Hatara Kiroku日本語 ↗Built for workers in Japan
Your time
deserves a record.
Even the minutes after
“just one more thing.”
You already have enough to remember at work. Hatara Kiroku automatically records your arrivals and departures on your iPhone — a record you keep for yourself.
Available now · iOS 17+ · Core recording and CSV export are free.
Designed for Japan. Pay estimates use Japanese rules.
Time at a workplace is not necessarily time worked.
A personal reason
Why I built
Hatara Kiroku.
Years ago, my wife worked part-time at a supermarket. After clocking out, she would still work for another 30 minutes, sometimes an hour. Those minutes were missing from her time records.
That stayed with me. I built Hatara Kiroku so workers could keep a record of their own.
Why Japan
A small request.
A hard-to-remember evening.
In Japan, unpaid overtime is often called sabisu zangyo — “service overtime.” A 2024 RENGO survey documents reasons for it, including a workplace atmosphere that makes overtime difficult to claim. Survey, pp. 14–15 ↗
Our starting point is a worker who wants to remember when they were at work, even before deciding whether to raise a concern.
Japan · official cases handled in 2025
¥12.86bn
in unpaid wages across cases handled by Japan’s labour standards inspection offices.
This covers unpaid wages broadly, not just overtime. It is not an estimate of Japan’s total annual losses. About ¥11.00bn was paid following intervention within the year.
MHLW · published 21 August 2026 ↗The product
A record on your side.
With less to remember.
- 01 / SET UP
Choose your workplace.
Register its location and allow Always location access. No app account is required.
- 02 / GO ABOUT YOUR DAY
Keep your phone with you.
Location monitoring detects arrival and departure across your workplace boundary.
- 03 / LOOK BACK
Review. Add context. Export.
Check daily and monthly records, add notes, and export a CSV when you choose.
Boundary detection can be delayed or missed. These are records to review alongside other information; they do not establish payable working time or guarantee a legal outcome.
Access & sustainability
Keeping a record
starts free.
Automatic recording and CSV export are free. An optional one-time Pro purchase unlocks pay and overtime summaries.
Pro is ¥400 in Japan; local prices appear in the App Store. RevenueCat manages Pro purchase status and restoration.
Personal work records stay on the iPhone.
The app does not send work records or workplace locations to RevenueCat. Purchase management uses Apple and RevenueCat; the app is not entirely disconnected from external services.
Read the privacy policy ↗Why we are building this
A tool has to fit
the person using it.
Our research found existing tools. It also sharpened our purpose: make keeping a personal work record easier to start, easier to continue, and useful in everyday life in Japan.
Less daily remembering.
Once your workplace and permissions are set, arrival and departure detection works without a daily clock-in tap.
Japan in the details.
A Japanese interface, yen-based pay estimates in Pro, and a focus on the working day here.
Your record to use.
No employer rollout or app account needed. Keep your work records on your iPhone and export a CSV for free.
These are our design choices, not a claim that other apps lack them. Recording reliability and ease of use need to be demonstrated through real-world testing.
What our research found
The U.S. Department of Labor and Australia’s Fair Work Ombudsman provide tools for workers’ own time records. Japan’s Multi-Job Health Management Tool also documents automatic GPS clocking, alongside manual controls.
Private apps including WorkLogic, WorkValue, and Geofency describe automatic location-based records. We do not claim to be Japan’s only option.
Early feedback from the project owner reported that WorkValue continued to display yuan after selecting Japanese yen, and raised concerns about relying on manual start/stop controls in the government app. The currency issue has not been independently reproduced; the government manual’s GPS workflow still needs a hands-on check. These observations guide our attention to setup and localisation, rather than establish comparative superiority.
A recording warning observed in Zangyo Shomei was followed by a screenshot showing system-wide Background App Refresh turned off. Retesting with that setting enabled is pending. Store descriptions and usability reports are not substitutes for controlled recording tests.
Research checked 13 September 2026. References are not endorsements or partnerships.
From remembering
to asking for advice.
We plan to approach labour-law practices to learn whether these records can make a first consultation easier to prepare for.
The proposed pilot would ask workers and advisers which details are useful, what context is missing, and how exports should be explained.
This is a plan, not a claim of an established partnership or recovered wages. Worker outcomes have not yet been demonstrated here. A future law-firm advertising model is also under consideration; it is not presented as a launched revenue stream.
For Shipaton reviewers
A small tool for
greater confidence.
The intended social benefit is to make a personal record easier to keep, so a worker can look back with more than memory alone. Next, we will measure missed or delayed arrivals and departures, check setup and Japanese currency displays, and learn from workers and advisers.