Clocking in requirement UK

[NyanBinaryJohn]

I could do with some help because info online is confusing me based on my working experience.

My company have a clocking in app. I don't use it much but a recent change in management has resulted in a crack down on the use of it. (I haven't used it for 6-9 months, with no feedback.)

Current manager has told me it's for audit purposes to make sure we don't exceed allowed hours. Thing is, I often forget to log out and then end up doing very long shifts, which are a pig to edit (so I don't).

Is there an audit requirement to clock in and out of a standard salaried job? I have worked in offices for the best part of 20 years and this has never been a thing and it feels, frankly, infantilising.

I work in retail and we have to clock off within three minutes of our finishing time, which a good thing as we can't deal with any last minute customers who need quite a bit of time to help them with purchase. I have occasionally forgotten to clock out, but our managers check about 10 mins before close that people who haven't logged out aren't in the building.

I've had to use various time monitoring systems in my working life -

I've worked in a factory during school holidays where we had to physically put a card in a machine, I've worked in a call centre where you had to log into the live system to show you were ready to take calls, I've worked in places like macdonalds and tescos during uni where you have to login to a machine with your code. I've also had plenty of jobs where i did not have to log my time.

My current job entails me to log my time throughout the day depending on task and what client project I am working on! if I reply to a client email I have to log it against that project even if only 1 minute to record! it takes some getting used to but it is essential to ensure that we we billing correctly.

Most of my jobs I have had to do it
Carer - swipe in and out at peoples homes
Office - sign in and out with the time
Contact centre - can't sneeze without it being logged and timed to the second