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Month end and payroll

Payday comes before the month ends. Here is how the hours fit in.

Pay the salary on time, close the month when it is over, and send your payroll adviser one file for the whole team. Tiemio records the working hours; you keep your existing payroll arrangements.

In a sunlit joinery workshop, the owner, a Black woman in her fifties with short greying curls, glasses and a canvas apron, works on a laptop beside a notebook, smiling, while behind her an older man with a white beard sands a chair frame and a young woman in a mustard headscarf helps him hold it.
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In short

If you pay on the last day of the month, the payslip is made before the month's hours are complete. For most employees that is not a problem: a fixed salary does not wait for the record. The hours to plan for are those that change the amount paid: overtime, extra hours for part-time employees and hours paid at an hourly rate.

The usual way to handle those is a cut-off. One simple option for a small business is the end of the last complete month: each payroll pays the current month's salary plus the variable hours of the month before. Agree the cut-off with your payroll adviser once, in writing. Then, each month, you download one file from Tiemio and send it to them: the whole team's hours and each person's DNI or NIE, with the corrections settled and the monthly timesheets already signed in the app.

A pay cycle in a small workshop

  1. 28 October

    A missing DNI, spotted in time

    Nerea runs a joinery workshop with five people. On her team list, the new hire's DNI shows as not given. She taps Ask for it; he gets a notice and adds it to his profile. Only he can enter it.

  2. 31 October

    Payday, with the month not yet closed

    Everyone gets their October salary on time. Today's hours are not on anyone's payslip, and they do not need to be: the extra hours in this payroll are September's, already closed.

  3. 2 November

    October is over: fix, then sign

    Jon never tapped Finish work on Friday. He asks for a correction with the real time and a reason, and Nerea approves it; the taps he did make stay as recorded. Then she taps Sign and send, and each person reviews their monthly timesheet and signs it in the app, or signs it recording that they disagree, and why.

  4. 4 November

    One file, one email

    On the Records tab she downloads October: a spreadsheet for her payroll adviser, or a PDF if they prefer. One file with the whole team, attached to an email. It takes five minutes.

  5. 30 November

    October's extra hours, on November's payslip

    The adviser has the closed month, so Jon's extra October hours are paid with his November salary, using the recorded total rather than an estimate. If the adviser asks about a corrected day, the reason and who approved it are in the file.

Month end, without and with a set cut-off

Rushed at month end

Sheets, messages and estimates

  • Hours in the last days of the monthEstimated, then fixed later
  • Monthly totalsAdded up by hand
  • The DNI or NIELooked up in another file
  • The whole teamOne sheet per person
  • Someone who left mid-monthEasy to miss
  • A question weeks laterNobody remembers

With Tiemio and a cut-off

A closed month, sent once

  • Hours in the last days of the monthRecorded in their month, paid in the next
  • Monthly totalsWorked out from the taps
  • The DNI or NIEIn the file, beside each name
  • The whole teamOne file for everyone
  • Someone who left mid-monthIncluded, up to their last day
  • A question weeks laterThe reason is in the file

How Tiemio fits into your payroll

  • One file for the whole team

    Each month, one spreadsheet or PDF with every day, the hours, and each person's name and DNI or NIE. Corrected days are marked, with the reason and who approved them. Each document carries Tiemio's digital signature, so anyone can check it is genuine at tiemio.com/verify.

  • A timesheet both sides have signed

    Each person reviews their monthly timesheet and signs it in the app, or signs it recording that they disagree, and why. You can settle any disagreement before the next payroll, not after the payslip arrives.

  • API integration

    Once a developer has set it up, any system that can make a web request can read your team's hours automatically: worked time per person per day with corrections applied, and every tap if needed. It uses a read-only key from your Company page, so it cannot change the record, and it identifies people by Tiemio's ID, not their DNI or NIE. See the API page.

See all features

Who answers for the record

Your payroll adviser may prepare the payslips, but the record stays your responsibility.

each person's start and finish
Every day
each person's start and finish
hours totalled where overtime is worked
Each pay period
hours totalled where overtime is worked
the company keeps the record
4 years
the company keeps the record
the fine for no record, or a wrong one
€751–€7,500
the fine for no record, or a wrong one

The Workers' Statute makes the company responsible for the daily record: it guarantees the record, keeps it for four years, and keeps it available to employees, their representatives and the Labour Inspectorate (article 34.9). Passing the hours to a payroll adviser does not pass on that duty.

For overtime, each person's hours are recorded day by day and totalled for the pay period, and the employee gets a copy of the summary with the payslip (article 35.5). Part-time employees get a monthly summary of their hours with theirs (article 12.4.c). Tiemio's monthly PDF shows each day and the total, but it does not decide which hours are overtime: that depends on the contract and the collective agreement.

A cut-off is a way of organising payroll, not a rule in the law, and your collective agreement or contract may set when variable pay is due. Before you adopt one, ask your payroll adviser whether it fits your contract and collective agreement, how the hours are reported to Social Security, and which summary goes with which payslip.

Key point

You can hand over the payroll, not the responsibility for the record: keep your own copy of the hours.

Checked against the law in force on 31 October 2026. This page explains the rules; it is not legal advice.

All the questions about the working-time recordWho must record, what, for how long, the fines, and proposed changes to digital record keeping.

Questions

I pay on the last day of the month. What about the last days' hours?

You do not need the month to close before paying a fixed salary. Variable hours are usually paid after a cut-off: many small businesses pay them with the next month's payslip, from the last complete month. Agree it with your payroll adviser and tell your team, so nobody thinks hours have gone missing.

My payroll adviser closes on the 25th. Can Tiemio do that?

Yes, with two limits. In the app, you can download the current month at any time, and the file shows every day recorded so far, so your adviser can take the days up to the 25th. With the read-only API, a system set up by a developer can read each person's hours for exactly the days it needs, automatically, from the 26th of one month to the 25th of the next. The limits: the app's files cover calendar months, and a month can only be signed once it has ended, so hours read on the 25th are not yet signed.

Does Tiemio do payroll or calculate overtime?

No. Tiemio keeps the hours: each day, each month's total and the signed timesheet. If you set a timetable, it flags time outside it. Whether those hours count as overtime depends on the contract and the collective agreement, so your payroll adviser decides, and prepares the payslips and Social Security filings.

Can the spreadsheet be imported into payroll software?

There is no ready-made connection to any payroll software, though a developer can connect one through the read-only API. The file is a standard XLSX with fixed columns, one fact per cell, so it opens in spreadsheet software and its columns can be mapped to the fields your payroll program needs. The column names are in English in every language, and an About sheet explains each one. If your adviser uses a particular program, tell us which: it helps us decide what to connect next.

Can my payroll adviser or HR person log in to Tiemio?

Not at the moment. The owner of the business downloads the month and sends it on, by email or however you normally do. Anyone who receives it can check the document is genuine at tiemio.com/verify.

Also read

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