Time tracking in hospitality: a practical guide for restaurants and hotels

Hospitality is the sector with the highest rate of penalties from the Labour Inspection (Inspección de Trabajo) in Spain. The reasons: split shifts that are impossible to document in Excel, a rotating workforce, multiple sites, and overtime that slips through the cracks. In this article we explain how a restaurant, hotel or hospitality group can comply with the 2026 clock-in law (ley de fichaje 2026) without complicating day-to-day operations.

The 5 problems specific to the sector

1. Split shifts and double shifts

A typical waiter works 12:00-16:00 and comes back 20:00-01:00. If you make them clock in four times (morning in, morning out, evening in, evening out) on paper, forgetting is all but guaranteed. In Excel, reconciling the effective hours worked without counting the unpaid break becomes a monthly puzzle.

2. A highly rotating workforce

Weekend extras, cover staff, seasonal temporary workers. In a single month you might register and deregister 15 people. Each paper registration takes 30 minutes of admin time.

3. Multiple sites

A group of 3 restaurants has staff who “float” between venues. Working out how many hours Juan put in at venue A and how many at venue B means reviewing separate sheets and cross-referencing them by hand.

4. Hidden overtime

In the kitchen it’s common to work an extra +30 min/day without recording it. Over the course of a year that adds up to 120 hours that the Inspection can demand be paid, plus a penalty for a very serious infringement.

5. Rest between shifts

The hospitality collective agreement (convenio de hostelería) requires 12 hours of rest between shifts. With split shifts and double shifts, meeting this requires constant vigilance. Without a digital system, it gets breached without anyone noticing.

How to solve it with the right software

Clock-in with a kiosk tablet at each site

An Android tablet at the bar or in the kitchen running the LapsoWork app in kiosk mode. The employee clocks in with their personal PIN (4 digits) in 3 seconds. If the network fails, the tablet stores entries offline and syncs once the connection is back.

Advantages over personal mobile phones: there’s no “I forgot my phone” excuse and you avoid disputes about using personal mobiles during working hours.

Visual drag-and-drop shifts

The manager builds the weekly rota by dragging employees onto shifts. Each employee sees their week in the mobile app in real time. If you move someone on Wednesday, mid-week, they get an immediate push notification.

Automatic rest alerts

The system detects whether an employee is about to work with less than 12 hours of rest between shifts and warns the manager before validating the shift. Zero breaches of the collective agreement through oversight.

Real-time overtime monitoring

The manager sees on their dashboard the effective hours worked versus those expected under the contract. If an employee has clocked 180 hours by the 20th of the month (when they “should” be at 140), the alert fires. You decide whether to compensate with time off, pay it as overtime, or adjust shifts.

Multi-site with a consolidated view

Each venue is an independent unit, but the general manager sees the global dashboard: how many hours were worked at each site, how many per employee, and how much the weekly payroll costs. Essential for controlling costs in a sector with tight margins.

A real example: a 62-employee hotel

An urban hotel with 62 employees across 3 sites (24h reception, restaurant, events) implemented LapsoWork after a warning from the Inspection. Before:

4 Excel sheets (one per area manager).
Overtime calculated “by eye”.
8 hours a week of the HR manager’s time spent reconciling shifts.
No minimum-rest alerts whatsoever.

After 3 months with LapsoWork:

Time saved: 8h/week in HR + 2h/week per manager = 18h/week in total.
Overtime detected: 112 hours that weren’t being paid. Now regularised.
Rest breaches avoided: 5 per month (detected and corrected in advance).
Penalty avoided: the next Inspection visit closed with a compliant report.

Specific requirements by type of establishment

Independent restaurant (10-30 employees)

LapsoWork Basic plan (€2/employee/month): clock-in, shifts (Advanced plan add-on), holidays, document manager.
1 kiosk tablet (one-off investment ~€150).
1 hour of training for the owner + 30 minutes for the team.
Estimated annual cost: €720 + €150 tablet + Advanced plan if shifts are complex.

Restaurant group (30-80 employees)

Advanced plan (€3.50/employee/month) for shifts and native multi-site support.
One tablet per venue.
A dedicated or outsourced HR manager.
Estimated annual cost: €1,680-3,360.

Hotel (50-200 employees)

Advanced plan + mandatory whistleblowing channel (Ley 2/2023).
Integration with existing hotel software (PMS) via API.
Training by department (reception, restaurant, housekeeping).
Estimated annual cost: €3,500-10,000 + €299.99 for the channel.

Hotel chain (200+ employees)

Custom plan with bespoke integrations.
Phased rollout (1 pilot hotel + full roll-out).
A dedicated account manager.
Annual cost: bespoke.

Specific collective agreements supported

LapsoWork comes preconfigured with the most commonly used collective agreements in hospitality:

National hospitality collective agreement (convenio estatal de hostelería).
Provincial collective agreements (Madrid, Catalonia, Andalusia, Valencia, the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands).
Large-group agreements (where applicable).

Calculations for rest, overtime and salary supplements are applied automatically. If your collective agreement isn’t loaded, our team configures it at onboarding at no cost.

Frequently asked questions

How do employees who don’t have their own phone clock in? A kiosk tablet at the venue. The employee enters with their personal PIN and clocks in. In hospitality it’s the most widely used and most practical method.

Does the system detect if a waiter clocks out but keeps working? Yes, you can configure “end-of-shift alerts”: if an employee clocks out and the manager can see they’re still at the venue, they receive a notice to look into it.

What about weekend extra staff? You register them temporarily with a start/end date. They clock in just like permanent staff. When the season ends they’re deactivated and no longer count towards your monthly cost.

How do you handle “off-the-books staff” in the kitchen? You don’t. If you have staff without a contract, no software is going to solve that problem for you. The Inspection cross-checks clock-in records against Seguridad Social (the Spanish social security system) and spotting discrepancies is trivial. A penalty is guaranteed.

Does it integrate with hospitality POS systems? LapsoWork has a public API. The main POS systems (Agora, HioPOS, Polarized) can be connected to sync employees. Ask our team about the integrations available.

Conclusion

Hospitality isn’t a “harder” sector in which to comply with the clock-in law: it’s a sector where the cost of non-compliance is higher (penalties, claims, staff turnover). Specialist software like LapsoWork solves split shifts, multi-site working, rest periods and overtime for €720/year (Basic plan) or €1,260/year (Advanced plan with shifts) for a 30-employee restaurant.

If you’d like to see how it works for your specific case, you can request a personalised demo or try LapsoWork free for 30 days. And if you’re weighing up buying versus sticking with Excel, take a look at how much an HR software really costs for a small business, or the penalties specific to the sector.