Toku: Germany - How to Submit Your Monthly Working Time Record

German employment law requires your employer to record the start time, end time and breaks of your daily working time. As your employer of record in Germany, WorkCo Germany GmbH holds that record. If you are employed by Toku in Germany, you will keep a monthly working time record and submit it to us.

💡 Your working time record

Toku has created a personal working time record for you in Google Sheets and shared it with you as an editor. You do not need to make a copy. It is one file for the whole year, with a tab for each month.

If you cannot find your file, or you do not have edit access, email [email protected] and we will re-share it.

Step 1: Set it up, once

Go to the Read me first tab and type your full name and your client into the two yellow cells at the top. These carry through to every month tab, so you only do this once. That tab also carries a note saying Toku completes these cells. Please ignore it and fill them in yourself.

Step 2: Fill it in as you go

Open the tab for the current month. There is one row per calendar day.
Enter your time on the day you work it. Please do not save it up and complete the whole month at the end. The record needs to show when the time was recorded, not only how much was worked.
For each working day, fill in the yellow cells only: Start, End and Break minutes. Net hours and the monthly total calculate themselves.
On a day you do not work, leave the time cells blank and put the reason in the Notes column: public holiday, annual leave, sick, or unpaid.
If you need to correct an earlier entry, change it and add a short note saying what you corrected. Please do not delete rows or clear earlier days.

Step 3: Confirm the month

At the end of the month, check the monthly total, then type your name and the date in the confirmation row at the bottom of the tab. That confirmation is your declaration that the entries are complete and accurate.

Step 4: Submit it

Open the month tab you are submitting.
Go to File → Download → PDF Document. This exports the tab you are on, so check you are on the right month first.
Log in to your Toku account and open Documents in the left-hand menu.

Documents is under COMPANY in the left-hand menu. The Upload Document button is at the top right of your documents list.

Click Upload Document and upload the PDF.

The upload window with the month's PDF attached. Category is required: Other is selected here (the list starts on Tax Document (W-4 Federal)). Then click Upload Document.

Toku is notified automatically and files the record.

⏰ Submission deadline

Submit by the 10th of the following month.

Your record does not change what you are paid. German full time salaries are fixed, so a late record does not delay or alter your salary. It is still needed on time, because it is the record your employer is legally required to hold.

Working time limits you should know

German working time law sets a maximum of 8 hours per working day, which can go to 10 hours only where the average across six months stays at 8. It requires a break of at least 30 minutes after 6 hours worked and 45 minutes after 9 hours, and at least 11 hours of rest between the end of one working day and the start of the next.

If your actual hours fall outside any of these, record them accurately and tell us. Please do not adjust your record to make it fit. We would rather see the real position and work through it with you and your manager.

Why is this required?

The Federal Labour Court held in September 2022 (1 ABR 22/21) that employers must operate a system to record the start and end of daily working time, a duty read into section 3(2) of the Arbeitsschutzgesetz. Section 16(2) of the Arbeitszeitgesetz separately requires hours beyond the eight hour working day to be recorded and kept for two years.

This is a legal obligation on every employer in Germany, not a Toku policy, and it is not a measure of your performance.

Questions?

Contact your Toku Customer Success Manager or reach out to [email protected].