Time Tracking in Security Services: The Best Solution for Security Companies

Time Tracking in Security Services: Why the Industry Has Special Requirements

No sector places higher demands on the completeness of time tracking than the security industry. Security guards, property protection staff and response teams work around the clock, on weekends and public holidays – with a remuneration system based on exact timestamps. Night, Sunday and public holiday supplements make up a significant portion of wages and must be calculated accurately.

At the same time, clients – from shopping centres and industrial facilities to public institutions – expect seamless attendance records: who was on post and when? Was the shift started on time? Were there any deviations?

Anyone trying to manage these requirements with paper, Excel or single-language apps loses time, money and trust every single day.

The 6 Biggest Problems with Time Tracking in Security Services

• ✅ 24/7 Shift Operations: Shifts start at 10:00 PM, end at 6:00 AM, overlap and change daily. Manual records are error-prone – and the primary source of errors in payroll calculations.
• ✅ Changing Deployment Locations: Employees are dispatched from one site to another at short notice. Who was actually at the right post and when? Without GPS verification, this is difficult to prove.
• ✅ Supplement Calculations: Night, Sunday and public holiday supplements under collective agreements require minute-accurate time tracking. Every incorrectly calculated hour comes at a cost – either to the employee or the company.
• ✅ Attendance Verification for Clients: Clients are increasingly demanding digital activity records – when was the post taken up, when was the handover, were there any incidents? Paper is no longer sufficient.
• ✅ International Employees: Many security staff do not speak the local language as their native language. Single-language systems are operated incorrectly – with direct consequences for shift scheduling, payroll and communication.
• ✅ Handover Verification and Shift Handover Report: In the security industry, the handover between the outgoing and incoming shift must be documented. Digital handover reports can replace handwritten guard logs.

What the Law Requires of Security Companies

Security companies are subject to strict documentation obligations – both under employment law and under the licensing rules for the security trade. The details depend on the country:

• ✅ Working time rules: Since the 2019 ruling of the Court of Justice of the EU (C-55/18), daily working time must be recorded with an objective, reliable and accessible system – for every employee, every shift. Retention periods are set nationally.
• ✅ Collective agreements for the security industry: Detailed regulations on night, Sunday and public holiday supplements, on-call duty and standby – all require minute-accurate time tracking.
• ✅ Trade licensing rules: In many countries, security companies need a licence and must meet requirements on staff and documentation – so it should always be possible to show which personnel were deployed and when.
• ✅ Data Protection (GDPR): GPS tracking and shift documentation must be carried out in compliance with the GDPR – employees must be transparently informed, and where employee representatives exist they usually have to be consulted or agree.

Practical note: The competent authorities can inspect security companies at any time to verify that working time records are complete and correct. At the same time, commercial clients are increasingly requiring proof of digital documentation systems as a quality criterion when concluding and renewing contracts.

GPS Location Verification: Indispensable in the Security Industry

In the security industry, GPS-supported time tracking is more than a practical feature – it is particularly reliable proof that an employee was actually at the agreed post when the shift started.

• ✅ Post Verification: When did the security personnel take up their post – and were they actually in the right location?
• ✅ Patrol Log: Were inspection rounds carried out? Timestamps and notes per round make this traceable.
• ✅ Incident Documentation: In the event of a security incident, a record with timestamp and location is strong documentation for clients, insurers and authorities.
• ✅ Handover Verification: When did the incoming shift take over the post? Location and timestamp at clock-in document the handover.

GDPR note: GPS tracking in the security industry is permissible – but only during working hours and only for operational purposes. Employees must be transparently informed. Where a works council or other employee representatives exist, they usually have to be consulted or agree. Jobilino records the location only at the moment of clocking in or out – there is no continuous tracking.

Shift Scheduling and Time Tracking: Two Sides of the Same Coin

In the security industry, shift scheduling and time tracking are inseparably linked. Managing both in one system saves considerable effort:

• ✅ Shift Schedule in the App: Employees can view their current shift schedule in their native language – including deployment location and shift start time
• ✅ Notifications: New and changed shifts are announced by push notification – in the employee's language
• ✅ Absences in View: Holidays and sick leave are visible when planning shifts
• ✅ Target vs. Actual Comparison: Was the employee on time? Were all shifts covered? Gaps in the shift schedule become immediately visible

Multilingual Support in the Security Industry: Safety Starts with Understanding

Security personnel who do not fully understand safety instructions, handover reports or emergency response plans are a risk factor – not out of negligence, but because of a language barrier. In the security industry, this can have serious consequences.

Jobilino shows each employee the app in their native language: shift schedule, tasks and notifications. Supported languages: Albanian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, Georgian, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Macedonian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Somali, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and Ukrainian.

The practical advantage: new employees can act independently after a short introduction. Onboarding is shorter, errors during the first shift become less frequent – and safety standards are easier to follow from day one.

Digital Guard Log: The Shift Handover Report of the Future

The traditional guard log has been standard practice in the security industry for decades – but handwritten entries are illegible, unsearchable and difficult to evaluate in the event of an incident. With Jobilino, part of it can be documented digitally:

• ✅ Employees record incidents and special occurrences as a note on their shift directly in the app
• ✅ Photos of incidents with timestamp directly from the app
• ✅ The office sees the entries immediately
• ✅ All entries are stored in a traceable way and can be exported

This is not a complete guard log with a formal handover report – check with your clients how they want handovers to be documented.

Jobilino for the Security Industry: What the App Delivers in Practice

• ✅ GPS Post Verification: Timestamp and location at shift start – traceable and hard to manipulate
• ✅ Multilingual Shift Schedule: Notifications about new and changed shifts in the employee's native language
• ✅ Notes and Photos per Shift: Record incidents and photos in the app – traceable and exportable
• ✅ Multilingual: Romanian, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian, Croatian, Serbian, Turkish, German, English
• ✅ Supplement Calculation: Precise time tracking as the basis for night, Sunday and public holiday supplements under the applicable collective agreement
• ✅ Client Reporting: Attendance records per property and shift as a PDF – professional, traceable, available at the touch of a button
• ✅ NFC Clock-ins without Signal: In areas with poor signal, such as underground car parks or shielded industrial facilities, NFC clock-ins are stored and sent later
• ✅ Payroll Export: Export of hours for payroll, in the Premium plan also for DATEV, BMD and Lexware – night, Sunday and public holiday supplements can be configured
• ✅ Data Protection: Location only at clock-in, data stored in the EU, data processing agreement (DPA)

Conclusion: In the Security Industry, Seamless Documentation Is Not a Bureaucratic Burden – It Is the Product

What security companies sell is reliability. Reliability that the post is staffed. That the round was completed. That action is taken in an emergency. Those who cannot also document this reliability digitally lose contracts – to competitors who provide more professional records.

Digital time tracking with GPS post verification, notes and photos per shift, multilingual shift scheduling and seamless client reporting is not an advantage in the security industry. It is the standard the market expects today.

Try Jobilino now for free – designed specifically for security companies with shift operations and international teams. No credit card, no commitment, ready to use immediately.