Not all software used by Portuguese companies is built with them in mind. Most attendance management systems circulating in the national market were designed in other countries, hastily translated and adapted — often poorly — to the Portuguese legal and operational reality. Picco was born precisely to reverse that logic: it is a time tracking system conceived, designed and developed in Portugal, between Braga and Povoa de Lanhoso.

A product with a home address

Picco is developed by Damastor, a technology company based in the Braga region, with roots in Povoa de Lanhoso. It is not a white-label import or a generic resold software. It is a product built from scratch by a Portuguese team that knows the business fabric of northern Portugal: the small and medium industrial companies, workshops, production units, textile, wood and paper factories that make up a large part of the region's economy.

This proximity is not a marketing detail. It is a real advantage. When the system is built by people who live the same reality as their clients, product decisions reflect concrete problems — not assumptions made thousands of kilometres away.

Why origin matters

A time tracking system must comply with the Portuguese Labour Code. It must handle shifts, hours banks, allowances and break rules that are specific to national legislation. It must work in real factory floors, where internet is not always stable and employees do not want to (and should not have to) use their smartphone to clock in.

A product developed in Portugal starts with these requirements already solved. There is no need to adapt or improvise: Portuguese and Spanish legal compliance is at the core of the system from day one. And support is provided in Portuguese, by people in the same time zone who understand the context of whoever calls.

What is Picco

Picco combines a physical RFID reading terminal — the Picco CS — with a cloud management platform. The employee swipes a proximity card at the terminal and the clock-in or clock-out record is stored to the second. The manager accesses the data in real time from any device, and exports reports ready for accounting.

Installation is done by the company itself, in under 8 minutes, without any technicians. The system works even without an internet connection, storing records locally and syncing as soon as the connection returns. And the price was designed for any SME's budget: the platform starts at 9.90 euros per month.

Made here, for those from here

There is something symbolic about building quality technology outside the big cities. Braga and Povoa de Lanhoso are not San Francisco or Berlin — but they are home to a community of companies that deserve technological tools on a par with those in major cities, without paying big-city prices.

Picco is exactly that: a time tracking system developed in northern Portugal, for Portuguese and Spanish companies that want to manage attendance with rigour, simplicity and at a fair cost. Find out more at damastor.com/picco.