Ever woken in the dead of night in a cold sweat wishing you had more timesheets to process? Yeah, neither have we.
Love them or hate them, timesheets are every organization’s operational foundation. They help busy HR teams keep track of employee working hours, pay their people on time, and ensure an accurate, efficient payroll process.
But if, like us, you dream of creating more efficient time-tracking workflows and are struggling to find the right system, then this article is for you. Whatever your time tracking needs, we’ve got six free timesheet templates that will help you improve accuracy, save time, and make tracking hours worked a snap.
6 Timesheet Examples for a Better Employee Experience
Whether it’s daily, weekly, or monthly, managing timesheets efficiently can become a time-consuming task. Cut the admin load and boost operational efficiency with these simple timesheet templates to suit every time-tracking workflow.
1. Daily Timesheet Template
Daily timesheets track employee work hours during a single day. They’re ideal for shift-based workers, or employees on an hourly rate in industries like retail, healthcare, or hospitality, because they allow organizations to track employee hours, lunch breaks, and overtime more precisely.
Daily timesheets are also helpful for organizations that regularly work with contingent workers, freelancers, or contractors. Freelancers can accurately bill clients for hours served, while businesses have greater visibility into overall project management, ensuring that they can allocate resources and track progress effectively.
Key Features:
- Precise time tracking: Record employees’ exact clock-in and shift end times, as well as total time worked based on set time intervals (for example: 15 minutes, half hours, or other increments).
- Breaks and overtime: Log sick days, lunch breaks, rest time, and overtime for accurate payroll processing that complies with labor laws.
- Task management: Capture time spent on specific tasks or projects — particularly useful for managing engagements with freelancers or contractors.
- Total hours worked: Calculate billable hours worked and total pay, including regular and overtime hours.
2. Weekly Timesheet Template
Weekly timesheets record employees’ working hours for each day of the week. They’re best suited for workplaces where employees work regular hours or shift patterns week to week. Weekly timesheets also work well for organizations that use weekly pay periods, including retail, construction, and staffing agencies.
Tracking hours over the course of the workweek gives organizations a comprehensive level of detail of their workforce activity without the granularity of a daily timesheet. This makes it easier to identify patterns and improve time management with less administrative burden.
Key Features:
- Workweek overview: Track time worked for each day of the week in a single document, providing a streamlined view of working hours.
- Rolling hour totals: Calculate hours worked over multiple days to improve time management and overtime allocation.
- Payroll cycle alignment: Map timesheets to weekly pay periods for efficient payroll processing.
- Workforce trend analysis: Get an at-a-glance breakdown of hours worked across your entire workforce to identify patterns or trends.
3. Bi-weekly Timesheet Template
According to February 2023 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 43% of organizations across the United States pay their employees on a biweekly basis.
Biweekly timesheets offer a way for organizations to streamline their payroll and time-tracking processes for pay periods and projects spanning two weeks.
They feature the same key components as daily and weekly timesheets, tracking inputs like total hours worked, sick days, and overtime. But one key benefit is that the less frequent cadence means your organization’s HR team members spent less time plodding through time entries in Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel (and that’s a big win in our eyes).
Key Features:
- Two-week overview: See hours worked each week side by side to inform resourcing and workforce allocation.
- Weekly total pay calculations: View total pay on a week-to-week basis and calculate a cumulative total per pay period.
- Project management: Track progress on long-term projects over a two-week period.
4. Semi-monthly Timesheet Template
Semimonthly timesheets take a split-month approach to time tracking. They work similarly to a biweekly timesheet, but the key difference is that employees are paid twice a month, on fixed dates. In a typical month, the first pay period might run from the 1st to the 15th day, while the second runs from the 16th until the 30th.
Semimonthly timesheets work well for organizations that favor paying employees every two weeks but want greater predictability over when payday falls and payroll processes need to happen. This approach to time tracking offers more structure than the biweekly approach but maintains more flexibility than monthly time tracking.
Key Features:
- Customizable fixed pay periods: Set pay periods that align with your organization’s payroll processes.
- Cumulative monthly hours: Track total hours over two pay periods within a month for more accurate payroll processing.
- Leave and overtime tracking: Monitor leave and overtime allocation according to fixed periods each month.
5. Monthly Timesheet Template
Pay your employees monthly? This monthly timesheet template is for you.
Monthly timesheets work well for organizations with a strong contingent of salaried employees who work predictable schedules. Think of sectors like technology, finance, or professional services, for example, where employees tend to work standard hours on a monthly basis but don’t need the granularity of detailed daily tracking.
Key Features:
- Month-at-a-glance view: Track total hours worked, sick days, overtime, and vacation on a monthly basis, with weekly calculations for more detailed insights.
- Streamlined data entry: Process hours worked in line with payroll operations each calendar month.
- Flexible pay period adjustment: Align monthly start dates with payroll processing dates for maximum efficiency.
- Monthly aggregated overtime and leave: Equip managers with an at-a-glance view of their team members’ working hours.
6. Employee Timesheet Template
Employee timesheets work in hours, not days or months. They’re a great way to track hourly tasks, projects, or engagements with contingent workers or freelancers because they offer enough flexibility to capture variable shift lengths or tasks.
As an example, an events venue that employs a large number of workers using an agency might use employee timesheets to accurately capture the varying amount of hours logged by each worker.
Key Features:
- Project and task breakdown: Track full details of varying levels of worker engagement in specific tasks or projects.
- Flexible time entries: Capture variable hours and shift lengths for different types of workers.
- Total hours calculation: Automatically calculate total hours per worker for easier payroll processing and record keeping.
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Optimize your timesheet records with Lattice.
Timesheets are a great foundation for building a more efficient HR function. But without the right tech, they can quickly become clunky and time-consuming, leaving HR teams awash in a digital paper trail of spreadsheets and manual processes.
Lattice helps HR teams streamline essential time tracking and payroll processes by automating repetitive tasks like time tracking policy distribution and timesheet acknowledgments with customizable workflows. Plus, our centralized HRIS platform ensures that every team member has access to the right data at the right time — meaning seamless payroll processing and reporting.
Take it from Lattice customer Andy Rindlisbach, people and operations specialist at LTSE: “Lattice HRIS has had a significant impact on how we support our team from a people standpoint. It’s empowered us to support our team in a light-touch way so that our people can focus on what they're best at, while technology handles the rest.”
Find out more by booking a demo.
