Growth and Pro |
| Analytics, visitor management and the plant-floor TV dashboard | Growth and Pro |
| Route history and live map of field staff | Growth and Pro |
| Statutory payroll: EPF, ESI, Professional Tax, TDS, gratuity, bonus, full and final | Pro |
| Statutory files: EPF ECR, ESI returns, TDS return and Form 16 | Pro |
| Contractor bill reconciliation against attendance, and CLRA registers | Pro |
| Custom Tally and SAP integration | Pro |
On the roadmap for FY 2026-27 (not available yet)
- WhatsApp-based workflows for employees and managers
- AI copilot that answers attendance and payroll questions in plain language
- Predictive absenteeism and attrition scoring
- Voice punch and multilingual kiosk (Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu)
- Skill-based shift optimiser
- OEE-linked manpower dashboard with MES integration
Roadmap items arrive on the Pro plan at no extra cost when they ship. Do not buy on the strength of a roadmap item: ask for a dated commitment in your contract if one matters to you.
What the enterprise plan adds
- Volume pricing above 1,000 employees, quoted per employee. The public rates on the pricing page are the ceiling.
- Deployment choice: cloud (SaaS), on-premise, or hybrid.
- Single sign-on with your identity provider.
- A contractual SLA for availability and support response, agreed in your contract.
- Integration with Tally or SAP.
- Multi-plant structure: units and branches under one login, with plant-level and group-level reporting.
How support works
| Plan | Support |
|---|---|
| Basic | Email support |
| Growth | Priority support |
| Pro | Priority support and a dedicated account manager |
| Enterprise | As Pro, with response times and availability set out in a contractual SLA |
How to evaluate Ankastra without risking a payroll
- Walkthrough on your roster. 30 minutes on your shifts, your devices and your payroll rules. Book it here.
- Security review. Send us your vendor security questionnaire and we answer it in writing. See security.
- One plant first. Run the 14 day trial on one plant or department, with your terminals connected.
- Parallel payroll. Run one payroll cycle in Ankastra alongside your current process and compare the two, employee by employee, before you switch.
- Contract. Volume rates, deployment model and SLA in writing, then a plant-by-plant rollout.
Questions people ask
Is Ankastra only for small companies?
It was built for MSMEs and prices from 50 employees, but the same record runs across several plants and states. Groups above 1,000 employees get volume rates, SSO, an on-premise option and a contractual SLA.
Can Ankastra be installed on our own servers?
Yes, on the enterprise plan: on-premise or hybrid deployment is available for groups with 1,000 or more employees.
Does Ankastra replace SAP SuccessFactors or our HRMS?
Not usually. It handles attendance, shifts, contract labour and statutory payroll, and sends payroll output to Tally or SAP. Recruitment, appraisals and learning stay in your existing system.
Does it generate ECR and Form 16?
Yes. On the Pro and enterprise plans, payroll produces the EPF ECR, ESI return, TDS return and Form 16 files.
Is WhatsApp approval available?
Not yet. WhatsApp-based workflows are on the FY 2026-27 roadmap.