The ACT can show up without prior notice. It has the legal right to do so. The difference between a visit that ends without a fine and one that ends with a heavy penalty is rarely having everything perfect — it is having the basic documents available, up to date, and accessible. This article is the checklist you would want to have before the ACT knocks on your door. Five minutes of reading. It could save you thousands.

Why the ACT shows up without warning

The Authority for Working Conditions has three main reasons for showing up at a company without notice. It is worth knowing each one.

• Scheduled inspection. The ACT defines annual campaigns by sector and region. If your activity is on the list (construction, industry, hospitality and catering are the most frequent), they can show up at any time during the inspection year.
• Complaint from a current or former employee. A disgruntled employee, a former worker who left on bad terms, someone who believes they were not paid what they were owed. The complaint can be anonymous and, if it has grounds, the ACT investigates.
• Follow-up inspection after an accident. If there was a workplace accident at your company, even a minor one, the ACT may show up to verify whether the accident did not result from systematic non-compliance.

Practical conclusion: nobody knows when the ACT will show up. The only defence is always being ready.

The 10-minute checklist

Take a notepad and go through this list with your company in mind. For each item, the answer must be 'yes' or 'I can have it in 2 minutes'. If the answer is 'I need to look for it' or 'I think so', that is work for today.

• 1. Working time records for the past 5 years Are they accessible? Paper or digital, it does not matter — but you must be able to show them in minutes, not days.
• 2. Posted work schedule Is it at the workplace, visible, signed, up to date?
• 3. Current-year holiday plan posted or available It must be posted by 15 April. If it is not, that is active non-compliance.
• 4. Employment contracts for all employees currently working Including interns and fixed-term workers. Including the cousin who helps on Saturdays.
• 5. Pay slips for the past 12 months Paid, signed or with proof of delivery.
• 6. Social Security notifications Hires, dismissals, terminations. Everything submitted to Social Security must have proof.
• 7. Occupational health certificates For all employees. Occupational health services issue them; they must be kept at the company.
• 8. Occupational risk prevention plan Mandatory. If you do not have one, you have a problem. If you have one but it is outdated, same issue.
• 9. Recorded mandatory training 40 annual hours of continuous training per employee (Article 131). The ACT requests proof.
• 10. Complaints book (if applicable) If you have public-facing service, you must have a complaints book in a visible location.

The most costly mistakes during inspections

Five situations that recur frequently in administrative offence proceedings and cost real money.

• Records 'in pencil' or easily editable. Blank paper sheets signed in advance, shared Excels where anyone can edit. The ACT considers this as the absence of a reliable record, not as an incomplete record. It is worse. Learn why it is worth switching from paper or Excel to an automated system
• Missing break records. Many companies record only entry and exit. The law requires recording of breaks not included in the schedule (typically, the meal break). If they are not marked, it is an incomplete record.
• Employees working without a written contract. Fixed-term contracts must be in writing. If an employee has been working for three months without a formal contract, the ACT presumes an open-ended contract — which can be costly in future compensation and an immediate fine.
• Overtime without recorded compensation. Overtime paid 'off the books' or compensated in hours without a written agreement. The ACT detects this by cross-referencing time records with pay slips. If they do not match, it investigates.
• Missing continuous training. 40 hours per employee per year. Many companies forget. The ACT requests proof (certificates, trainer declarations, attendance records) and, without them, it is a serious administrative offence.

The five minutes before the inspector enters

If someone knocks and it is the ACT, five things to do in the first minutes:

• Ask the inspector for identification. All inspectors carry a professional card with an order number. You have the right to check it.
• Inform the company manager. If they are not present, call by phone immediately. They may or may not arrive in time, but they must know the inspection is underway.
• Summon the person responsible for HR or administration. That is the person who will accompany the inspector through the documentation.
• Accompany the visit. Do not leave the inspector alone. Not out of mistrust, but because you need to know what they saw and what they asked for, so you can respond appropriately afterwards.
• Take notes. What documents were requested, what questions were asked, what was seen, what was noted. These notes are essential if there is a subsequent dispute about what happened.

What to say (and what not to say)

Employees may be interviewed by the ACT in private. This often catches companies by surprise. The rule is clear: the ACT has the right to do so, employees have the right to answer, and you cannot be present.

What to do beforehand (if you know in advance): inform the team that they may be interviewed and that they should answer truthfully about their actual schedules. Do not try to coordinate responses. Do not ask them to lie. The ACT detects coordination in ten minutes, and that turns a routine inspection into a serious process.

What to do if the inspection happens without warning: let the ACT do its work. Do not interfere. Do not ask employees to align their stories. Trust that the truth, if it matches the records, is sufficient.

This only works, of course, if the records match the truth. If there are systematically employees working hours that are not paid, if there are false entries in the records, if there are fabricated shifts, no inspection will go well. In these cases, the problem is not the inspection — it is how the company is operating.

The emergency kit

A single folder, physical or digital, that you should always keep updated and ready to hand over. When the ACT arrives, this folder is what you want to have ready.

• Updated list of employees with hire date, role, and schedule
• Last 3 months of working time records
• Last posted holiday plan
• Last posted work schedule
• Template of the standard contract you use
• Last Social Security notification
• Valid occupational health certificates
• Updated risk prevention plan
• Latest continuous training certificates
• Workplace accident records (if any)

If you have already received a letter and need to know how to respond, read what to do when you receive a letter from the ACT. To understand the scale of the fines at stake, see the ACT fines table for 2026

The real cost of not being prepared

An ACT inspection of a typical industrial SME, if it finds three serious irregularities (missing complete records, missing holiday plan, missing continuous training), can result in a total fine between €1,800 and €5,000 — not counting the time spent responding, subsequent notifications, and team stress.

Compared to this, keeping the emergency kit folder always ready costs two hours a month to update. The maths is obvious.

How Picco fits in here

There is a reason why many Portuguese SMEs are switching from paper to digital systems, and it is not for modernity. It is because a digital system automatically resolves items 1, 2, and partially 3 and 5 of this checklist.

Records for the past 5 years always accessible, automatically. Exportable in seconds to the emergency kit folder. Tamper-proof once recorded — which eliminates one of the most common ACT suspicions.

Picco was designed for this. No expensive hardware, no complicated setup, no technician needed. You can learn more at picco.damastor.com

In summary

The ACT will show up. It is not if, it is when. The question is being ready — and being ready is less work than it seems, if you have the ten checklist items in order. Five costly mistakes to avoid: editable records, missing break records, missing contracts, opaque overtime, ignored mandatory training. In the first five minutes of an inspection, ask for identification, summon the responsible person, accompany the inspector and take notes.

If you reached the end of this article, the logical next step is to go through the checklist. Ten minutes today can prevent months of process tomorrow.