A timesheet is a document or table showing the hours worked by a member of staff at a business or company. They are most commonly used by staff who are paid by the hour, but businesses with salaried employees increasingly use timesheets as a way to log staff’s working hours to help them strike a healthier work-life balance.
Timesheets commonly include things like:
Name of the employee
Scheduled shift start time
Actual shift start time
Scheduled shift end time
Actual shift end time
Break start & end times
Total hours worked per shift
In the past, staff would either fill in their timesheets manually, or clock in and out of work using time cards, whose in and out times would then be manually recorded by a manager or senior employee.
Modern timesheets are digital, and are usually cloud-based (i.e. stored centrally online rather than on your computer) and are accessible via a number of devices. When staff clock in and out of a shift — either by using a dedicated clocking in app or a clocking in terminal — the time record is automatically added to their timesheet for them and their manager to check later.
Unlike staff rotas, which only show the scheduled start and end times for a shift, timesheets show the actual hours worked by an employee, making them essential for any business owner that pays its staff by the hour.