What Is a Timesheet

A timesheet is a record of the hours a person works during a day, week, pay period, or project. Businesses use timesheets to calculate payroll, track labor costs, bill clients, and understand where time is going.

It does not need to be complicated. For a solo consultant, a timesheet may be a simple list of client tasks and hours. For a field-service team, it may include clock-in times, job codes, breaks, travel, and manager approval.

What Is a Timesheet? Record Types and Purpose

These documents can contain similar dates and hours, but they serve different decisions. Defining them separately reduces confusion when a manager is approving pay, a project lead is checking job progress, and an accounts team is preparing a customer charge.

One system may generate several of these records, but the labels still matter. For example, a time clock can capture an eight-hour shift while the timesheet allocates six of those hours to Job A and two to internal training. The invoice should draw only from work that is chargeable under the customer agreement, not automatically from every paid hour.

Timesheet Fields and Formats

The exact fields depend on your work, but a useful timesheet usually includes:

• Employee or contractor name
• Date and pay period
• Start time, end time, and unpaid breaks
• Total regular and overtime hours, where applicable
• Client, project, job, or task code
• A short description of the work performed
• Employee submission and manager approval

For client work, the project or task field is especially important. It lets you turn approved time into an accurate invoice without reconstructing the week from calendar entries and memory.

Types of Timesheets

Choose the Right Timesheet Format

A simple spreadsheet can be appropriate for a very small, stable team with one or two jobs at a time. It becomes fragile when several people work across multiple projects, locations, or pay rules. Digital tools can reduce manual re-entry and preserve an audit trail, but they still need clear job codes, permissions, and approval rules.

• Paper: useful when devices are impractical, but requires prompt transcription and careful storage.
• Spreadsheet: flexible and inexpensive, but formula errors and version confusion increase as the team grows.
• Mobile time tracking: useful for field teams, remote work, and job-based entries; explain any location features and privacy rules clearly.
• Integrated time and invoicing system: useful when approved client time should flow directly into invoices with fewer duplicate entries.

Build a Reliable Timesheet Workflow

1. Record time daily. Waiting until Friday makes details less reliable, especially when you work across multiple clients.
2. Use consistent task names. “Site visit,” “client meeting,” and “installation” are more useful than vague notes such as “work.”
3. Separate billable and non-billable time. This helps you see how much paid work is supporting the business.
4. Submit on a predictable schedule. Weekly submission works well for many teams and keeps payroll and invoices moving.
5. Review before approval. Managers should check unusual hours, missing job codes, and entries that do not align with project progress.

Timesheet Best Practices for Small Businesses

• Set one clear deadline and approval process for everyone.
• Use project codes that match your estimates and invoices.
• Require notes for overtime, travel, or unusually long shifts.
• Keep original records according to applicable labor, tax, and contract requirements.
• Review job hours against the estimate while the project is still active, not only after it is finished.

Build a Timesheet Workflow People Will Actually Use

The best format is the one that gives you reliable records without asking people to remember an entire week from memory. Define the workflow before choosing a paper form, spreadsheet, mobile app, or time-tracking system.

Common Timesheet Problems—and Better Fixes

Use Timesheets for Payroll, Billing, and Job Costing

Payroll accuracy

Hourly employees need accurate hours for wages and overtime calculations. A consistent timesheet process creates a record that can be reviewed before payroll runs.

Client billing

If you charge by the hour, timesheets support transparent invoices. Instead of sending “professional services — 12 hours,” you can show the date, task, rate, and time spent. That level of detail reduces questions and makes approval easier.

Job costing

Time is one of the largest costs in many service, consulting, repair, and construction businesses. Tracking hours by job shows whether the work was estimated accurately and whether future quotes need to change.

Planning and productivity

Timesheets can reveal that a project is using more admin time, travel time, or rework than expected. The goal is not to monitor every minute; it is to have enough information to staff and price work responsibly.

Turn Timesheets Into Better Invoices

A timesheet is an internal work record; an invoice is the customer-facing request for payment. Connecting the two reduces manual entry and missed billable work. It also makes your invoice more defensible when a customer asks how the total was calculated.

For fixed-price projects, timesheets still matter. They show whether the actual labor stayed within the estimate and give you better data for the next quote. For hourly work, they are the starting point for fast, accurate invoicing—ideally sent soon after the work is complete.

Separate Paid Time From Billable Time

Every hour an employee works may need to be considered for payroll according to applicable rules, but not every hour can be charged to a customer. Separate billable, non-billable, internal, travel, rework, and training time. This distinction shows whether a client job is profitable and whether your rates are covering the time it takes to run the business.

For a consultant, a client call may be billable while proposal writing is not. For a service crew, on-site installation may be billable while a return trip caused by an internal mistake may be rework. Use categories that reflect reality rather than forcing every hour into a billable line.

Timesheet Example

When it is time to invoice, the business can group the billable entries by task or date, apply the agreed rate, and include the description the client needs to recognize the work.

A Short Worked Example

A technician is quoted for up to 10 labor hours on a repair, at a customer billing rate of $120 per hour. During the week, the technician is paid for 12 hours: 9 hours on site, 1 hour collecting parts, and 2 hours in a required internal meeting. The job agreement permits billing on-site repair time and pre-approved parts collection, but not internal meeting time. The approved timesheet therefore allocates 10 billable hours to the repair and 2 non-billable paid hours to the meeting.

The difference between $420 in labor cost and $1,200 invoiced labor is not a payroll calculation or a promise of profit; it simply shows why paid time, billable time, and customer pricing should remain distinct. If the work had exceeded the quote, the team would follow the agreed change or approval process before invoicing additional time.

Manage Compliance, Privacy, and Growth

Time-record rules differ by worker classification, location, industry, contract, and local law. In the United States, federal recordkeeping obligations and overtime rules may apply to non-exempt employees, while states and localities can impose additional requirements. Build a policy that fits your business and seek qualified payroll or legal guidance when needed.

If you use GPS, photos, biometric clocks, or other monitoring features, explain the purpose, collection timing, access, retention, and correction process to workers. Technology can verify a record, but trust and clear policy make the system sustainable.

When a Spreadsheet Stops Being Enough

A spreadsheet can be practical when a small team has few workers, simple jobs, one approver, predictable rates, and a manageable number of entries each pay period. Move to an integrated time and billing system when manual copying between time records, payroll, job tracking, and invoices creates repeated corrections or delayed approvals. A useful threshold is operational rather than a fixed headcount: adopt an integrated workflow once people regularly need to reconcile the same hours in more than one place, or when managers cannot quickly trace an invoice line back to an approved timesheet entry.

Timesheet FAQ

What is the difference between a timesheet and a timecard?

A timecard often focuses on clock-in and clock-out times for a shift. A timesheet may cover a full week or pay period and add projects, tasks, client billing, approvals, and notes. In everyday use, the terms can overlap.

Do salaried employees need timesheets?

They may, depending on your internal policy, client billing needs, project costing, and applicable requirements. Even when payroll is not based on hours, project-level time data can help with staffing and pricing.

How often should employees submit timesheets?

Weekly is common, but record time daily whenever possible. The appropriate submission deadline should leave managers enough time to review entries before payroll and invoicing cutoffs.