BlogGuide
Electronic time tracking: what
the law requires you to record
Recording hours is not optional, and a spreadsheet filled in at the end of the month is not enough. What the Labour Code requires, what inspectors look at, and what a timesheet that holds up looks like.
What the law says, briefly
The Romanian Labour Code requires the employer to keep a record of the hours worked by each employee, daily, with the start and end time of the working day. That record must be available to labour inspectors on request. No particular software or format is prescribed — what is required is that the data exists, is daily, and is real.
That is where the end-of-month spreadsheet fails: it is not a daily record, it is a reconstruction. It shows immediately during an inspection, because the hours look too round and too identical.
We are not legal advisors. This is practical orientation; for your company situation, ask an employment law specialist.
What it has to contain to hold up
- The day, the start time and the end time, for each employee
- Overtime, separately, and how it was compensated
- Night work, where applicable, and the related premiums
- Absences, leave and time off, with the reason
- For field staff: where the work was performed
Where it goes wrong in practice
Most companies have no trouble in the office, where people come and go through the same door. Problems appear with field teams: construction, installation, service, deliveries. The team leader notes things on a phone or on paper, sends them to a group chat at the end of the week, and someone at the office retypes them. Every step adds another error.
The second source of trouble is health and safety: periodic training sessions, individual records, deadlines. They live in a different folder, kept by a different person, with no connection to the timesheet. During an inspection they are requested together.
What a solution that actually works looks like
People clock in from where they are
From a phone, with one button. The app records the exact time and the location, if the work is performed in the field. No paper, no group chats.
Hours add themselves up
Regular, overtime, night, weekend. Nobody calculates at month end and nobody argues about who wrote what.
The team leader confirms
One tap per day or per week. A record remains of who validated and when.
Health and safety lives in the same place
Training sessions and their expiry dates, with an alert before they lapse. When an inspection comes, a report comes out — not a folder hunted through drawers.
About GPS and its limits
Recording location at clock-in is lawful if it is proportionate and if people know exactly what is recorded. In practice that means: the position is captured at the moment of clocking, not the continuous route; the employee is informed in writing; the data is kept as long as needed and no longer.
Permanently tracking an employee, outside working hours or without a clear work-related reason, is something else and falls under a different regime. The difference is not technical, it is about purpose — and that is what gets discussed during an inspection.
What this is about, in full
Frequently asked questions
Is electronic time tracking mandatory?
No, the law does not prescribe the format. It requires the record to exist, to be daily and to be producible. Electronic is simply the easiest way to have real data instead of reconstructions.
Can employees clock in on their personal phones?
Yes, if they agree and are informed about what is recorded. Many companies still choose work phones for field teams, so they do not depend on the person device.
How long must records be kept?
Employment records are kept for several years, with periods varying by document type. An application handles this through automatic archiving, rather than depending on who filed what where.
Does it make sense for a company with a handful of employees?
Yes, and that is where it shows fastest, because usually nobody is dedicated to HR administration.