How digital time tracking works
From the tap to the figure in the payroll run: what actually happens between a clock-in and the month-end close — and the four points at which a business decides how the result looks.
The basicsGuides · Apprenticeships
Vocational school in the roster and the time account
Two school days a week, block weeks in between, plus school holidays that do not coincide with the company's. Anyone keeping that in their head will sooner or later plan a shift that cannot be filled. Stored once, it takes care of itself.
- One entry per school year — on the person, not on the working time model
- Weekdays or block weeks, plus the school holidays
- The school days are generated rolling eight months ahead
- A whole school day covers the daily target, the balance stays 0
- A half school day credits the teaching time
- No separate working time model per training year needed
The situation
Why apprentices make the roster harder
Not because they have special rules — but because their calendar comes from two sources.
For everyone else the frame is settled: working days, public holidays, leave. For an apprentice a second calendar comes along that the business does not make — the school's. It has its own holidays, its own block weeks, and it changes at the turn of the school year.
As long as that second calendar exists only on a noticeboard or in the training manager's memory, two things happen regularly: a shift ends up on a school day, and at the end of the month the time account shows a deficit nobody can explain — because the school day was counted as a day missed.
Entered once
One entry per school year
Not on the working time model but on the person — the difference that keeps the upkeep small.
On the person, not on the model
The timetable hangs on the apprentice. That is why no separate working time model per training year is needed — the model stays the same as for the rest of the department.
Rolling eight months ahead
From the entry the system generates the school days automatically and moves the window along. Planning in November, you already see next spring's school days blocked.
In the calendar too
Where a calendar is set up, the school days are entered there as well — the same information, in the place people already look.
What is skipped
Public holidays, model-free days and days already taken get no school day. The plan stays free of contradictions without anyone tidying up afterwards.
In the time account
What a school day does to target and balance
The question most people come here for.
A whole school day counts as the daily target met. That day's balance stays at zero — so neither a credit nor the deficit that would have arisen without the entry. For the month-end close that means the school day no longer stands out, because it produces nothing unusual.
For a half school day the teaching time is credited, and the work afterwards is added on top as normal. Somebody at school in the morning and four hours in the business in the afternoon has both in the account — with nobody doing arithmetic.
In the planning, school days are marked by their own colour and symbol, half days filled only halfway. Anyone scanning the plan sees at once which days are taken.
How vocational school time is to be credited in detail follows from the training contract and the rules that apply to it. The application represents what applies with you — the arrangement itself you make with your training management.
When something changes
Cancelled lessons, an extra date, a new school year
Three cases that are certain to come up during the training year.
Lessons are cancelled
The day is rubbed out and does not come back by itself. The apprentice can then be rostered for that day as normal.
An additional school day
A single day can be set by hand at any time, without touching the year's timetable.
The school year changes
A new entry from a date is enough. The pre-calculated days of the old rhythm disappear from that day on, along with their calendar entries, and are rebuilt to the new plan — with no duplicates.
How school days sit alongside the other duties in the monthly grid is shown under shift planning. A trade where both come together daily is the bakery.
Read on
More guides
Target time, actual time and the time account
Three terms that most queries turn on. What they mean, how the balance arises from them, and what happens to it at the turn of the month.
Terms