In Timebutler, you can create any absence types and have employees record them — including vocational school.
If time tracking is enabled, there are two options for how vocational school affects the working time account. Depending on how your company handles working time on vocational school days, configure the Vocational school absence type as follows:
Option 1: Vocational school days count as full working days
In most companies, vocational school students are not required to come to the workplace on days with vocational school. Alternatively, the rule may be that the daily planned working time is considered fulfilled on vocational school days, regardless of whether the student actually worked the full planned hours.
If all vocational school days should be treated as though the planned working time has been met — regardless of whether the student worked their full planned hours (e.g., 8 h) — enable the Reduces planned working time option for the Vocational school absence type.
When this option is enabled, the student only needs to enter a vocational school absence entry on vocational school days. No working time needs to be recorded for those days: the days are already considered fully completed.
On days without vocational school, working time must still be recorded as usual.
Advantage: On vocational school days, the student only needs to enter a vocational school entry — no working time entry is required.
Disadvantage: This option is not suitable if working time should also be recorded on vocational school days and overtime or deficit hours need to be tracked.
Option 2: Record and evaluate working time on vocational school days
If your company requires that the student comes to the workplace after class on vocational school days and working time should be recorded, disable the Reduces planned working time option for the Vocational school absence type.
When this option is disabled, vocational school has no effect on the working time account. The student must record their full working time on vocational school days, including the time spent at vocational school. If no working time is recorded, Timebutler calculates 0 h of actual working time, resulting in deficit hours equal to the planned working time — for example, −8 h for a day with 8 h planned.
Advantage: Working time is credited to the minute in the working time account, even on vocational school days.
Disadvantage: On vocational school days, the student must enter both a vocational school absence entry and a working time entry.
Option 1 and Option 2
In some cases, vocational school needs to be handled differently depending on the day of the week. For example, on Tuesdays with vocational school the student does not need to come to the workplace, but on Thursdays they must come in after class and record their working time.
This would call for Option 1 on Tuesdays and Option 2 on Thursdays. However, only one option can be active at a time. In this scenario, Option 2 must be activated, and the student must record working time on both Thursdays and Tuesdays.
Enter multiple vocational school entries via recurring entry Instead of entering vocational school entries individually, you can create many entries at once using a recurring entry.
Screenshot: “Absence reduces planned working time” setting
Note: Vocational school (Berufsschule) as described here refers to the German dual vocational training system. The configuration options above apply to any absence type where working time treatment needs to be defined. Companies outside Germany with similar apprenticeship or part-time education arrangements can apply the same logic, but the specific legal and contractual requirements differ by country.