How to approve clock-ins and time incidents without a Friday spreadsheet

What does it mean to approve a clock-in or an incident?

Approval is not “making the sheet add up”. It is deciding, with a name and a date, whether an entry or a request belongs in the month or is rejected. A missed clock-in, a holiday and a sick note are different facts, but the manager should not chase them in three places.

• An approved clock-in is a start and end entry the manager accepts as the real working day.
• An incident, in practice, is whatever does not stand on its own: a missed mark, a doubtful stamp, a request that needs a yes or no.
• Approve or reject leaves a trail of who decided. Editing a cell on Friday does not.
• Article 34.9 requires a daily record, start and end times, four years’ retention and access for the employee, employee representatives (if any) and Labour Inspection. It does not mandate a medium. It does require the record to be real and retrievable.
• Paper and Excel are still formally valid as of 18 August 2026 if they are reliable. A shared spreadsheet rewritten with no history is not.

Why does a Friday spreadsheet fail an inspection?

The usual SME problem is not having nothing. It is rebuilding the month the day before it goes to the payroll firm, or the day Inspection calls. That is not a record. It is a version.

• Inspection already works under the 2019 rule. It does not wait for the digital royal decree, which has not been published at this date.
• Unrecorded overtime, identical clock-ins every day, or a missed mark “fixed” in a chat raise more questions than an open incident closed with a trail.
• Current record fines sit in the LISOS minor and serious bands, roughly €70 to €7,500 depending on the case. The much higher draft figures are not law today.
• In payroll firms the pattern is a different spreadsheet per client, or a paper file that “is at the office” and cannot be produced on the day.
• Closing the month in bulk makes sense when the month is clean. It does not if bulk means filling gaps by eye.

What goes through the same queue: clock-ins, leave and absences?

If the missed clock-in goes to WhatsApp, the holiday to email and the sick note as a PDF to the advisor, Friday has no picture of the month. One inbox for managers and HR holds what is pending.

How do you approve a missed clock-in without covering it up?

A month with no incidents is often a dressed-up month, not a perfect one. A single well-handled miss is easier to explain than a rewritten cell.

• Decide in advance who corrects a miss, by when, and with what comment. Tell the team the rule; do not invent it on Friday.
• Approve or reject one by one when there is doubt, or in bulk when the month is clean and only confirmations remain.
• The comment sits with the decision. It helps you, payroll and the agency when they ask why that day does not match the rota.
• The employee gets a push or in-app notice. They do not depend on a loose message that later disappears.
• WhatsApp can be the clock-in channel; it is not the incident archive. The entry and the approval live in the system.

What stays in the history, and who is told?

The value of approval is not the “accept” click. It is being able to show, months later, who approved or rejected and what the person was told.

• History per employee: what was asked, what was decided and who did it.
• An internal comment with the decision, not a parallel thread that never travels with the file.
• A push or in-app notice to the employee after each decision.
• The old notifications URL redirects to this queue. It is not another product: it is this inbox.
• That is not a certification badge. There is no official ITSS or AEAT list of approved time-record software.

FAQ