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Time Tracking & Attendance

DeskTime

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Panel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars

Category median

Sovereignty: 2 of 4 dimensions proven

0–5 in half steps. 5 means the rubric's top anchor is met on the evidence.

by DeskTime (Draugiem Group) · desktime.com

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Read this page as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.

The Operations Lead

Weighted verdict

Runs a 200-person operation with office, workshop and field staff, and has to record all of them since the BAG ruling. Wants capture that fits each of those groups and a roster that reflects reality. Unmoved by a beautiful desktop timer that half the workforce cannot use.

Same scores as the panel view — this lens weights them the way this judge cares.

Scored by The Operations Lead

Capture in the real workplace

How this is scored

How time actually gets recorded across the workforces a buyer has — desk staff, field and site crews, shift and deskless workers — and what happens when the network is not there.

0 — One browser timer and nothing else; anyone away from a desk records nothing.

3 — Web plus a mobile app, but no offline capture, no shared terminal, and corrections are an admin task rather than a workflow.

5 — Web, mobile and at least one shared capture point (kiosk, terminal or badge), with offline capture that syncs, and a correction workflow with approval.

8 — Several capture paths including hardware terminals or badge readers, reliable offline handling, GPS or geofenced check-in where the vendor states its limits, and bulk correction with an audit trail of who changed what.

10 — Capture fits the workforce rather than the reverse: desk, deskless, field and shift models all first-class, offline as a designed state rather than a failure mode, and every correction attributable, reasoned and reversible.

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The Operations Lead

Everything captured is built around a computer: a desktop app with automatic tracking, manual entry, URL and app tracking, screenshots and IP location, aimed at desk and remote staff. We found no public information on a mobile app, a shared terminal or kiosk for workshop and site crews, or offline capture that syncs — the only offline mention is calendar apps used to record offline time. There is also no correction or approval workflow anywhere in the evidence. 1

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Working-time law & audit record

How this is scored

Whether the record satisfies the German recording duty (BAG 2022, § 3 ArbSchG) and the ArbZG rules around it — breaks, maximum hours, rest periods, retention — and whether it survives being inspected.

0 — Hours are summed and nothing else; no break handling, no limits, no retention statement.

3 — Break deduction exists but is a flat rule; no daily maximum or rest-period checks, and no stated retention period.

5 — Configurable break rules, warnings on the 8/10-hour daily maximum and the 11-hour rest period, and per-employee reports covering the recording duty.

8 — The ArbZG rules are modelled rather than approximated: break and rest enforcement with documented exceptions, overtime and time-account rules, the two-year retention handled by the system, and an export built for an inspection.

10 — The vendor treats the record as evidence: tamper-evident entries with full change history, retention and deletion executed per statute, documented handling of on-call, standby and travel time, and published guidance mapping features to the ArbZG sections they serve.

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The Operations Lead

Attendance management and customizable settings are named, but we found no public information on break handling, daily hour limits, rest periods, retention, or anything mapping the record to the German recording duty or ArbZG. For a 200-person operation recording everyone since the BAG ruling, the captured pages give me nothing to put in front of an inspector. 1

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Absence & shift planning

How this is scored

Vacation, sickness and the shift or duty roster — the half of attendance that decides whether the time data means anything.

0 — No absence handling; vacation lives in a separate calendar or spreadsheet.

3 — Vacation requests with approval, but entitlement is manual, carry-over is not handled and there is no rostering.

5 — Automatic entitlement and carry-over, sickness recording, an absence calendar, and basic shift planning with availability.

8 — Public-holiday calendars per location, pro-rata entitlement, substitution and swap workflows, shift templates with qualification and rest-period checks, and coverage warnings before publication.

10 — Planning and recording are one system: rosters that respect statutory rest and the works agreement, absence that reflows the plan automatically, and forecast-versus-actual reporting a team lead can act on.

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The Operations Lead

Shift scheduling and an absence calendar are both named features, which is more than a spreadsheet. We found no public information on vacation request approval, entitlement calculation, carry-over, sickness recording, holiday calendars per location, substitution workflows or coverage checks before a roster is published. Feature names on a homepage will not run my duty roster for mixed office and field teams. 1

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Project, cost-centre & billing

How this is scored

Whether recorded time can carry the allocation an agency, workshop or professional-services firm needs — project, task, cost centre, billable status — through to an invoice or a client report.

0 — Attendance only; no project, task or cost-centre dimension at all.

3 — A free-text note or a single project field, with no rates, no billable flag and no per-project reporting.

5 — Projects and tasks with a billable flag and per-project reports, plus a rate per person or per project.

8 — Multi-level structure (client, project, task, cost centre), rate cards by person, role and project, budget tracking with warnings, and an invoice-ready export.

10 — Time becomes revenue without re-entry: approval before billing, rate rules that survive a rate change mid-project, client-facing reports, and a maintained handoff into named accounting or invoicing systems.

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The Operations Lead

Project tracking, task tracking and a project management integration are evidenced, so recorded time can carry a project dimension. We found no public information on rates, a billable flag, cost centres, budget tracking or any invoice-ready export. That is a project field without the money machinery an agency or workshop needs. 1

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Payroll handoff

How this is scored

How the recorded month reaches payroll — DATEV, Lohn und Gehalt, an in-house system or the tax adviser — and how much of it is automated rather than retyped.

0 — No payroll path stated; the month leaves as a spreadsheet someone retypes.

3 — Generic CSV said to be usable for payroll, with no named system, no defined format and no handling of surcharges.

5 — A named payroll integration or a documented export format for at least one major system, covering hours, absences and overtime.

8 — Vendor-maintained integration with a named provider, covering night, Sunday and holiday surcharges, time accounts and mid-month changes, with a lock step before transmission.

10 — Payroll is designed for, not exported to: several named systems maintained, an auditable approval and lock, retro handling for corrections after the close, and the tax adviser given their own scoped access.

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The Operations Lead

Reports, exports and an integrations page with API documentation are the entire handoff picture, and we found no public information on a named payroll system, a documented export format, surcharge handling or anything DATEV-related. As far as the captured pages show, the month would leave as a generic export someone rekeys. 1

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European sovereignty

How this is scored

Where the data lives, who the contracting entity is, who the subprocessors are, and whether that is documented rather than assumed. Independently sourced by the sovereignty pipeline; scored here as this buyer weighs it.

0 — Non-EU vendor and contracting entity, hosting region unstated or non-EU, subprocessors not named.

3 — EU hosting offered as an option, but the contracting entity is non-EU or the subprocessor list is absent.

5 — EU hosting as standard and an EU contracting entity, but the subprocessor chain includes non-EU providers without an explained safeguard.

8 — EU or DACH hosting with a named data-centre provider, EU contracting entity, full subprocessor list published, and any non-EU processing named with its legal basis.

10 — Sovereign end to end and evidenced: vendor, entity, hosting and every subprocessor in the EU, data-centre certification published, and an on-premises or private-cloud option for buyers who need it.

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The Operations Lead

GDPR compliance, ISO 27001 and 27701 certification and encryption in transit and at rest are claimed, which is a security posture I can weigh. But we found no public information on the hosting region, the contracting entity's location or a single subprocessor. Encryption does not tell me where my 200 people's working-time data actually lives. 1

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Pricing transparency not rated — the vendor publishes no price

How this is scored

Whether a buyer can compute the real annual invoice for their headcount — including terminals, modules and minimums — from public pages alone.

0 — No public prices at all; every tier is a sales conversation.

3 — A per-user headline exists, but hardware, modules or a minimum seat count are unpriced or unmentioned.

5 — Per-user prices public for the main tiers with the billing period stated, but at least one commonly needed piece (terminal hardware, planning module, payroll export) sits in an unpriced bundle.

8 — Every tier and module priced publicly with per-user maths, billing period, minimum term and VAT treatment stated; only genuinely custom work lacks a number.

10 — Complete price computability: a calculator or table producing the annual invoice for a given headcount and module selection, including hardware, setup and renewal terms.

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The Operations Lead

The only pricing facts on the captured page are a free tier ('Get started for free') and a '14 day free trial No credit card required'. We found no public information on paid tier prices, per-user figures, billing period, minimum terms or VAT treatment, so I cannot compute an annual invoice for my headcount from what is published. 1

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European sovereignty — proven facts

2 of 4 dimensions proven

Built only from facts shown on the vendor's own pages. A dimension we could not prove is left open, not scored as zero.

Ownership Not determined — uncited Report an error
Data residency EU only ⚠ unverified 3/3 pts 3 Report an error
Subprocessors US CLOUD Act reach ⚠ unverified 0/2 pts 3 Report an error

Where this could be wrong

What we left out

A claim that does not survive our checks costs us the claim, not the page. This is what was taken off this one.

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Sources (9)

The pages every claim on this page was read from — each one checked, dated, and kept verifiable.

  1. 1 Vendor page desktime.com Checked 22 Sep 2026 Details →
  2. 2 Privacy policy — found from the homepage desktime.com Checked 30 Sep 2026 Details →
  3. 3 Security / trust page — found from the homepage desktime.com Checked 30 Sep 2026 Details →
  4. 4 Capture in the real workplace — found from sitemap desktime.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  5. 5 Capture in the real workplace — found from sitemap desktime.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  6. 6 Absence & shift planning — found from sitemap desktime.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  7. 7 Absence & shift planning — found from sitemap desktime.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  8. 8 Project, cost-centre & billing — found from sitemap desktime.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  9. 9 Payroll handoff — found from sitemap desktime.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →