The short answer: a driver is managed like any household staff — daily attendance, a fixed salary formula, a monthly payslip — with three extras that need explicit rules: overtime (late nights are routine), outstation days (usually a flat per-day allowance plus expenses), and money-in-transit (fuel, tolls, parking floats that must never blur into salary). Set those three rules once and driver payday becomes a two-minute event.
Base salary and attendance
Full-time personal drivers in Indian metros typically earn ₹18,000–₹30,000/month for a 6-day week (tier-2 cities lower; ranges in the 2026 salary guide). The attendance mechanics are standard: a 26-day working base for Mon–Sat, one tap per day — Present, Absent, Half Day — and the usual formula at month end. A half day fits the driver context well: a morning-only duty, or a day cut short.
Agree the daily duty window explicitly — say 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. with a lunch break — because everything past it is the overtime conversation, and that conversation should happen at hiring, not at 11 p.m. outside a restaurant.
Overtime: the rule that saves the relationship
Late evenings are the defining feature of driver employment, and unpriced overtime is the number-one reason good drivers quit. Three standard structures:
- Hourly rate past the duty window — commonly ₹100–₹200/hour in metros. Cleanest and most common.
- Salary with a built-in buffer — a higher base that includes, say, 15 flexible hours a month; hourly beyond.
- Fixed late-night charge — a flat amount for any duty past a threshold (e.g. 10 p.m.), regardless of hours.
Log overtime the same evening against that day's attendance entry — a one-line note is enough, and it goes straight onto the month-end slip as an addition.
Outstation trips
The custom for out-of-town duty is a flat daily allowance (commonly ₹300–₹700/day beyond salary) plus employer-paid food and lodging, with the travel day counted as present. Agree it per-trip before the trip, and add it to the payslip as its own labelled line — exactly like extra-work payments for other staff.
Fuel money is not salary
Drivers routinely carry your money — fuel top-ups, FASTag recharges, parking, small repairs. The failure mode is letting these floats mingle with salary ("adjust it from this month's pay"), which corrupts both records. Keep two clean ledgers:
- Expense float: money given for car expenses, settled against receipts or odometer logic, weekly or per fill-up. Never touches the salary slip.
- Salary ledger: attendance, overtime, outstation allowances, and any personal advances — which, unlike fuel money, do belong on the payslip as deductions.
The distinction takes one sentence to establish and prevents the messiest category of driver disputes.
The month-end slip
A driver's payslip has two more lines than a maid's, and the same logic: base earned from attendance, plus overtime, plus outstation allowance, minus advances, equals net payable — each line labelled (format here). Sent on WhatsApp, it doubles as the income record drivers need for vehicle loans and rentals more often than any other household role.
In StaffAround, a driver is a staff member like any other — add the role, the schedule, and the salary, then it's one-tap attendance daily, dated notes for overtime and trips, advance tracking, and an automatically generated payslip (notes, advances, and slip sharing are Plus/Pro features) — offline included, which matters when the duty is a highway. Download it free on Google Play, free for up to 2 staff members.