A guide to choosing time tracking software in 2026: what it must include, check-in methods (QR, NFC, GPS, kiosk), art. 119 compliance and the link to payroll.
Translated from Romanian. This article covers Romanian labour and tax law; the Romanian version is canonical and is updated first.
You do not choose time tracking software by the number of features in the brochure, but by how well it fits the way your people actually work. A company with 12 people in an office needs something different from a factory running three shifts, or from a team that moves between building sites every day. Here are the criteria that genuinely matter and the traps to avoid.
Before you compare any products, remember why you need time tracking at all: article 119 of the Labour Code (Codul Muncii) requires the employer to keep a daily record of the hours worked by each employee, showing the start and end time, and to make it available to inspectors on request. Ignoring that duty is penalised.
The law does not prescribe a format — you can keep the record on paper, in Excel or in an application. What it does require is that the record be real, kept daily and available at an inspection. From this follows the first criterion: whatever solution you choose, it has to produce a record you can show without hastily “reconstructing” it.
A functional minimum, whichever vendor you pick:
If any of these is missing, that work will still be done manually, in parallel.
This is the decision that matters most, because it determines whether people actually use the system:
| Method | Fits | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Web / mobile | office, hybrid teams | does not work for staff without smartphones |
| Kiosk with rotating QR code | factories, production, fixed sites | the code must change regularly |
| NFC card | staff without phones, large headcount | card logistics |
| GPS with geofence | building sites, field work, deliveries | battery use, privacy considerations |
| PIN on a terminal | small work sites | it can be “lent” to someone else |
The big trap is buddy punching — a colleague clocking in for someone else. A static QR code taped to a wall is photographed once and then scanned from home. That is why it matters that the QR code rotates (regenerating every few seconds), or that the check-in is made with a physical NFC card, present on site.
Time tracking is not an end in itself: it feeds the payroll register. If the time tracking system does not connect to payroll, someone will copy the totals manually into another file — which is exactly where the errors that reach people’s pay come from.
Ask any vendor explicitly: do the recorded hours reach the payroll calculation automatically, or do we export and re-key them? The difference is hours of administrative work every month and an error risk that propagates.
There is no single price. The usual models are per employee per month, with volume tiers, plus hardware where needed (terminal, cards). When you compare offers, work out the total cost: licence + hardware + implementation + internal administration time. Cheap software that requires two hours of manual reconciliation a month is not cheap.
Is electronic time tracking mandatory in Romania? No. What is mandatory is the record of working time (art. 119 of the Labour Code), not its electronic form. You can use paper or Excel — but these are harder to prove as real and daily, and easier to challenge at an inspection.
How does QR or NFC check-in work? The employee scans a code displayed on a terminal (kiosk) or taps an NFC card. The system records the exact moment. A rotating QR code regenerates periodically, so it cannot be photographed and used from somewhere else.
Can time tracking be integrated with payroll? Yes, and it should be a basic requirement. Overtime, premiums and absences should pass automatically from the time record into the payroll calculation, without manual re-keying.
What fines do you risk without a working time record? Failing to keep the record of hours is penalised as a contravention. Separately, if the actual schedule does not match the declared one, the situation can be classified as undeclared work, where fines rose significantly from 2026.
For the legal duty in detail and the recording methods, see the pillar article on employee time tracking and the Labour Code.
Workly covers the full range of methods in one platform: a physical kiosk with a rotating QR code and NFC cards for factories and teams without smartphones, plus web and mobile for office and field staff. Check-ins are real, timestamped and backed by an auditable history — exactly the record art. 119 asks for, available instantly at an inspection.
From there, the recorded hours feed automatically into the leave module (with calculated balances) and into payroll, with overtime, night and public holiday hours already separated by type. The night premium is calculated automatically; premiums for overtime and public holidays are for now entered as an adjustment. The result is exported in SAGA format to your accountant, without manual re-keying — from where the accountant takes the bases for the declarations. Personal data in the time records is encrypted, with automatic purging when the retention period expires, in line with GDPR.
Informational article, accurate at the date of publication. Not legal advice. Obligations on working time records may change — always check the framework in force at source (the Labour Code, the Labour Inspectorate) or consult a specialist before taking a decision.
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