How to Fill Out a Timesheet Correctly: Guide and Free Templates

Even if nobody’s excited about filling out timesheets, their importance shouldn’t be overlooked. By completing timesheets, employees get to be paid correctly, while employers rest assured that they capture all hours worked for workplace compliance.

Yet, timesheets are often ignored or filled out incorrectly. For that reason, I made a guide for you on how to fill out a timesheet correctly.

What is a timesheet?

A timesheet is a method of recording and tracking an employee’s work hours. The timesheet is a record of how many hours you work, when you work, and what you work on.

Timesheets come in various shapes and forms: they might be simple clock-in/clock-out records, detailed project time logs, or sophisticated time-tracking software that tracks everything from regular hours to project tasks.

Some timesheets are as basic as a table with a date range and work hours, while others include detailed breakdowns of tasks, project codes, client billing information, and even notes about work accomplished.

Why does filling out timesheets matter?

Whether paper-based timesheets or time-tracking software, you’re not just ticking a box for HR when you fill out a timesheet. In fact, you are securing your own financial safety while your employer captures all your overtime hours, all work hours, and project details to bill clients and ensures workplace compliance.

Timesheets are pivotal for each type of employee, and in particular, here’s why these matter for different types of categories:

• For hourly employees (freelancers, employees in agencies, and others who work by the hour), timesheets are a way of tracing their billable hours and billing clients accurately;
• For salaried employees, timesheets help track project time, overtime hours, and time off balances for payroll processing.

You can typically use different types of employee timesheets on different time frames:

• Daily timesheets
• Bi-weekly timesheets
• Weekly timesheets
• Monthly timesheets

How to fill out a timesheet (step by step)

To calculate total hours worked accurately, whether using paper timesheets or timesheet software, all parties involved should take it seriously and pay attention to details. Therefore, employees fill out the time spent on work with accuracy, and employers should make sure they’re making the process of filling out timesheets seamless for employees.

Before diving into your timesheet, let’s make sure you have everything needed for accurate time tracking. This preparation will save you countless headaches and prevent back-and-forth emails with HR.

Step 1 – Name, surname, or employee ID

It’s quite logical why the name and surname, or ID, are necessary, as these are unique identifiers of an employee in the company’s system. Therefore, either the employer can fill out this info in the timesheet template, or the employee can fill this out when adding their weekly or hourly rates. Writing the name wrong can route an employee to the wrong department and create confusion with HR records while delaying payment processing.

The below picture is an example of a weekly timesheet template tracking how each individual employees spend time at work. You can see that the name is the first-time tracking element. The template can be downloaded from our free timesheet templates repository.

Step 2 – Date range

Accurately recording the date range in the timesheet hours section is not just another dull task. Tracking time accurately in this section equally contributes to accurate records and payroll processing for the pay period, accurate billing cycles, leave tracking and overtime calculations.

Tracking work hours is beneficial to be done in daily hourly timesheets so that all dates are correct, but it can be done in weekly timesheets, too.

Step 3 – Hour tracking

As in the above timesheet template, it’s important to add the “Start time” and “Finish time” columns in any timesheet, be it paper timesheets or timesheet software. Then, for each day from Monday to Friday, the timesheet should have an automation to calculate work hours.

The field can be “Total hours worked,” and the calculation can be made automatically. Note that it’s more difficult to calculate automatically with manual timesheets. However, a timesheet app automatically calculates and generates reports. See below an example of a report in Timeular, an automated time-tracking software:

Step 4 – Project data

It’s pivotal to track project details and submit timesheets on time. When you track project costs, you’re on top of budgets, and you can constantly reallocate resources as needed, as well as accurate records for billing clients. Adding tasks completed to the timesheet records gives a clear display of employee performance and productivity, too.

A minimal format of a project timesheet template should include sections for project details, date, start and end times, billable hours, and the owner of a certain task completed.

Here is a downloadable project timesheet template, previewed in the image below as well:

Step 5 – PTO and other types of leaves

Tracking different types of leave in your timesheet isn’t just a task of marking days off or being surveilled. It’s essential for keeping accurate records, employee safety, and being paid accurately.

When filling out leave time, make sure to use the correct codes for each type: PTO (Paid Time Off), sick leave, or other approved absences. The timesheet should clearly show these non-working hours, as they affect payroll processing differently than regular work hours.

Make sure to fill out a timesheet with all these fields:

• Overtime hours
• PTO hours/days
• Sick hours/days

Denoting these fields differently is important, as each type of leave can have different payment rates within a company and, therefore, different monthly salaries.

Step 6 – Approval

The typical approval workflow followed by companies looks like this:

1. The employee fills out the timesheet with all employee hours worked, time off requested and taken, or other types of leaves.
2. The supervisor reviews the accuracy and either approves or sends it back for changes.
3. Once approved, the timesheet moves to payroll for processing.

When submitting the timesheets for approval, each timesheet entry should be accurate and complete, as corrections after approval can be time-consuming and often delay payment processing. Process-wise, most companies require timesheets to be approved by the supervisor, who verifies the accuracy of working hours, project allocations, and any overtime added.

If you’re using timesheet software, the system usually sends automatic notifications to managers or team leads, but with paper timesheets, you’ll need to follow up manually to ensure timely processing.

Fill timesheets with one-click

Timeular’s AI captures all work in the background and sends suggestions to the calendar. Click, accept, done! Ah, it also sends timesheet reminders automatically!

Try Timeular for free

Types of timesheets

As mentioned above, there are many types of timesheets depending on the timeframe. However, in the next lines, I’ll clarify for you the types of timesheets in terms of the medium used to fill them out.

Paper timesheets

Paper timesheets are manual time-tracking tools that are rather outdated in these days of remote and hybrid work setups, and these come with hidden costs. When making your decision on which type of timesheet to choose, here’s what you should keep in mind about paper timesheets:

• Paper timesheets are traditional, physical forms used to manually record work hours, project time, and attendance.
• These timesheets have basic time-tracking functions, with a simple format to clock-in/clock-out times, breaks, and total hours worked, and are often left uncompleted.
• All calculations must be done by hand, and data needs to be transferred to all payroll systems manually, which is a process prone to human error.
• Paper timesheets are often used in construction.
• Some of their drawbacks are: difficult to analyze, they come with storage issues and no backup copies, as well as time consuming.

Time tracking software

If you’ve struggled with the limitations of paper timesheets or endless manual calculations of Excel and Google Sheets templates, it’s time to consider upgrading to a timesheet app. These online timesheets are built to automate the entire timesheet process, provide real-time insights, and minimize human error.

Let’s take Timeular as an example to surface things you should consider in your decision-making process:

• This time-tracking software has an intuitive interface that lets you categorize tasks, log hours, and generate timesheet reports automatically.
• It automatically tracks time tasks, websites, and tools, which can be turned into time entries with one click.
• It monitors billable hours once it’s set to track them, and then you can bill clients accurately.
• Both employees and managers or employers can view all types of data with one click in real time.
• Auto calculates all types of leaves and overtime and adds them to the final report for payroll processing.

Timesheet templates

Timesheet templates in tools like Google Sheets and Excel are a solid starting point, but these come with limitations, too. These templates are widely available, customizable, and cost-effective, which makes them a popular choice for smaller teams just starting to track time.

Timesheet templates typically include fields for date, start and end times, breaks, and total hours worked. They can be formatted to suit specific needs, like tracking billable hours or monitoring project time. However, they have significant limitations, like manually adding data and adding formulas for calculations, and are prone to errors.

If you’re looking to start with timesheet templates, we have created a plethora of free downloadable templates in G-Sheets, Excel, and PDF versions in the timesheet templates repository.

Pro tips for getting timesheets right

If you’re in charge of filling out timesheets and you’re dreading it, these tips can ease this process for you:

1. Do it daily: Complete timesheets daily if they’re manual; otherwise, you might forget the extra hours spent on work, as the later you fill it out, the more human error will appear.
2. Don’t leave it for Friday afternoon: All you want to do on Friday afternoon is finish working hours, finalize critical tasks, and start enjoying your weekend. Your weekly timesheet will probably annoy you, and you’ll already forget the total hours worked during that week. Take five minutes at the end of each day to log your hours.
3. When in doubt, ask: Sometimes, filling out timesheets and project costs are not that easy to understand, so that’s why you’re procrastinating filling it out. Seriously, it’s better to ask your supervisor now than fix mistakes later.
4. Keep some records that help: Save emails or messages about schedule changes, a note on a time period that was changed in your project management tool, and others. These might come in handy when you’re completing your monthly timesheets.
5. Set reminders: Put a daily reminder in your calendar so you don’t forget in the heat of all your tasks.
6. Ditch manual timesheets: Manually filling out timesheets is draining productivity, wastes resources, and often results in inaccurate records.

Now, if you’re a manager, team lead, or overseeing a team, here are some tips to ease timesheet management for you:

• Keep it straightforward: Your team needs to know why timesheets matter and how to fill them out. Skip the corporate jargon and just explain what needs to be done and why it benefits everyone.
• Make it simple: Nobody wants to wrestle with complicated systems. If your current process involves too many clicks or confusing steps, it’s time for an upgrade. Invest in a user-friendly work hours tracker that streamlines this process.
• Walk the talk: Nothing kills motivation faster than a manager who doesn’t follow their own rules. Complete your timesheets on time, as I can assure you your team notices these things.
• Give friendly nudges: Sometimes, people just forget. Set up practical timesheet reminders or send timesheet memes to make sure your timesheets are sent on time. Here’s an example of an email reminder:

• Give credit where it’s due: Notice who’s consistently getting it right and let them know you appreciate it. Recognition goes a long way.

Tried automated timesheets before?

Remove friction in chasing timesheets with automatic work tracking and automatic reminders.

Try Timeular for free

Conclusion

Filling out a timesheet correctly may not be the most thrilling part of anyone’s job, but it is undeniably important.

But here’s the thing: whether you’re old-school with paper forms, using a spreadsheet template, or using smart time-tracking apps, what really matters is being consistent and getting those numbers right.