Daily, weekly, and monthly timesheet templates for Excel and Google Sheets

What is a timesheet template?

A timesheet template is a document with a predefined page layout that allows businesses to record employee working hours, breaks, and time off more easily. A standard timesheet template includes elements like:

• Employee name
• Date
• Number of hours worked
• Hourly pay rate
• Task or shift
• Clock in and clock out times
• Overtime
• Paid and unpaid breaks
• Paid or unpaid time off
• Estimated wages per employee

Benefits of using a timesheet template

There are several advantages to using a timesheet template for your time tracking needs. Here are a few of the most important.

Major time saver

Timesheet templates give you the foundational systems you need to keep work on track and stay compliant with state and federal labor laws. They mean you don’t need to create your own timesheet documents from scratch but can dedicate your time to what matters most.

Beginner-friendly and easy to use

Using a timesheet template is much easier than creating one yourself, especially if you have to figure out which elements to record in order to stay compliant and streamline your payroll process. With a pre-made timesheet, all the information is already there. All you need to do is enter the data.

Free or very affordably priced

Unlike Homebase, some timesheet software isn’t affordable for small businesses that already have tighter profit margins. Timesheet templates, on the other hand, are often free or cost very little. And once you download the document, you can use it over and over again.

A good stepping stone before you start using more advanced software

Getting started with new software, learning the ropes, and bringing your whole team on board can be a daunting task. Timesheet templates help ease the transition for you and your staff so you can get your feet wet before committing to a more advanced solution.

Homebase’s free employee timesheet template

With a completed timesheet, you and your team members will know exactly how much they should get paid, how many hours they worked, and whether or not they accrued any overtime. Here’s what you need to know about our particular timesheet template:

• To give you and your managerial team extra flexibility, it doesn’t include any wage rate information. This way, managers who don’t have access to wage rates can still fill out the timesheets.
• Employees sometimes work multiple roles with different wages for each. There are also holiday and other special pay rates to keep in mind. Our template takes these differences into account and lets you calculate various rates with ease.
• Paper timesheets are a great starting point, but they don’t free up nearly as much time. Homebase can save you five hours every week and eliminates the need for paper timesheets for free by calculating hours and wages automatically, tracking your labor costs in real time, and reducing errors when running payroll. Ready to give us a try?

How do timesheets work?

There are lots of different kinds of timesheets, so here’s a little more information about how some of the main ones work.

Homebase’s hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly work timesheets

With Homebase, you can make a timesheet in just a few short steps.

First, set up your time clock and add your scheduled times. Then, every time an employee clocks into a scheduled shift, the activity will flow into your Homebase Timesheets view.

And while our timesheet template is designed for a five-day workweek, you can always add more rows for additional days or weeks. Just be sure you add the right number of days for the pay period.

A monthly timesheet template for a month of 30 days would, of course, need 30 rows. But a bi-weekly timesheet would need 14, 15, or 16 rows, depending on whether the month has 28, 30, or 31 days.

Excel timesheet template

Excel timesheet templates are helpful for business owners, agencies, freelancers, and project managers alike. That’s because the project timesheets are affordable, accessible, and compatible with all recent versions of Microsoft Excel.

Once you download the template, all you need to do is double-click to open it, and you’re good to go. Some templates even have pre-made formulas that can handle the calculations for you.

Google Sheets timesheet template

These templates are designed for Google Sheets, which is a free, web-based Excel alternative. After downloading the template file, just upload it to Google Sheets and you can start tracking time.

The great thing about using a Google Sheets template is the fact that the software automatically saves all your work so you won’t lose your data.

Apple Numbers timesheet template

Numbers timesheet templates let you track employee working hours within Apple’s spreadsheet software, just like you would in Excel. You can set up formulas, calculate times, and even implement special functions that let you work out pay period durations.

Timesheet template limitations and their solution

While free timesheet templates are easy to use, they’re not particularly comprehensive. There’s still a lot of work you need to do yourself. A complete time tracking solution is an even better option because it:

• Automatically calculates total hours, paid and unpaid breaks, and overtime
• Adds tips and computes wages
• Connects to your time clock solution to manage labor leakage and time theft
• Sets and tracks labor to sales targets

By using timesheet software, you’ll be able to seamlessly identify employee time card errors, like missed clock outs or missed lunch breaks. You can also export timesheet data directly to your payroll provider in just a few clicks, so your employees always receive the correct total pay each pay period.

Let’s take a look at the specific template limitations Homebase’s timesheet solution can solve.

Ensuring labor law compliance

One thing an employee timesheet template can’t help with is labor law compliance. According to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), you need to store employee time card history for at least two years, even if the employee no longer works at your business. Our timesheet software stores those online timesheets in the cloud for easy retrieval.

Tracking PTO and sick leave

A free monthly timesheet in Excel or another spreadsheet program can’t track paid or unpaid time off, sick leave, or vacation days. A template is only a simple calculator that tracks the hours your employees have worked. This can leave you with inaccurate records, complicated payroll, and even increased time theft and labor leakage.

Guaranteeing employee privacy

Security and privacy issues also come along with Excel timesheets. That’s because managers or employees recording the hours they worked in a given pay period probably shouldn’t be able to view other employees‘ hourly rates or see their total pay.

Timesheet software like Homebase ensures employee privacy and only allows direct managers to access confidential information.

Reducing human error

With any manual task, especially one involving various calculations, there’s always a risk of human error. When someone’s entering the hours they worked into a timesheet template or copying overtime data from a paper timesheet, there’s a high chance they’ll make a typo or add a zero that shouldn’t be there.

However, since timesheet software automates data transfer and calculations, you won’t risk falling out of compliance, taking financial risks, or upsetting your employees.