Timesheet Template
What is a timesheet?
A timesheet is the record of hours an employee or contractor actually worked in a pay period: start and end times, breaks, regular hours, overtime, and the totals payroll runs on. It’s a small document that carries legal weight — under the FLSA, employers must keep accurate records of non-exempt employees’ hours, and a signed timesheet is the document both sides point to when a paycheck question comes up.
What’s included
- Employee info block: name, ID, manager, week starting date, plus a [Your Logo] zone
- A weekly sheet with a row per day: date, start, end, break minutes, regular hours, overtime hours and an automatic daily total
- A biweekly sheet on its own tab, same layout across 14 days
- Totals that sum regular and overtime hours automatically, rate rows for regular and overtime (1.5x) pay, and a computed total pay line
- An approval tab with employee and manager signature lines
How to fill it in
Enter the employee details and week-starting date, then log each day: start and end times for reference, unpaid break minutes, and the hours split into regular and overtime columns. The daily totals, period totals and pay math compute themselves in Excel. At the end of the period, the employee signs, the manager approves, and the sheet goes to payroll. Standardize on the weekly or biweekly tab to match your pay period, and keep completed sheets — hour records have retention requirements in most jurisdictions.
Using this timesheet in Google Sheets or Google Forms
The Excel file uploads straight into Google Sheets with tabs and formulas intact — for many teams that’s the easiest shared setup: one sheet per employee, one tab per period. Teams that collect time through a Google Forms workflow can keep this template as the calculation and approval layer: export form responses to Sheets and paste daily hours into the regular and overtime columns, and the totals and pay rows do the rest.
FAQ
What should a timesheet include?
The employee's name and ID, the approving manager, the period covered, and a row per day with the date, start and end times, unpaid break minutes, regular hours, overtime hours and a daily total. Weekly totals for regular and overtime hours, the pay rates, computed pay, and signature lines for the employee and manager make it usable for payroll, not just record-keeping.
How is overtime calculated on a timesheet?
Under the federal FLSA, non-exempt employees earn overtime at 1.5x their regular rate for hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek; some states (like California) also require daily overtime past 8 hours. On this template, regular and overtime hours are entered in separate columns, and the totals and pay rows compute each at its own rate — check your state's rules for when hours count as overtime.
Should I use a weekly or biweekly timesheet?
Match the timesheet to your pay period. Weekly sheets suit businesses that pay every week and want tight tracking; biweekly matches the most common US payroll cadence and halves the paperwork. This download carries both — a weekly tab and a biweekly tab in the same Excel file — so you can standardize on either without a second template.
Do the Excel totals calculate automatically?
Yes. Each day's total is a formula (regular + overtime hours), the totals row sums the week or fortnight, and the pay rows multiply hours by the regular and overtime rates you enter. Hours are typed in directly rather than derived from clock-in times — time-format math is where spreadsheet timesheets usually break.
Is this timesheet template free to download?
Yes. Download the Excel, Word or PDF version instantly with no signup, no email address and no watermark. It also opens in Google Sheets and Google Docs — upload the file to Drive and the tabs and formulas carry over.