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A Japanese-affiliated SME in Germany Tried Implementing Personio ― [Part 2] Attendance and Leave Management
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This is Ito from Berlin.
At Classmethod Europe, our German entity, we switched our attendance and HR system to Personio this year as we reached 16 employees. In this series, we share the knowledge gained during that implementation as "we tried it" articles, organized by feature.
In the first installment, we covered the background of the switch and the integration with DATEV (payroll tool), which is arguably the most critical aspect for our German entity. The ability to centrally manage attendance, HR, and payroll data and sync with our accounting firm in just a few clicks from a single screen was a major deciding factor in the switch.
In this second installment, we look at the attendance (Attendance) and time off (Time Off) management features that are central to day-to-day operations, including comparisons with German labor law and our previous attendance system, Timetac.
Attendance Management
Attendance entries in Personio are made by opening the Attendance screen or via the widget on the home page. You can also optionally enable a live entry feature with start/stop buttons.
The Attendance screen is visually intuitive and can be configured to warn users before entry if there are rule violations regarding breaks or maximum daily working hours. It is also convenient that current overtime hours are visible on the same screen.
A Work schedule is created and applied to each user. Not only working hours but also work rules such as breaks and overtime can be configured individually, allowing flexible application depending on country or contract type.
Public holidays based on country and state of residence can also be configured, just as in Timetac. You select a predefined or custom holiday calendar and link it to employees via Workplace.
Time Off Management
Personio's time off management is displayed in a calendar format on the Time Off screen. Entry is straightforward, and beyond paid leave, you can flexibly create time off types with day limits, with remaining days clearly visible.
However, there are some UI limitations in Personio for the following use cases.
- Entering a half-day ⇒ The attendance screen does not immediately distinguish between a half-day and a full-day off
- Entering compensatory leave using overtime hours ⇒ The attendance screen continues to show a "missing attendance entry" warning (the warning can be dismissed by explicitly entering 0 hours of attendance)
These were integrated in Timetac, but in Personio, attendance management and time off requests appear to have been designed as independent features.
Approval Workflow and Attendance "Closing"
A key aspect of attendance management is how you ensure the accuracy of records. Entry errors, violations of the ArbZG (Working Hours Act), and falsification after confirmation are issues that cannot be ignored from an audit perspective.
On this point, Timetac and Personio differ somewhat in their design philosophy.
Approval Workflow
Approval workflows can be applied to specific attendance records and time off.
In Timetac, the flow required "an authorized approver to access the request list screen and approve," whereas in Personio, requests are delivered to the approver.
Timetac (Pull model: approver goes to check the list)
Personio (Push model: request is delivered to the approver)
Personio also has a request list screen, but you can only view progress there — approval actions cannot be performed from it. However, since approvers no longer need to go check the list, fewer requests fall through the cracks.
The detailed approval features will be covered in the third installment.
Attendance "Closing" and Locking
How finalized attendance is closed differs significantly between the two systems.
- Timetac:
- No warnings at the time of entry; rule violations are presented in attendance reports.
- Employees and managers can each close any period they choose, and closed attendance is locked from editing.
- Re-editing requires removing the close.
- Even before closing, entries or changes to past attendance beyond a configured number of days require an approval request.
- Personio:
- Rule violations can be warned to the user at the time of entry, and violations can also be set to require approval or notification.
- There is no concept of locking attendance; administrators and managers with editing permissions can directly edit any past period at any time.
- Conversely, if an employee needs to make corrections after the specified number of days, they must request it outside the system.
- Additionally, time off added after payroll report approval is highlighted as "change data" in the next payroll report — rather than locking, the design ensures accountability through post-hoc visibility.
Personio excels in pre-entry warnings and the ability to "require approval for violations."
On the other hand, Timetac was more convenient for the "closing" mechanism that prevents inadvertent changes to past records. Unlike Timetac, where records cannot be edited unless explicitly unlocked and changes after the deadline require approval, Personio allows direct editing of past data depending on permissions.
💡 However, Personio offers fine-grained permission settings, making it possible to compensate through careful permission design — specifying who can edit whose past data — and operational closing rules.
As mentioned in the first installment, at our company, team leaders conduct a monthly attendance review and are assigned only the necessary permissions for team members.
Time Off Approval and Sick Leave Submission (eAU Support)
For time off approvals, approvers and routes can be separated by type and condition. What has been particularly helpful in our operations is document submission for sick leave requests.
- File attachment: Files such as certificates of incapacity for work (Arbeitsunfähigkeitsbescheinigung) can be attached within the system and managed in the same place as attendance and HR data.
- eAU support: When the DATEV integration introduced in the first installment is configured, submission via Germany's electronic certificate (eAU) is also possible. Since sick leave certificates issued electronically by medical institutions through health insurance can be handled digitally, the exchange of paper certificates is reduced. This is a benefit unique to German operations.
Team Calendar
It is very easy to see and convenient for checking team members' absences. Timetac had a similar feature, but Personio's ability to granularly specify permissions for who can see which time off types for whom is excellent.
Remote work can also be created as a type under Time Off, which we actively use.
Our company works primarily from home, but employees are also permitted to work from cities other than their usual work location. Previously, employees reported remote work in Slack, but by creating a Time Off type called "Workation," we can now reflect it in the team calendar while still entering attendance normally without treating it as leave.
Since it is also reflected in Slack status as described below, sharing with the team has become seamless.
Leave Integration (Outlook / Slack)
By integrating with Office 365 via Marketplace integrations, entered time off can be automatically synced to Outlook Calendar as "Out of office."
There is no longer any need to enter leave separately in calendars or Slack.
When sending meeting invitations, simply checking the Schedule Assistant is sufficient — no need to check Personio or Slack separately. This has made internal scheduling significantly easier.
With the Slack integration, Slack status can be automatically updated according to time off. Depending on the time off type, 🌴 paid leave / 🤒 sick leave / ❌ other / 🏡 remote work are synced. (Status text is fixed in Personio.)
However, for Slack / Outlook users, configuring this integration will cause the Out of office automatically added to the calendar by Personio to also be reflected in Slack status.
With the Slack integration, it is also possible to send daily notifications of employee time off and anniversaries to a specific channel.
Summary
In terms of attendance and time off, switching to Personio has greatly improved "pre-entry rule warnings," "flexible approval flows," and "team sharing and external integration of time off."
On the other hand, to be honest, there are areas where Timetac was superior, such as closing (ease of preventing past changes) and handling of half-days and compensatory leave.
How you evaluate this depends on what your organization prioritizes in its operations, but for us, Personio's shortcomings can be covered by operational practices, and we feel the benefit of a dramatic reduction in minor manual tasks outweighs them.
The next installment (Part 3) will dive deeper into how we automate these approval flows and notifications.
Classmethod Europe supports back-office operations and system selection for European bases, drawing on our own hands-on operational experience. Please feel free to reach out.