Working-time timesheet: how to keep and store it

Why a timesheet is needed

Working-time accounting means recording the time each employee actually worked in order to monitor compliance with the working-time norm for the accounting period (Art. 198). Normal working hours may not exceed forty hours a week; a shift may not exceed seven hours in a six-day week and eight hours in a five-day week (Art. 185).

• the basis for salary for time worked and for piece-rate and time-rate pay;
• support for premiums for overtime, night, weekend and holiday work;
• support for paid periods without work — leave, sickness, business trips;
• evidence in a labour dispute or an inspection that payroll is justified.

What to record

Arrivals and departures are recorded in working-time timesheets of the established form and other documents (Art. 200). The record covers the time actually spent performing duties and other periods the Code includes in working time — for example, downtime not caused by the employee, technological breaks and breaks for feeding a child (Art. 181).

• Shown separately within time worked: overtime, time-rate work of piece-rate workers, business trips and internal part-time work.
• Within time not worked: paid and unpaid time, and lost working time with and without the employee's fault.
• Time counts from arrival at the place of work under the internal labour regulations or roster until actual release from work.
• Not counted: travel from home and back, the walk from the entrance to the workplace, changing clothes and checking out.

Daily, weekly or cumulative accounting

The type of accounting determines how the norm and extra hours are counted (Art. 198). Under daily accounting the period is one day and the employee works the same hours every day. Under weekly accounting it is a week: days may vary but the weekly norm is kept. Under cumulative accounting the period is longer than a week, and over- and under-time must balance out by the end of the period.

Cumulative accounting is introduced when the daily or weekly norm cannot be kept because of working conditions. The accounting period may not exceed twelve months and a shift twelve hours (Art. 199). The procedure is set by the collective agreement or, failing that, by the employer in agreement with the trade union committee. It is a common choice for shift rosters, security, healthcare and production.

Overtime in the timesheet

Which hours count as overtime depends on the type of accounting (Art. 189): daily — beyond the daily shift; weekly — beyond the weekly norm; cumulative — beyond the norm for the accounting period. So under cumulative accounting overtime is determined only at the end of the period, not by individual long shifts.

The length of overtime is limited by Article 190, and the employer must ensure accurate records of each employee's overtime. Overtime is paid at least one and a half times for the first two hours and at least double thereafter (Art. 262). Without a timesheet showing these hours separately, the premium can be neither calculated correctly nor supported.

Good practice

• Appoint by order the people responsible for timesheets in each unit and the deadlines for submitting them to accounting.
• Approve a marking system in a local regulation: present, leave, sick, business trip, absence, downtime, overtime, night, rest day.
• Reconcile the timesheet with orders — hiring, leave, business trips, call-ins on rest days.
• With electronic records (turnstiles, biometrics, software) make sure a monthly final timesheet is exported and signed.
• Make corrections with a corrective timesheet rather than silently editing a closed month.

Typical errors

Problems usually arise not from having no timesheet but from its mismatch with other documents. In an inspection or a labour dispute the timesheet, orders and payroll statements are compared — and any discrepancy is read against the employer.

• The timesheet is filled in by the norm — eight hours for everyone — although there were late arrivals, extra hours and downtime.
• Overtime and night hours are not shown separately but a premium has been paid — nothing supports it.
• Rest-day work is marked in the timesheet but there is no order and no written consent.
• Under cumulative accounting extra hours are paid monthly instead of at the end of the accounting period.
• Timesheets exist only in software, with no signed monthly final form.

How long to keep timesheets

Primary accounting documents, registers and other documents related to bookkeeping are kept for the periods set by law but not less than five years after the reporting year (Art. 29 of the Law on Accounting). A timesheet is the basis for payroll, so this period applies to it.

Tax law separately requires an employer acting as a tax agent to keep the documents needed to calculate, withhold and remit taxes for the limitation period under Art. 88 of the Tax Code (Art. 23); the general limitation period for a tax obligation is three years after the end of the tax period. Longer archive periods may apply to HR documents — check them against the list of documents with retention periods.