The best way to create timesheets for your employees

Timesheets are an excellent HR tool that can be used to support a wide range of business processes. From payroll to absence management and keeping accurate records, timesheets are still a popular method of tracking employee time.   

But how do you create one? And what is the best way to do it?   

In our guide we uncover how to create a timesheet, detailing the best ways to do this.   

Read on to discover if an Excel spreadsheet is ideal for your business or if modern solutions are simpler and faster.   

Creating a timesheet in excel  

Excel has been the first choice for so many businesses when it comes to creating timesheets for decades. The simple layout of Excel and its accessibility makes it an obvious option.   

However, to format your timesheets precisely, in a way that is easy to understand for both you and your employees, here’s some handy tricks you should know:   

Setting up the structure of your timesheet 

The first thing you should do when creating a new timesheet in Excel is to name it accordingly. Your company name and time period should be included for accurate filing.   

For your employees, timesheets need to be easy to use, so making sure each of your columns are accurately named and ordered is essential. A good example of this would be:   

COLUMN A – Date  

COLUMN B – Day  

COLUMN C – Clock in Time  

COLUMN D – Lunch Break Start Time  

COLUMN E - Lunch Break End Time 

COLUMN F – Clock out Time  

COLUMN G – Total Hours Worked (Daily)  

You can also choose to add extra columns for business-specific notes, TOIL, overtime, annual leave and anything else you consider essential for your timekeeping records.  

Below is a timesheet example of how this may look in Excel:   

Customise and format 

Once you’ve created the foundations of your timesheet in Excel, you can go on to customise this to suit the needs of your business.   

For example, you may want to add custom fields for different types of shifts, such as night shifts or split shifts. Depending on the type of work your employees do and the shifts they work, this will differ depending on industry and employment type.   

What’s great about an Excel timesheet is that you can customise it and play around with the tool’s endless functions until you’re happy with it.   

Using formulas to speed-up the process 

By using formulas within your timesheets, you can make the process faster and smoother for employees/managers when they are manually entering data. For example, a formula to calculate the total number of hours worked per day and per week.   

A simple formula such as:   

= C3 – F3   

will subtract the employee’s start time from their finish time to give you the hours they worked that day.   

Top Tip: Consider break times and subtract these from your total, especially if this is unpaid time.  

Modern solutions for creating timesheets  

However, if Excel timesheets don’t work for your business or you just simply don’t have the time to routinely create them, there are modern solutions available.   

For businesses of all sizes, timesheet and time tracking software is readily available. Designed to help streamline timesheet production and employee time tracking processes.   

By automating much of the timesheet production process, you can stay focused on growing your business, all while knowing your HR admin tasks are covered.   

The benefits of digital timesheet software:  

By investing in time tracking and timesheet software, your business will benefit from: 

• More accurate records of employee working hours  

• Reduce errors by removing the need for manual data entry  

• Save time on creating timesheets, payroll processes and manager approvals  

• Stay compliant with Australia’s National Employment Standards

• Real-time clocking in records to keep timesheets up to date  

With so many benefits, it begs the question, why would you continue to use outdated spreadsheets when you can automate and complete this process in just a few clicks? 

Automate your timesheet reports with BrightHR 

Say goodbye to pesky paperwork and hello to seamless integration with BrightHR.   

Thanks to our employee clocking in app – Blip, you can create timesheet reports in just a few clicks. Automatically generate reports over days, weeks or even months, to see who clocked in when, how long their breaks lasted and at what time they clocked out.   

This information is essential not only for keeping records of your employee’s working hours, but also for other HR processes such as performance reviews and absence management. 

Book a free demo today to discover just how much time BrightHR can save your business with automated HR tasks complete in just a few clicks!