Time and attendance software DRC has to work where most tools fail: on a mining site in Lualaba without reliable coverage, on a Kinshasa building site that moves every three months, at a logistics base in Lubumbashi or Matadi, with teams on rotation and salaries paid in US dollars or Congolese francs. This guide explains the legal framework to configure, the methods suited to Congolese field conditions, how to fight clock-in fraud and the questions to ask before you sign.
Why time tracking is a critical issue in the DRC
In Congolese companies employing hundreds of people far from Kinshasa, attendance is often managed through lists kept by team leaders and then re-keyed at head office. This process produces gaps that are hard to detect:
- overtime recorded without approval, or on the contrary forgotten;
- employees marked present when they were on rest days or on leave;
- names that stay on the lists after someone has left;
- records that reach head office several days late for lack of a network;
- no usable evidence in the event of a claim or a labour inspection.
Every hour paid is part of the base for IPR (professional income tax) and CNSS (national social security fund) contributions, as well as contributions to the INPP (national vocational training institute) and the ONEM (national employment office). Approximate time records therefore distort both the wage bill and the declarations.
The Congolese framework to configure
The Labour Code (law no. 015/2002, amended by law no. 16/010 of 15 July 2016) sets the legal working time, in its article 119, at 45 hours a week and 8 hours a day. According to the summary by WageIndicator DRC, based on ministerial order no. 68/11 of 17 May 1968, overtime carries a premium of 30% for each of the first six hours beyond the weekly working time, 60% for the following hours and 100% for hours worked on the weekly rest day. Night work has its own rules and premiums.
Collective agreements and company agreements, common in mining and large companies, may provide more. Have your adviser confirm your scale before configuring it, and make sure the software distinguishes:
- normal hours, the first six overtime hours and the following ones;
- night hours and the weekly rest day;
- statutory public holidays;
- rotation cycles, with their calculation period.
Rotations on site
On mining and oil sites, many employees work in cycles: several weeks on site, then a rest period. Time tracking must record every day of the cycle, calculate hours over the right period and feed the allowances set out in your agreement (site bonus, transport, recovery rest). These regimes rest on exemptions and agreements that must be documented: the tool must apply your rules, not invent them.
Offline: the basic requirement for time and attendance software DRC
On a mine, a road-building site or an agricultural concession, the network is weak, intermittent or absent. Require:
- clock-ins recorded on the phone or terminal without a connection, with the real time;
- automatic synchronisation as soon as the network returns, even several days later;
- a terminal that does not depend on a permanent internet connection;
- a lightweight app that works on 3G on entry-level smartphones.
That is what Socium Time, Socium's time and attendance software for DRC sites, offers: a QR terminal, GPS mobile clock-in with geofencing, local storage of clock-ins followed by synchronisation, and transfer of approved hours to Socium's Congolese payroll.
Fighting clock-in fraud
The most common fraud is not technical: a colleague clocks in for someone absent, a team leader fills in the list after the fact, a departure is not reported. Effective counter-measures:
| Risk | Counter-measure |
|---|---|
| Clocking in for a colleague | Individual clock-in on the employee's phone, dynamic QR code that changes regularly |
| Clocking in away from the site | Geofencing: a clock-in is only accepted within the perimeter of the mine or work site |
| List filled in after the fact | Unalterable timestamps and a history of every correction |
| Employee gone but still paid | Monthly check of employees paid with no clock-in at all |
| Inflated overtime | Mandatory manager approval before any payment |
Biometrics is sometimes presented as the answer. It raises questions of proportionality and data protection, and does nothing about corrections made after the fact. For most sites, a dynamic QR code, geofencing and approval are enough.
Example: a 400-employee mining subcontractor
As an illustration, take a mining services company based in Lubumbashi, with three sites in Haut-Katanga and Lualaba. Each site sends a monthly list to head office; payroll closes a week late, and overtime claims are settled case by case.
After the switch to digital time tracking: a QR terminal at the entrance of each camp, the mobile app for teams working outside the camps, clock-ins recorded offline and synchronised as soon as the site's connection returns, and weekly approval by site managers. The first reconciliation reveals employees paid with no clock-in at all and overtime declared on rest days. Discrepancies are dealt with before payroll, no longer after the complaints.
Questions to ask in a time and attendance software DRC demo
- Put the phone in airplane mode, clock in, then restore the connection three days later: what time is recorded?
- How do you configure a rotation cycle and its bonuses?
- Show me the calculation of the first six overtime hours and the following ones, then the rest day.
- How do you detect an employee paid with no clock-in during the month?
- Who can correct a clock-in, and where is the correction logged?
- Do approved hours go to payroll in the right currency, without an Excel export?
- How does head office in Kinshasa consolidate the provincial sites?
Deploying time and attendance software DRC in six steps
- Site inventory (one to two weeks): network coverage, headcount, rotations, subcontractors, employees without smartphones.
- Written rules: schedules, cycles, premiums, bonuses, approval workflow.
- Inform employees and their representatives: what is collected and why.
- Pilot on a representative site for a full rotation cycle.
- Test payroll: compare line by line with the previous payroll, and deal with every employee paid without a clock-in.
- Full rollout site by site, with a trained referent on each one.
For a group of 300 to 1,500 employees across several provinces, it often takes three to four months, with the length of a rotation cycle weighing on the timetable.
Indicators to track
- employees paid without any clock-in during the month;
- clock-ins corrected manually, by site and by approver;
- overtime by site compared with normal hours;
- synchronisation delay for isolated sites;
- gap between theoretical and clocked-in headcount.
To go further, our guide to payroll software in the DRC covers dual currency in detail, and our article on time and attendance software in Senegal (in French) shares good practice from a neighbouring market.
Frequently asked questions
Does time and attendance software DRC work without internet?
It must: clock-ins are stored on the device with the real time and synchronised as soon as the network returns.
What is the legal working time in the DRC?
45 hours a week and 8 hours a day, under article 119 of the Labour Code as amended in 2016.
How do you avoid ghost workers on the payroll?
By reconciling each month the list of employees paid with the list of employees who clocked in, and dealing with every discrepancy.
Do subcontractors need separate time and attendance software DRC?
No, but they must be identified separately, so their presence can be tracked without mixing them into your payroll.
Key takeaways
- The legal reference is 45 hours a week; hours beyond that carry premiums by bands.
- Time and attendance software DRC must work offline and handle rotations.
- A dynamic QR code, geofencing and approval reduce fraud without resorting to biometrics.
- A direct link to payroll removes re-keying, whatever the currency of your contracts.
See offline clock-in applied to your Congolese sites: book a personalised demo, with a reply within 24 hours.
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