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What is an employee timesheet?
Timesheet (timecard) is a form that records hours an employee has worked during a certain period. To fill in a timesheet, an employee enters the time they start and end working on a task, project or with a client. The employer company later uses this data to track total hours worked, calculate leave time, and process payroll.
Work timesheets typically fall into the following categories:
- Bi-monthly timesheet
- Daily timesheet
- Weekly timesheet
- Bi-weekly timesheet
- Monthly timesheet
Applications of employee timesheets
Timecard templates help businesses manage tasks, meet project deadlines, maintain HR budget, and perform a number of other tasks:
- Calculate labor cost
- Track sick leave, holidays, and training hours
- Calculate monetary compensation and bill clients
- Track productivity
- Identify what may cause delays of work completion
- Monitor tasks and schedule projects
- Create HR budget
- Forecast future HR expenditure
Benefits of electronic employee timesheets
There are different formats of managing timesheets: printable timesheet templates, online timesheets, and time-tracking spreadsheet software. Recently, most companies have been substituting timesheet PDFs with digital forms due to the number of advantages it offers.
- Enable fast filling. Digital forms speed up data entry and eliminate human error.
- Automate submittals for approval. An employee can send a form for manager’s approval in one click.
- Reduce time waste and prioritize tasks. Timesheets help schedule tasks, define those that require too much time and optimize the schedule accordingly.
- Bill accurately. Daily or weekly worksheet templates, when filled properly, allow for fast payroll processing without having to double-check every task in several platforms.
- Automate employee management. Organizations can manage teams of freelancers, law offices, in-house and external accountants more effectively.
- Let employers save money. Daily work log templates help spot employees with good productivity or bad performance and get them qualified for the next task correspondingly.
- Reduce paper usage. You both save time on printing the forms and give the way to more sustainable solutions.
Timesheet calculator
You can apply calculator functionality to a PDF timesheet template so that it automatically calculates total hours, without you doing it manually: you only need to enter data in the fields – Date In, Date Out, Breaks, Overtime, etc. Some forms offer dropdown calendars so you don’t type it but select from multiple choices. This speeds up data entry and eliminates possible errors.
Depending on your needs, you can set other formulas for your timesheet calculator, for example, calculate holiday hours or sick leaves in monthly templates, or set different rates per hour for tasks that are paid differently.
Timesheet approval workflow
A timesheet workflow is an automated process of routing timesheets between different teams and users of your organization. Employees get a timesheet template, fill it in and send it for approval. Once approved, the timesheets go down the flow, and can be sent to the HR or Finances department who would proceed with payroll. Once all teams finish working with timesheets, they are uploaded to the company’s cloud storage.