A shift log written on the day is a note. The same log kept for two years is evidence. The difference matters exactly once — when someone questions your hours, your rest or your pay.
Why two years
Most pay and rest questions arrive long after the shift. A bonus is recalculated at the end of the quarter, an insurance claim is reviewed months later, a tax office asks about days worked in the previous year. Twenty-four months covers a full annual cycle twice, including the year-end paperwork.
What is worth keeping for each shift
- start and end of the shift, and the rest taken inside it;
- kilometres driven, loaded and empty;
- the pay note used that day: rate, hours, bonus, deductions;
- notes about waiting, breakdowns, loading delays, damage;
- photos of the CMR, the seal or the damage, if there was any.
If a record cannot answer "how many hours, how many kilometres, how much money", it will not help later.
Three questions the archive must answer
- How much did I work this month? Hours and days, not impressions.
- How was it paid? Which rate, which currency, which bonus, which deduction.
- What happened on that specific day? The one the dispatcher remembers differently.
Any archive that needs a laptop, an internet connection and fifteen minutes to answer these is too slow to be used in an argument.
Export before you need it
Export the month when the month closes, not when the dispute starts. A file per month, named by year and month, is enough. Keep it outside the phone as well: a lost or replaced device should not take two years of records with it.
Your data, your decision. Shift records contain your working time, location and pay. Do not publish them, and check what your employer or contract says about handing them over.
Where the app fits
Truck Driver keeps a 24-month archive: each shift stores its notes, photos, videos and its own pay entry, and can be exported in one tap. The archive is the reason the daily two-minute entry pays for itself.
Truck Driver is a driver's own record, not an official tachograph record and not a replacement for legally required documentation.