The most common timesheet mistakes — late arrivals, missed breaks, transcription errors — the risks they create at an ITM labour inspection and how a sound process avoids them.
Translated from Romanian. This article covers Romanian labour and tax law; the Romanian version is canonical and is updated first.
The timesheet (fișa de pontaj) looks like a simple document — times in, times out, a few absences marked. In practice, it is one of the most frequently mishandled records in the HR of a small or medium-sized company, and the errors here do not stay isolated: they feed straight into the payroll register and can become a real risk during an ITM (labour inspectorate) inspection. Here is where mistakes appear most often and how they can be avoided.
The duty is not an optional administrative one. Under article 119 of the Labour Code (Codul Muncii), the employer must keep, at the workplace, a record of the hours worked daily by each employee, stating the start time and the end time of the schedule, and make it available to labour inspectors during an inspection.
The law says what must be kept, not how. There is no prescribed format — you may use a paper register, an Excel file or a digital application, as long as the record is real, complete on a daily basis and available on request. The choice of format is left to the company, but each option carries its own error risks.
Paper (the classic register). The most exposed to retroactive completion — “reconstructing” the hours at the end of the week or of the month, from memory. Handwriting is hard to decipher, corrections (crossings out, overwriting) look suspicious during an inspection, and manual aggregation for payroll introduces transcription errors.
Excel or another editable file. It solves legibility, but not integrity: a local file can be changed at any time, with no trace of who changed what and when. The lack of an audit trail means that, in the event of a dispute, the company cannot prove that the recorded hours reflect reality rather than a later adjustment.
A digital solution with real-time recording. It removes free and retroactive editing, because the time is recorded automatically, at the moment of clocking in. The main risk here is a different one — choosing a method that is easy to defraud (for example, a fixed code, easy to photograph and use from a distance) or the lack of a validation flow for legitimate corrections.
A delay of 10-15 minutes is frequently “rounded” up, so the employee does not lose pay, or simply left out. In the short term it looks like goodwill; in the long term it distorts the real record of hours worked and can create inconsistencies between the timesheet and other documents (building access, IT logs).
Days with no time out, absences not marked or left “to be completed later” — all of these create holes in the record. During an inspection, a sheet with missing days is treated much like the absence of a record for that period.
The meal break and the statutory breaks must be shown separately from time actually worked, especially where the internal schedule or the collective agreement treats them separately. Leaving them out artificially inflates the hours worked and can affect the correct calculation of overtime.
Even a correct timesheet can be spoiled at the next step: someone copies the hours manually from the register or from Excel into the payroll software and gets a figure wrong, skips a row or mixes up one employee with another. The more manual transcriptions the process contains, the higher the probability of error.
In companies that track time by project, client or cost centre, a frequent mistake is allocating hours to the wrong code. It does not necessarily affect gross pay, but it distorts internal profitability reports and client invoicing, where time is rebilled.
Telework does not exempt anyone from the duty to record hours — on the contrary, the lack of physical presence at the office makes it easier to omit the correct marking of the schedule. Typical mistakes: the employee is “presumed” to be working normal hours without any active confirmation, or the telework timesheet is completed retroactively, just like a paper register. Minimum good practice: an explicit clocking mechanism (even a digital one, from an app), with a clear marking of the start and end of the schedule, whatever the place of work.
The timesheet is not an isolated document — it is the main input for the payroll calculation. An error at timesheet level translates directly into:
The fewer manual touches in the flow from time tracking to payroll, the lower the risk that a small recording mistake becomes a payroll problem.
Failure to keep the record of working hours, as required by art. 119 of the Labour Code, is sanctioned as an administrative offence. Under the rules in force at the date of publication, the fine for not drawing up the record is between 1,500 and 3,000 lei — a figure we recommend you check in its updated form before taking decisions, since the amounts may be changed by subsequent legislation. Beyond the fine, an incomplete or contradictory record leaves the company without solid evidence in any employment dispute over hours worked or the payment of overtime.
A correct timesheet does not just mean “hours filled in”, but a clear process:
The most effective measure against most of the mistakes above is simple in principle: clocking in happens at the real moment, it is not reconstructed at the end of the week or of the month. Reconstruction from memory is the main source of unrecorded late arrivals, missed breaks and incomplete entries.
Other useful practices:
Workly removes a significant part of these risks through real-time clocking in, via a Kiosk with a rotating QR code and NFC card — unlike an editable file (Excel or a digital register), the clock-in time cannot be entered retroactively or changed without a trace. Normal and overtime hours are calculated automatically, on the basis of the configured schedule, with night, weekend and public holiday hours separated — and any later correction remains visible in an audit trail.
The data flows onward into payroll without re-keying, which removes exactly the point where most transcription errors between the timesheet and the payroll register appear. For the concrete calculation of hours worked beyond schedule, you can also use the 2026 overtime calculator.
Informational article, accurate at the date of publication. Not tax or legal advice. The rules and the level of fines may change; always check the text in force at the official source (legislatie.just.ro, the Labour Inspectorate) or consult a specialist before taking decisions.
Night work guide: the 22:00–06:00 window, the 3-hour test, the choice between a schedule shortened by one hour and the 25% premium, medical examinations and protected categories.
Shift planning guide: the 12-hour daily rest and the 48-hour weekly one, night shifts, uneven schedules, the 4-month reference period and the rules on communicating the roster.
Overtime calculation step by step: the hourly rate, the minimum 75% premium, compensation with time off within 90 days, combining with the night premium and public holidays.
We'll show you how time tracking, payroll and the rest of the modules work for your company, in a short demo.
Request a demo