How to Record Working Hours When Remote Working?

Remote working has become an everyday way of working in many Spanish SMEs, but one question keeps coming up: if an employee never sets foot in the office, how do you record their working hours? The answer is clear. The obligation to record working time does not disappear when people work from home: the company is still required to keep a daily, reliable record of each worker’s hours, wherever they are. In this guide we explain what the current regulations require and how to comply without friction.

What does the remote working law say about recording working hours?

Remote working in Spain is governed by the Ley 10/2021 de Trabajo a Distancia (the Spanish remote work law), which sits alongside the general obligation to keep a time record under Article 34.9 of the Estatuto de los Trabajadores (Workers’ Statute). The combination of both rules leaves little room for interpretation:

The scheduling flexibility that usually comes with remote working does not exempt you from tracking working time. The worker can organise their hours more freely, but the company must be able to demonstrate how many hours they work and when.
The remote work agreement must include, among other points, the working schedule and availability rules, as well as an inventory of the resources provided by the company. That inventory includes the time recording system where necessary.
The record must reflect the start and end of each person’s working day, and breaks where the collective bargaining agreement (convenio colectivo) requires it.

In other words: remote working does not mean you stop clocking in. It means clocking in a different way, adapted to the fact that the employee no longer shares a physical space with the company.

It is worth remembering that the record has to be objective, reliable and accessible. The Inspección de Trabajo (Labour Inspectorate) can request it at any time, and an estimate or the worker’s word is not enough. In addition, records must be kept for four years and made available to the workforce, their representatives and the Inspectorate itself.

How to track working hours when remote working?

This is where many SMEs get stuck. When everyone clocked in at the same office, a terminal at the entrance was enough. With teams spread across different homes and cities, that model no longer works. Here are the most common options, from least to most recommended.

Shared spreadsheet

This is the starting solution for many companies: an Excel or Google Sheets template where each employee logs their start and end times. It works in very small teams, but it has serious drawbacks:

It is easily altered after the fact, which undermines the reliability required by law.
It relies on each person remembering to log their hours every day.
Consolidating the data for the whole workforce to calculate overtime or generate reports becomes a manual, error-prone task.

It works as a temporary patch, but not as a serious system in the medium term.

Emails, messages or start-of-day calls

Some companies ask employees to notify them by email or messaging when they start and finish. This is even more fragile than the spreadsheet: it produces no structured record, it is hard to audit and it multiplies administrative work.

Cloud-based time tracking software

This is the option that fits remote working best and the one most experts recommend. Specialised software lets each employee record their working day from their phone or computer, with a single click, wherever they are. The data is stored securely, cannot be altered without leaving a trace and is consolidated automatically.

Compared with manual templates or old physical clocking-in terminals, time tracking software for remote work offers concrete advantages:

Clocking in from any device: web and mobile app, with no need to be in a specific location.
A tamper-proof, timestamped record that meets the reliability requirements of the regulations.
Optional geolocation at the moment of clocking in, useful for mixed profiles that combine office, site visits and remote work.
Automatic reports on hours worked, overtime and balances, ready for the Inspectorate or for payroll close.
Alerts and reminders for anyone who forgets to clock in, so the record does not depend solely on the employee’s memory.

Benefits of digitising remote work time recording

Complying with the law is the starting point, but a good time tracking system delivers benefits that go well beyond ticking a box:

Legal peace of mind. In the event of an inspection, you have an objective, accessible record in seconds, with nothing to reconstruct by hand.
Less administrative burden. Calculating hours, balances and overtime happens automatically, freeing up time for whoever manages your people.
Data to manage better. Knowing how the actual working day is distributed helps you plan workloads and spot problems with work-life balance or excessive hours.
Integration with the rest of your people management. The record connects naturally with holidays and absences and with payroll preparation, avoiding the need to duplicate data across different tools.

In summary

Remote working does not remove the obligation to record working hours: it transforms it. The company still has to keep a daily record that is reliable and retained for four years, the difference being that clocking in now happens remotely. Spreadsheets and messaging notifications work as a patch, but they do not guarantee the reliability the law requires and they do not scale well.

Cloud-based time tracking software solves the problem at its root: each employee clocks in from their own device, the data stays protected and tamper-proof, and the company generates automatic reports that are always ready for the Inspectorate. If your SME has people working remotely, digitising time recording is no longer an option but the simplest way to comply with the regulations without the headaches.