Employee payroll time sheets are the main tool HR or finance departments use to keep track of the number of hours their staff has worked over a particular time period — usually a week or two.

Time sheets will normally be integrated into payroll software, which collates, manages and automates the payroll process so that staff don’t have to do it manually. 

However, there’s actually much more to timesheets besides salary payments. Sophisticated time and attendance tracking systems can also be a great measure of productivity, create transparency between employees and management, help forecast future projects, and even help draw up budgets. 

So, before we talk you through how to fill out weekly payroll time sheets, let’s start by explaining why they’re important in the first place.

Why are Time Sheets Important?

The main reason weekly payroll time sheets are valuable is because they help HR or finance departments ensure that they’re paying their employees correctly. Using the number of hours employees have worked, companies can bill workers for their time to the nearest second. 

With all employee salary information in one place, this also means that HR doesn’t have to manually follow-up with workers about missing details. This is also useful for tax purposes. 

However, time sheets are also useful for members of staff themselves. If, for example, a worker is struggling with productivity while they’re working from home, looking at a payroll and time tracking sheet can be a useful exercise. 

Some time and attendance sheets allow employees to indicate exactly which tasks they’re spending time on, helping them evaluate whether they’re working productively.

Time sheets are also beneficial for management teams. When working on a project, it’s important that team leaders use time sheets to weigh up the differences between the number of employee hours worked versus how profitable the project has been. 

This practice will also help management budget for future projects and forecast exactly what components they’ll need in order to be successful. 

How to Fill Out Payroll Time Sheets

There are certain pieces of information you cannot miss off a timesheet. Some key points you’ll need to cover will be: 

• Employee information: full name, employee identification number, social security number (if applicable). 
• Date worked: make sure to note the exact day of the week along with the date. 
• Hours worked: this can be easily measured using punch in, punch out functions, or clocking exactly how much time you spend on a task. 
• Extra hours worked: note down whether the employee worked any overtime. 
• Paid leave: note down whether the employee took any annual leave, sick leave, or unscheduled emergency leave that week. 
• Total: at the bottom of the time sheet should be the total number of hours the employee has worked that week or over the two-week period.

Below is an outline you can save so that you can create free printable payroll time sheets for your business.

Automated Time and Attendance Software 

Instead of payroll time sheet forms which take a long time to manually fill in and carry potential for human error, they’re also easier and quicker ways to monitor employee time and attendance. 

The sophisticated employee time and attendance tracking software we offer at Timerack — which can be easily installed onto your desktop — allows both employees and managers to monitor detailed analytics of the hours (or minutes) spent on individual tasks during the day. 

As a cloud-based solution, it can be accessed from any device, offers an online punch clock for employees to clock in at their convenience, and provides dashboard reports which help track employee productivity and engagement. 

This automated time and attendance tracking software can also be integrated with many different payroll systems in order to save your business time, and therefore money.

How Can You Track Employee Time and Attendance Without Using Time Sheets?

Here at Timerack, we specialize in creating ways for companies to switch the traditional time sheet for easier, time-saving ways of monitoring employee time and attendance. 

1. Mobile App

Our time clock mobile app, available to download on both iOS and Android, offers a way to automatically track employee hours using geofencing technology. The app is particularly useful for time tracking remote employees or staff working out in the field.

An advantage of this app is that it allows you to eliminate any buddy punching or early false clock-ins, as the technology will only begin to count employee hours as soon as they’re within the pre-specified area. 

2. Time Clock Hardware 

Here at Timerack we offer a range of time clock devices to track employee hours instead of logging them through a set of weekly payroll time sheets.

This hardware starts with a biometric time clock that works using a fingerprint reader to prevent buddy punching. This small device is equipped with punch restrictions to prevent your employees from working overtime.   

For larger companies, we offer an adaptable time clock that limits when your employees can clock-in and clock-out to reduce unnecessary operational costs. 

Finally, we also offer a touchless facial recognition time clock which means employees can log their hours worked using just their face. This also prevents buddy punching. 

Closing Thoughts

To wrap things up, if you opt to use manual weekly payroll time sheets to track your employees’ time and attendance, remember to include the key details we mentioned above to ensure your employees are paid on time.

If you haven’t already, integrating time and attendance tracking with payroll software is a great way to save money and time. 

But just remember, there are more sophisticated technologies out there — such as the ones we mention above — to make time and attendance monitoring a stress-free task. Using these tools, you won’t even need to worry about what to include in employee payroll time sheets, because they’ll be a thing of the past.