What is a timesheet? Meaning, rules and a worked example

What is a timesheet? It is a document, paper or digital, that shows when an employee started and stopped work each day, the breaks they took, and the total hours for the week or pay period. Payroll uses it to calculate gross pay and overtime. Managers use it to check hours against the schedule. And under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), it is part of the hours-worked record most US employers are legally required to keep for their hourly staff.

Timesheet meaning, in plain terms

The timesheet meaning has stayed the same since paper ledgers: it is the employer’s answer to the question “how many hours did this person work, and when?” A typical timesheet holds:

• The employee’s name, and the pay period or workweek it covers.
• Each day’s start time, meal break, and end time, or the hours worked that day.
• Daily totals and a weekly total, often split into regular and overtime hours.
• Paid time off, holidays or sick hours, kept separate from hours worked.
• For billing or job costing, the client, project or job each block of time belongs to.
• An approval: the employee confirms it, and a manager signs off.

So what is a timesheet not? It is not the paycheck. It is the input. The pay rate, overtime rules, deductions and taxes are applied afterward in payroll.

Timesheet vs time card vs time clock vs attendance record

People use these words loosely, and in everyday speech “timesheet” and “time card” often mean the same thing. When there is a difference, it looks like this:

An attendance record can tell you that Sam was 14 minutes late on Saturday, but not how many hours he worked. A time clock captures the raw punches. The timesheet is where those punches become totals someone can review and pay. If you want a printable card, see our time card templates.

Types of timesheets

• Paper timesheets. A printed weekly form the employee fills in and signs. Cheap and familiar, but someone has to add up the hours and type them into payroll, and handwriting and rounding cause errors.
• Spreadsheet timesheets. An Excel or Google Sheets file with formulas for daily and weekly totals. Better math, but anyone can overwrite a cell and there is no record of who changed what. Our free timesheet templates include weekly and biweekly versions.
• Punch clock time cards. A wall clock stamps a card at each punch. The times are hard to fake, but the card still has to be totaled by hand and it is easy for one coworker to punch for another.
• Time clock apps. Employees clock in on a phone or a shared tablet, and the software builds the timesheet from the punches, with breaks and overtime already totaled.
• Project timesheets. Used by agencies, consultants and trades that bill clients by the hour. Each entry carries a client or job code, so the same record drives payroll and invoices.

Who needs a timesheet, and timesheet rules by worker type

Non-exempt employees: required. The Department of Labor’s recordkeeping rule at 29 CFR 516.2 lists what employers must keep for each non-exempt employee. The Wage and Hour Division’s Fact Sheet #21 summarizes it as:

1. Full name and Social Security number
2. Home address, including ZIP code
3. Birth date, if younger than 19
4. Sex and occupation
5. The time and day the workweek begins
6. Hours worked each day
7. Total hours worked each workweek
8. The basis of pay, such as hourly, weekly salary or piece rate
9. The regular hourly pay rate
10. Total daily or weekly straight-time earnings
11. Total overtime earnings for the workweek
12. All additions to and deductions from wages
13. Total wages paid each pay period
14. The date of payment and the pay period it covers

Items 6 and 7 are the timesheet. The Department of Labor says no particular form is required and that any timekeeping method is acceptable, whether a time clock, a timekeeper or employees writing down their own times, as long as it is complete and accurate. For employees on a fixed schedule, the employer may record the schedule and note when it was followed, but must record actual hours in any week that differs.

Exempt employees: not required federally. Under 29 CFR 516.3, employers must keep most of the same records for properly classified exempt executive, administrative, professional and outside sales employees, but not hours worked. Many employers still track exempt staff’s PTO, sick days and holidays so leave balances are right. Be careful that “salaried” is not the same as exempt; our exempt vs non-exempt guide covers the salary and duties tests.

Independent contractors: not your timesheet. Contractors are not employees, so FLSA recordkeeping does not apply. If you pay a contractor by the hour, you will usually get their hours on an invoice. If you are setting their schedule and requiring them to clock in like staff, that is a sign they may really be employees; read 1099 vs W2 before you go further.

An annotated timesheet example

Here is one week for Chris Walker, a barista at Northfield Coffee in Austin, Texas, who earns $17.75 an hour. The workweek runs Sunday 12:00 a.m. to Saturday 11:59 p.m. The schedule and hours are illustrative.

1. Extra minutes count. Chris was not scheduled past 2:30, but he was working, so the 15 minutes are paid. Work the employer allows is hours worked even if nobody asked for it.
2. Corrections are noted, not hidden. Chris forgot to clock out. His manager confirmed the 2:30 p.m. end with him and the closing shift, entered it, and left a note.
3. Daily hours are minutes converted to decimals. 7:00 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. is 10 hours 15 minutes, less a 30-minute unpaid meal, which is 9 hours 45 minutes, or 9.75 hours. Our hours to decimal calculator does the conversion, and the time card calculator totals a full week with lunch breaks.
4. Overtime is weekly under federal law. 42 hours in one workweek means 2 overtime hours. Texas follows the federal 40-hour rule.

Pay for the week: 40 × $17.75 = $710.00, plus 2 × $26.625 (time and a half) = $53.25, for $763.25 gross. Northfield pays biweekly, so this week is combined with Chris’s Nov 8–14 week, overtime is still figured for each week separately, and the Nov 1–14 period is paid on Friday, November 20.

How to fill out a timesheet

If you are an employee filling out a paper or spreadsheet timesheet, these steps keep it accurate and get you paid on time:

1. Write times as they happen. Fill in your start, break and end times each day, not from memory on Friday.
2. Record actual times, not scheduled ones. If you started at 6:52 a.m., write 6:52, not 7:00.
3. Log every unpaid meal break. A meal period of 30 minutes or more where you are fully relieved of duty is usually unpaid. If you were interrupted to work, note it, because that time may be paid.
4. Include all work. Pre-shift setup, required meetings, training and work messages after hours all count.
5. Keep PTO separate. Mark vacation, sick and holiday hours in their own rows so they are paid but not counted as hours worked for overtime. Our paid time off guide explains how PTO is tracked.
6. Total, check and submit. Add each day, then the week, confirm it, and send it before the payroll cutoff.

How a timesheet becomes a paycheck

Once you know what a timesheet is, the next question is what happens to it. Most small businesses follow the same path every pay period:

1. Employees clock in and out, or fill in their timesheet each day.
2. Employees submit at the end of the week or pay period.
3. Managers review. They compare hours against the schedule, look for missed punches and long shifts, and ask about anything odd.
4. Managers fix and approve. Corrections get a note. Approval says the hours are right and ready to pay.
5. Hours are locked so they cannot be edited after payroll starts without a visible change.
6. Payroll applies the rules: regular and overtime hours, the regular rate, PTO and holiday pay. Our guide on how to calculate overtime covers bonuses and multiple pay rates.
7. Taxes and deductions are withheld, net pay is paid, and pay stubs go out. The full process is in how to process payroll.

Approval is the step that most often slows payday. A manager with eight people has eight timesheets to open every week. In Workzenly, managers approve a whole week of timesheets in one tap, and approved hours, overtime and PTO flow straight into payroll, so nobody retypes them.

Common timesheet problems and how to fix them

Off-the-clock work deserves extra attention. Department of Labor regulations say work an employer “suffers or permits” is hours worked, and that management has a duty to stop work it does not want done rather than accept the work and not pay for it. A written rule against unapproved overtime is fine, but if the employee worked the time, you still pay it. To see how geofencing keeps punches tied to the job site, read what is a geofence.

Timesheet rules for record retention

What is a timesheet worth in a wage dispute? Only as much as the copy you still have. How long you keep timesheets depends on which agency is asking, so most employers follow the longest rule that applies:

• Department of Labor (FLSA): time cards and other records wages are calculated from for at least two years; payroll records for at least three years. Records can be kept at the workplace or a central office and must be available for inspection.
• IRS: employment tax records for at least four years.
• States: many set their own periods, some longer than federal law. Check your state labor department.

Keep the original punches and the edit history, not only the final totals. If a pay question comes up in two years, “Chris’s clock-out was corrected to 2:30 p.m. by his manager on November 6” is far stronger than a number in a cell. For a wider look at the systems that collect this data, see our guide to time and attendance tracking.

Frequently asked questions