Employee presence control: what it is, what systems exist and how to choose

Presence control is the system a company uses to verify who is at their workstation and when. In Spain it almost always runs on clocking software: the employee clocks in, logs breaks and clocks out from an app, a browser or a shared device, and every entry is timestamped to the minute and cannot be changed without leaving a trace.

It is not the same thing as the legal work time record (registro de jornada, the statutory obligation), and it is not access control either — that one is about physical security. All three get mixed up daily. This guide sets out how they differ, the four types of system on the market, what each really costs, and the mistakes that leave a rollout worthless the day an inspector asks for your records.

Presence control, attendance tracking and the legal time record: are they the same?

“Presence control”, “employee presence control” and “staff presence tracking” all describe the same thing: verifying who is working and when. The term that means something genuinely different is the work time record (registro de jornada) — the legal obligation under art. 34.9 of the Workers’ Statute to log the start and end time of every working day.

And there’s a third term that always creeps into the conversation: access control, which answers “who came into the building”. That is a security question, not an employment one.

	Presence control	Work time record	Access control
What it measures	Who is working right now	Start and end time of the working day	Who enters and leaves the building
Is it mandatory?	Not as such	Yes (art. 34.9 ET)	No
Purpose	Team management	Legal compliance and evidence	Physical security
Typical tool	Clocking software	Clocking software	Turnstiles, cards, cameras
Valid for a labour inspection?	Only if it records working hours	Yes	No
Covered by Cleverfy?	Yes	Yes	No (it integrates with clocking)

The practical takeaway: a good presence control system solves the first two columns with the same tool. An access turnstile, however expensive, does not satisfy art. 34.9 on its own — it records doors, not working days.

What about attendance control?

It’s the same concept under a different name. “Attendance control” and “staff attendance tracking” tend to be used where what matters is whether someone showed up or not (shifts, construction sites, training), while “presence control” emphasises how long they were there. As far as the software and the law are concerned, the answer is the same: a digital record with a timestamp, individual identification and an audit trail.

What Spanish law says about presence control

Since 12 May 2019, every company in Spain must record the daily working hours of each worker. This is set out in article 34.9 of the Workers’ Statute, introduced by Royal Decree-Law 8/2019.

The rule makes no distinction by sector, size or contract type. It doesn’t matter whether you have 3 employees or 300, whether they work in an office or on the street, full-time or part-time, on site or remotely (art. 14 of Law 10/2021).

What the record must include

• Start and end time of every working day
• Individual identification of each worker
• Retention for 4 years
• Access for the workforce, employee representatives and the Labour Inspectorate

What the law does not require: the worker’s signature, biometrics, or any specific format. It requires the record to be reliable, objective and tamper-proof.

Penalties for non-compliance

Failing to record working hours is a serious infringement under the LISOS, Spain’s Law on Infringements and Penalties in the Social Order:

Severity	Fine (per work centre)
Minor	€70 – €750
Serious, minimum degree	€751 – €1,500
Serious, medium degree	€1,501 – €3,750
Serious, maximum degree	€3,751 – €7,500

Those are the figures in force today. The draft of the new Royal Decree plans to tighten the regime and calculate fines per affected worker, with a ceiling reaching €10,000 — but it has not been approved, so the table above is still the real reference. You’ll find the full breakdown in our guide to work time record penalties.

And there’s a bigger risk than the fine: with no record, overtime is presumed to have been worked. If an employee files a claim and you can’t prove otherwise, the burden of proof falls on the company, and a multi-year overtime ruling usually costs well over €7,500.

What’s coming: the digital time record

The Royal Decree on digital time records will require the record to be digital only, tamper-proof and remotely accessible to the Labour Inspectorate. As of 28 July 2026 it is not yet published in the BOE, Spain’s Official Gazette: the Ministries of Labour and Economy agreed to postpone approval to September 2026.

What that means if you’re choosing a system right now: buy something that already meets what is coming. Switching twice costs twice as much.

The 4 types of presence control system

System	Cost	Will it meet the new Royal Decree?	On site / Remote	Best for
Paper or Excel	€0	❌ No	On site only	Nobody (legal risk)
Physical terminal (fingerprint, card, facial)	€500 – €2,000 per terminal + maintenance	⚠️ Limited	On site only	Fixed staff at a single site
Software (app / web)	From ~€1.20 per user/month	✅ Yes	Both	Most companies
Kiosk mode (tablet + PIN)	Cost of a tablet	✅ Yes	On site only	Hospitality, retail, factories, construction

1. Paper or Excel records

Each worker signs a sheet or fills in a template.

Pros: zero cost, no technology. Cons: easy to manipulate, no traceability, impossible to audit and it will not meet the new Royal Decree.

The courts have already come down on it: paper records thrown out for relying on estimated times, and a €15,250 fine for a company that corrected its clocking sheets with correction fluid. For a company of 2-3 people it may look good enough today; it won’t survive a demanding inspection. We go into it in why Excel stops being valid.

2. Physical presence control terminals

Devices installed at the workplace. The three common formats:

• RFID / proximity card or fob — the cheapest and the easiest to game: anyone can clock in for a colleague. Legally valid, operationally weak.
• PIN or keypad — same impersonation problem, even lower cost.
• Biometrics (fingerprint or facial recognition) — the hardest to fake and, at the same time, the most problematic: the Spanish data protection authority (AEPD) treats biometric data as a special category, and using it to clock in carries severe legal restrictions under the GDPR. Telling staff about it isn’t enough: you need a reinforced legal basis and a data protection impact assessment. Many companies installed it before 2023 and are exposed today.

Pros: objective, physical record. Cons: €500-2,000 per terminal, plus maintenance and breakdowns; no use at all for remote or field staff; and, with biometrics, a regulatory risk that usually costs more than the hardware saves.

If your whole workforce always clocks in at the same place, it works. But you’re tied to one location and one hardware vendor.

3. Presence control software

Web and mobile apps that let people clock in from any device.

Pros: works in the office, on site, at home or at a client’s premises; digital record with full traceability; exportable reports; meets current and upcoming regulation; low, predictable monthly cost; rolls out in minutes. Cons: each person needs a device, and it depends on connectivity — although serious systems work offline, storing the real clocking time and syncing once coverage returns.

It’s the most versatile option and the one that best fits what the new Royal Decree will demand.

4. Kiosk mode

A shared clocking point — usually a tablet at the entrance — that several employees use with their own PIN.

Pros: no need for every person to have a company phone; minimal hardware cost; combines the best of a physical terminal with the flexibility of software. Cons: on site only; needs a mobile app alongside it if you have field staff.

It’s the dominant option in hospitality, retail, construction and cleaning.

How much presence control costs

Real numbers, not vague ranges. For a company with 10 employees, first-year cost:

Option	First year	Following years
Official Spanish government estimate (Royal Decree economic report, SMEs <50)	€1,243	€1,093/year
Biometric terminal (1 unit + software)	€800 – €2,500	€150 – €400/year
Cleverfy Basic software (€1.20 per user/month, annual)	€144	€144/year
Cleverfy Pro software (€2.00 per user/month, annual)	€240	€240/year

The official estimate is based on rollouts that involve hardware and consultancy. In the real cloud software market, a 10-person SME complies for less than the cost of one team lunch a year. Run the numbers for your own headcount on the pricing page.

Is there free presence control?

Free options exist, and it’s worth reading the small print before choosing one. Free plans on the market usually limit one of these three things:

1. Number of employees (typically 3 to 5).
2. Record history — some free plans keep 30 days. The law requires 4 years. A record that only keeps a month is no use in an inspection, and that’s the part nobody tells you at sign-up.
3. Clocking methods: kiosk, reports or exports are left out of the free plan.

A “free” Excel file or a free plan that doesn’t keep 4 years can cost you €7,500 in fines. If budget is the issue, look at the real annual cost rather than the “free” label.

What it gives you beyond compliance

Avoiding fines is the obvious reason. But a presence control system that’s properly set up changes things day to day:

• Real visibility of the workforce — you know who has clocked in and who is missing, in real time and without chasing anyone.
• Fewer overtime disputes — with objective records the argument about how many hours were worked disappears.
• Pattern detection — recurring absences, systematic lateness or workload peaks show up in the reports and let you reorganise shifts.
• Faster payroll — hours, breaks and overtime are calculated automatically and exported without redoing the maths.
• Protection against a claim — if a worker files a claim, you have the evidence.

How to choose the right system

Where does your team work?

• Always in the same place → kiosk mode (or a terminal, if it’s already paid off)
• Across several sites or on the road → mobile app with geolocation at the moment of clocking
• Partial or full remote work → web and mobile software
• A mix of everything → software with several clocking methods at once

How big is your team?

• Fewer than 10 → simple software, without modules you won’t use
• 10-50 → software with reports, incident management and payroll export
• More than 50 → add roles, departments, work centres and approvals

Which sector?

Staff turnover, split shifts and working out of mobile coverage change the answer completely. We have the detail by sector for logistics, clinics, workshops, manufacturing and offices.

5 common mistakes when rolling out presence control

1. Choosing on price without checking compliance

The cheapest doesn’t always comply. Check three things before signing: record integrity, change traceability and 4-year retention.

2. Not informing your staff

Rolling out a clocking system without formal communication is a data protection infringement. You don’t need the workers’ consent, but you do need to tell them what data is collected, for what purpose and for how long. You must also inform the employee representatives.

3. Forgetting remote or field staff

A terminal at the entrance is no use to someone working from home or on a site 40 km away. If you have both profiles, you need a system that covers both with the same record.

4. Having no incident protocol

What happens when someone forgets to clock in? Who can correct a record, and with what justification? Without a written protocol you end up with inconsistent data — and an untraced correction is exactly what inspectors look for. Changing the procedure without negotiating it also has consequences: that alone was enough for the Canary Islands High Court to void an entire company’s clocking policy.

5. Geolocating without justification

Geolocation is only lawful if it is proportionate and necessary. Turning it on for people who always clock in at the same office has no legal basis. Reserve it for mobile or field staff, and capture the position only at the moment of clocking, never continuously.

What to demand from presence control software

Legal compliance

• Timestamps accurate to the minute
• Records that cannot be edited without leaving an audit trail
• 4-year retention (not 30 days)
• Access for the Labour Inspectorate and employee representatives
• DPA included (data processing agreement)
• Data hosted in the EU

Functionality

• Several clocking methods: app, web, browser, kiosk
• Offline clocking that keeps the real timestamp
• Break and rest management
• Exportable reports (PDF, Excel, CSV)
• Incident alerts

Usability

• Clocking in under 10 seconds
• An admin panel that needs no training
• Company onboarding in minutes, not weeks

Pricing

• Transparent, with no implementation fee
• Scalable by number of active users
• No lock-in

If you’re comparing specific vendors, we have comparisons with Sesame, Factorial, Woffu and 8 more tools, with verified prices.

How Cleverfy solves it

At Cleverfy we built presence control for SMEs that want to comply without turning it into an IT project:

• Clocking in 3 seconds — iOS/Android app, web, Chrome extension, tablet kiosk with PIN and an official ChatGPT app. Each person picks their channel.
• Works without coverage — the app stores the clock-in with its real timestamp and syncs once the connection is back.
• Legally compliant records — timestamped to the minute, full change traceability, 4-year retention, access for the Labour Inspectorate and employee representatives.
• Optional geolocation — only if you enable it, and only at the moment of clocking. No continuous tracking.
• Automatic reports — hours worked, absences, overtime; exportable to Excel or PDF.
• Data in Spain — infrastructure in the AWS Spain region, full encryption, DPA included.
• From €1.20 per user/month — no lock-in, no setup fee, you only pay for active users.

Check the pricing or try it free for 14 days, no card required.

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Need to roll out presence control in your company? Try Cleverfy free for 14 days — no card, no lock-in. Or book a 15-minute demo.

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Sources: Workers’ Statute — Art. 34.9, LISOS — Law on Infringements and Penalties in the Social Order, economic report of the draft Royal Decree on time records.