Set Up Time Tracking

Set Up Time Tracking

Here you can specify whether your team tracks working hours and according to which rules. You'll find this page in the menu under Settings → Team & access → Time tracking (/manager/settings/time-tracking). The settings apply to the location selected at the top of the dashboard.

Next to the title, a small help icon (“Where the hours come from”) explains what a toggle on this page does: It determines what your hourly-wage staff members are paid for. Fixed salaries are never affected by this.

Turning Time Tracking On and Off

At the very top is the toggle Time tracking labeled “Staff can clock in and out, and entries appear in reports”. It saves its state independently, without the bar at the bottom. When turned off, all time tracking pages for staff members are hidden, including the menu group “Time tracking” with “Team times” and “My times”. Entries that have already been recorded are retained.

Below that, a card “German working hours act” checks your limits against the law. If they are correct, it displays “Limits respected”. Otherwise, it counts the “deviations” and specifies what is allowed for each one, for example “The ArbZG allows at most 10 h of working time per day.”, “On a six-day week the limit is 48 h per week.”, or “Beyond 6 h of working time a break is mandatory.” If time tracking is turned off, the limits do not take effect until it is turned on. The set limits are enforced during time tracking. Entries that violate them are sent to a manager for review.

You save all other settings together. As soon as you make a change, the bar “You have unsaved changes” appears at the bottom with Save and Discard. After that, it says “Settings saved”.

Working Hours

The “Working hours” section has two fields:

• Max daily hours: 1 to 24, default 10. Beyond this point, a day's working time counts as overtime. Clocked-in time is never truncated. Example: With a 10-hour limit and 11 hours of net working time, 10 hours are regular and 1 hour is overtime.
• Max weekly hours: 1 to 168, default 48. Upper limit across all shifts within a week.

Hourly Wage from the Calendar

Section “Hourly Pay from the Calendar” has a toggle, Derive hours from the calendar (default: on). If it is on, Terminz calculates the previous day's hours for hourly-wage staff members every night based on the appointments. Pay is based on the time spent on appointments plus approved additional time. The gaps in between are listed in the time sheet as idle time but do not incur any cost. Anyone who clocked in themselves retains their clock-in time.

Example: Appointments from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. and from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. result in 2.5 paid hours. The one hour of downtime in between remains unpaid.

When the toggle is turned on, the following notes appear on the page: Derived days are suggestions and remain in the approval center until you approve them. Additional time that your team enters retroactively (see “View My Times and Log Additional Hours”) also remains there until you approve it. Only then do they move to the payroll export and timesheets.

If the toggle is off, only the time clock counts for hourly staff members: the time between clocking in and out minus the legally required break, regardless of whether appointments were scheduled in the calendar. Anyone who forgets to clock in or out has no hours recorded for that day. Salaried staff members are never affected by this toggle.

Breaks and Rest Periods

Section “Breaks & rest (German labor law)” contains:

• Enforce German labor law (arbZG): Terminz checks breaks, rest periods, the weekly limit, and overtime. Clocked-in time is never reduced, only marked. Time entered manually or via import that violates the rules is rejected.
• Deduct a missing break automatically: If someone has not entered a break and has worked longer than the limit specified below, Terminz deducts the mandatory break. For 9 hours or more, the break is 45 minutes.
• Require break after (hours): 1 to 12, default 6. A break becomes mandatory after this number of working hours.
• Minimum break duration (minutes): 0 to 120, default 30. Length of the mandatory break. After 9 hours, it is at least 45 minutes.
• Minimum rest period (hours): 0 to 24, default 11. The time between the end of the workday and the start of the next workday. If it is shorter, a clocked-in day is marked and a manual entry is rejected. Example: If the workday ends at 10:00 PM, with 11 hours, the next workday cannot start until 9:00 AM at the earliest.

Overtime

Section “Overtime” has:

• Allow overtime: Default on. Allows entries beyond the daily maximum. If it is off, the two fields below are grayed out.
• Overtime rate multiplier: 1 to 3 in increments of 0.25, default 1.5. Overtime is paid at the hourly wage multiplied by this factor. If someone has their own overtime rate, that rate applies. Example: With a €20 hourly wage, one hour of overtime costs €30.
• Max overtime hours per day: 0 to 12, default 2. This is the maximum number of overtime hours allowed per day. If exceeded, a clocked-in day is flagged, and an entry made manually or via import is rejected.

Approval Workflow

In section “Approval workflow”, you set who approves times:

• Require manager approval: Each entry requires approval before it counts. Default: off. As long as the switch is off, the message “Manager approval is off for existing businesses. Switch it on to send recorded times to a review queue.” appears there
• Auto-approve regular hours: Entries without overtime and without violating the Working Hours Act are processed immediately. Only the rest are waiting for you. Grayed out as long as manager approval is off.
• Auto-approve after (days): 1 to 90, default 7. Entries that remain open for this long are automatically approved by Terminz. The approval will then show no name because no one has signed it. Grayed out as long as manager approval is off.
• Notify manager on check-in: A notification is sent out every time someone clocks in. Default: off.
• Unlimited backfill: Allows an import to go back as far as needed. The field below then displays the placeholder “Unlimited”.
• Max import backfill (days): 1 to 3650, default 31. How far back entries can be imported. The field is grayed out as long as “Unlimited backfill” is enabled.

You can edit the approvals themselves under “Team times” (see “Review, Approve, and Export Team Times”).

Export and Payroll

The note in section “Export & payroll” reads: “German law requires working time records to be kept for at least 2 years (ArbZG §16).”

• Export format: “CSV” or “DATEV,” the file format for time report downloads. Default is CSV.
• DATEV wage type for hours: the wage type number from LODAS to which paid working hours are posted. Numbers only, maximum of 4 digits. Ask your tax advisor if you don't know it.
• DATEV wage type for overtime: The wage type number for overtime, also a maximum of 4 digits. Only required if overtime is worked during the period.
• Enable payroll integration: Prepares monthly exports for payroll processing. Default: off.
• Payroll export day of month: 1 to 28, default 1. On this day, Terminz generates the payroll for the entire previous month. Grayed out as long as the integration is off. Example: If set to 5, the payroll for September is generated on October 5.
• Data retention (months): 1 to 120, default 24. After this date, Terminz archives completed entries and removes personal identifiers. Nothing is deleted. Terminz rejects values less than 24 months when saving, because you are required to retain the records for two years.

Reset to Default

The Reset button in the upper right corner restores the page to its default settings. Before doing so, Terminz shows what will be reset and what will remain.

• Settings that will be reset: Working hours (overtime starting at 10 hours per day, 48 hours per week), breaks and rest periods (mandatory break after 6 hours and 30 minutes, 11-hour rest period; missing breaks are deducted), overtime (allowed, factor 1.5, up to 2 hours per day), Approval (off, auto-approval after 7 days, no notification when clocking in), Export (CSV, payroll export off, retention 24 months, import up to 31 days back), and “Hours from the calendar” (on).
• Remain: whether time tracking is on, your DATEV wage types, and all recorded times.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where do I turn on time tracking? At the top of this page using the “Time tracking” toggle. After that, the “Time tracking” group will appear in the menu.

How long do I have to keep time records? At least 24 months. Terminz does not allow anything less than this under “Data retention (months)”.

Are my hours calculated based on the calendar or the clock-in/out times? For hourly staff members, it depends on “Derive hours from the calendar”. Staff members with a fixed salary are never affected.

Where do I approve times? Under “Team times” in the “Time tracking” menu, not on this page.

Why can't I save? You likely lack the “Configure Time Tracking” permission, or the data retention period is less than 24 months.