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Time Tracking & Attendance

timecockpit

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Panel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars

Category median

Sovereignty: not determined

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

by software architects GmbH · www.timecockpit.com

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timecockpit: AI-assisted analysis on whats-best.ai timecockpit: AI-assisted analysis on whats-best.ai (dark)

Add ?theme=dark to the image address for dark backgrounds. The badge shows the category and the month of the latest evaluation, and EU-Made where that is the product’s provenance. It never shows a score.

timecockpit at a glance

Vendor
software architects GmbH
Headquarters
Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 20 Oct 2026
Data hosting
Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 20 Oct 2026
Free plan
Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 20 Oct 2026
Starting price
“Teams of up to 10 users pay a one-time €29.90 for the first year on the Starter plan” (vendor’s words) source, captured 20 Oct 2026
Panel verdict
The AI panel rates timecockpit 2.5/5, the mean of 6 judges. timecockpit is a web-based time tracking and attendance service from software architects GmbH. how scores are made
As of
Vendor pages captured 20 Oct 2026; evaluated by the panel 21 Oct 2026. all sources

timecockpit alternatives, European ones first →

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

The Skeptic

Weighted verdict

Has read a great many pages claiming to be "BAG-konform" and wants to know which feature makes that true. Reads compliance claims for what they do not say: which module, at which tier, and whether the terminal in the photograph costs extra.

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

Scored by The Skeptic

Panel median The Skeptic This judge’s scores over the panel median. Each label opens its reasoning below.
Scores per criterion, in stars out of 5
Criterion Panel median The Skeptic
Capture in the real workplace 1.5 of 5 1.5 of 5
Working-time law & audit record 3 of 5 3 of 5
Absence & shift planning 2 of 5 2 of 5
Project, cost-centre & billing 3.5 of 5 3.5 of 5
Payroll handoff 1.5 of 5 1.5 of 5
European sovereignty 3.5 of 5 3.5 of 5
Pricing transparency 2.5 of 5 2.5 of 5

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 Skeptic

Browser, PC, Mac and a progressive web app for phones and tablets, plus automatic signal capture on Windows and macOS whose data stays local — but the offline mode for mobile appears only on a planned-features list, and I found no public information on shared terminals, badge readers, or a correction workflow with approval for time entries. The reconnect documentation covers short interruptions, not a shift without network. 1 4 5 3

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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 Skeptic

Predefined limit sets for Germany and Austria with daily and weekly maxima, break thresholds, night/weekend/holiday rest checks, per-user limits and a violations view with retroactive validation — the rules are modelled, not approximated. What an inspection would test next is missing: I found no public information on retention of the time record beyond a 35-day backup window, on tamper-evident change history, or on documented handling of exceptions. 6 7 3

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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 Skeptic

Vacation, sick leave and compensatory time with a real approval workflow, lead notifications, rejection reasons and a role-scoped absence calendar — that half is well documented. I found no public information on automatic entitlement, carry-over, or any shift or duty roster, which is the other half of this criterion. 8 9 5

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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 Skeptic

Customer–project–task hierarchy with rate overrides at each level, billable flags, budgets in hours and money, and invoicing that snapshots the valid rate at billing time, makes billed entries read-only and writes ZUGFeRD PDFs. What the pages do not show: cost centres, rate cards by person or role, budget warnings, and approval of timesheets before billing. 10 11 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 Skeptic

The month leaves as Excel, Word or PDF — every list exportable, with templates, scripts and automated per-user email reports — plus a web API for exchanging time entries. I found no public information on any named payroll system, DATEV or otherwise, and nothing on night, Sunday or holiday surcharges, time accounts, or a lock step before transmission. 12 13 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 Skeptic

The vendor's own pages document an Austrian contracting entity, Azure hosting named to Amsterdam and Dublin in ISO 27001 certified data centres, a data processing agreement, and Microsoft standard contractual clauses plus the Data Privacy Framework as basis for non-EU processing. It falls short of the top marks because the named providers are largely website services and Microsoft, without a published full subprocessor list for the product itself, and the buyer's own sourcing found entity and ownership details unconfirmed outside the vendor's pages. 1 2 3

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Pricing transparency

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 Skeptic

One public price of €10.85 per user per month with billing stated as daily and cancellation any day, a Starter offer of a one-time €29.90 for the first year for up to 10 users, and a first year free for freelancers — the cancellation terms are unusually generous. But the pages describe an enterprise tier whose sandbox database, database in the customer's own Azure subscription and single sign-on carry no price, and I found no public information on VAT treatment. 1 3

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European sovereignty — proven facts

0 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 Not determined ⚠ unverified — uncited Report an error
Subprocessors Not determined ⚠ unverified — uncited Report an error

Questions about timecockpit

Is timecockpit European?

Not determined: the vendor’s pages as captured do not say where timecockpit is based.

Where does timecockpit store data?

Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 20 Oct 2026.

Does timecockpit have a free plan?

Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 20 Oct 2026.

What are the best alternatives to timecockpit?

As of 21 Oct 2026, the panel rates TimeTac (3.5/5), clockodo (3/5) and ZEP (3/5) highest among the other 25 Time Tracking & Attendance products evaluated. Ratings that look equal are rounded to half stars; the order uses the unrounded rating, then the name. The highest-rated European alternative is TimeTac (EU-Made). Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: how scores are made. The full list, with European products first: timecockpit alternatives.

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.

Do you know more about timecockpit? Tell us Report an error on this page

Sources (13)

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

  1. 1 Vendor page www.timecockpit.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →
  2. 2 Legal notice — found from the homepage www.timecockpit.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →
  3. 3 Security / trust page — found from the homepage www.timecockpit.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →
  4. 4 Capture in the real workplace — found from sitemap docs.timecockpit.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →
  5. 5 Capture in the real workplace — found from sitemap docs.timecockpit.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →
  6. 6 Working-time law & audit record — found from sitemap docs.timecockpit.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →
  7. 7 Working-time law & audit record — found from sitemap docs.timecockpit.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →
  8. 8 Absence & shift planning — found from sitemap docs.timecockpit.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →
  9. 9 Absence & shift planning — found from sitemap docs.timecockpit.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →
  10. 10 Project, cost-centre & billing — found from sitemap docs.timecockpit.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →
  11. 11 Project, cost-centre & billing — found from sitemap docs.timecockpit.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →
  12. 12 Payroll handoff — found from sitemap docs.timecockpit.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →
  13. 13 Payroll handoff — found from sitemap docs.timecockpit.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →