With Working time only, timeghost Time tracking focuses exclusively on recording and managing employees’ working hours.

Users record when they work and when they take breaks. Project time is not recorded in this setup. Working schedules, target hours, absences, working time rules, and time accounts can be used to put the recorded working time into context.


In short

Working time only is designed for organizations that need working time records without project-based time tracking. Users record their working hours and breaks, while timeghost can compare them with target hours and applicable working time rules.


How working time is recorded


In this setup, users record working time directly.


Depending on the situation, working time can be recorded using check-in and check-out or entered manually. Breaks are part of the working time record and can be managed separately from active working periods.


The resulting entries represent the employee’s actual recorded working time.

Working schedules and target hours


Working schedules define when and for how long employees are expected to work.


They provide the basis for determining target hours and make it possible to compare expected working time with the working time actually recorded.


Where required, individual working schedules can be used for users whose regular working hours differ from the general schedule of the workspace.

Absences and working time


Absences such as vacation or sickness are recorded separately from working time.


Depending on their configuration, absences can compensate for the corresponding target hours. This means an employee does not have to create artificial working time entries simply to meet the expected hours for an approved absence.


Absence management and working time therefore remain separate while still being taken into account together when evaluating the employee’s time.

Working time rules


Working time rules can be used to check recorded working time against configured requirements such as break requirements, maximum daily working time, or minimum rest periods.


Depending on the workspace configuration, rules can either:

  • warn users about a violation while still allowing the entry, or

  • enforce compliance, in which case an entry that violates the configured rules cannot be saved until it has been corrected.


This allows organizations to decide whether working time rules should primarily provide guidance or actively prevent non-compliant entries.

Time accounts


Recorded working time, target hours, and relevant absences can be reflected in a user’s time account.


The time account shows the difference between the time an employee was expected to work and the time taken into account for that period. This makes it possible to track positive or negative balances over time.

Roles and permissions


The available working time information and administrative actions also depend on a user’s role and permissions.


Administrators and other appropriately authorized users can manage working-time-related settings or access additional employee information. Supervisor relationships can additionally determine access to information about assigned employees.


The Financial controller role is specific to project time and is therefore not available in a workspace that uses Working time only.

What is not included in this setup?


With Working time only, users do not record time against projects or tasks.


If your organization needs to analyze how much time is spent on individual projects, tasks, customers, or billable activities, consider one of the project-time-based setups instead.


Project time only is intended for project-based tracking without separate working time records.


Project time with automatic working time combines both: users record project time and timeghost automatically creates the corresponding working time.

What’s next?


→ Choose the right time tracking setup
Compare all three time tracking setups and their intended use.


→ Project time only – what you need to know
Learn how timeghost works when only project time is recorded.


→ Project time with automatic working time – what you need to know
Learn how project time and automatically created working time work together.