Employee timesheet

What is an employee timesheet?

An employee timesheet refers to the document often used by HR teams and managers to track the amount of time employees spend on various work items, tasks, projects, and customers during a specific time period.

What is the purpose of using an employee timesheet?

The primary purpose of using a timesheet is to track working hours, which enables organizations to manage their workload, track overtime, improve productivity, manage project timelines, process payroll accurately, bill clients, and maintain compliance with labor laws. It goes a long way towards ensuring transparency in timekeeping and project management.

How to make timesheets for employees?

Timesheets can be created using paper-based forms and spreadsheet templates. However, if you want to automate the process and make it less complicated, you can also make use of digital timesheets that help employees track time manually or automatically using timers.

What information goes into timesheets?

The following fields are usually included in the timesheets:

◻ Employee name

◻ Project name

◻ Client name

◻ Work item/job/task

◻ Date

◻ Start and end time/number of hours or minutes spent working

◻ Billable status

◻ Break duration

◻ Attachment

How often should employees submit timesheets?

It totally depends on your organization's time tracking policies and how you plan to bill your clients. Employees can submit their timesheets either daily, weekly, monthly, or even semi-monthly. However, regardless of the timesheet submission frequency, it's best to encourage employees to log their time every day so that they don't forget any task and can maintain accurate timesheets.

What do billable and non-billable hours mean in timesheets?

In a timesheet, billable hours refer to the time spent by employees on tasks that organizations can charge their clients for. Client software configuration, website designing, consulting, ad copy creation, are just some of the many tasks that can fall under billable hours. In contrast, non-billable hours refer to time spent on work items that cannot be charged to the client. Internal brainstorming sessions, corporate activities, minute changes, employee training, and more usually fall under non-billable hours. Non-billable tasks are equally important, but they don't generate revenue directly.

Who approves timesheets?

Timesheets are usually approved by the employee's reporting manager. They usually review logged hours, tasks, and jobs before approving the timesheets. The approved timesheets are usually used for client billing, payroll processing, and compliance.

What's the difference between a timesheet and payroll?

In the workplace context, timesheets and payroll serve two distinct purposes. While timesheets track the amount of time employees spend on different projects during a specific period, payroll is used to calculate employee salaries and disburses them.