The manual attendance systems are tedious, prone to errors and can be abused by proxy and is prone to mismanagement of data. In order to address the shortcomings, this paper will suggest a cloud-based Smart Attendance System based on the NFC (Near Field Communication) protocol and ESP32 edge devices. Each user is issued with a special NFC card with a special secure identifier (UID), when entering a classroom or a workplace, the card is scanned and its identifier read by the reader. The received data is transmitted to a Node.js backend server, and it is securely stored in a MongoDB database that fills the real-time monitoring and administrative control in a web-based dashboard. Experimental testing under controlled environments revealed that the mean end to end response time is approximately 1 second, and it includes card scanning, cloud transmission, and dashboard update. Additional stress test with 100 simulated HTTP requests ensured that the back end is stable and checking can be obtained at greater load test. The suggested system is a cheap (approximately, 13 USD as the hardware cost), scalable, and efficient alternative to the old strategies of attendance that may be applied to educational institutions and organizational setting.