Filling in the timesheet
Write your name and your employer at the top, the date of the first day in Week of or Pay period, and your hourly rate if you are paid by the hour. Then log each day as you go, not at the end of the week: the time you started, the time you stopped and how long your unpaid breaks were, in minutes. Days you did not work stay empty.
The Hours column is the time between start and end, minus the break. A day from 8:30 to 5:00 with a 30 minute lunch, for example, is 8.00 hours. Use the Notes column for anything a reviewer should know, such as a sick day, a holiday, a job number or a second site.
Minutes as decimal hours
Pay is worked out on hours with decimals, so 7 hours and 45 minutes is written as 7.75. To turn minutes into a decimal, divide them by 60. The spreadsheet does this for you; on paper, these are the values you will need most often:
| Minutes | Decimal hours |
|---|---|
| 6 | 0.10 |
| 15 | 0.25 |
| 20 | 0.33 |
| 30 | 0.50 |
| 40 | 0.67 |
| 45 | 0.75 |
The hours calculator adds up start and end times with breaks on screen, and the military time converter switches between 12-hour and 24-hour times if your clock and your timesheet use different ones.
Using the spreadsheet
The Excel file has one sheet. The tinted cells at the top are for you: employee, employer, the date the week or pay period starts, the hourly rate, and the two overtime settings. Type the start date once and every row gets its date. In the week tables, type start and end as times with a colon, such as 9:00 AM or 17:30, and the break as a number of minutes.
Hours, the week total, the overtime of each week and the summary at the top are formulas: regular hours, overtime hours, total hours, regular pay, overtime pay and total pay. The file works in Excel, LibreOffice Calc and Google Sheets. A file preview that does not calculate may show the totals as zero or blank until the file is opened in a spreadsheet program.
Overtime and pay
The Overtime after cell starts at 40 hours per week and the Overtime rate cell at 1.5 times the hourly rate. Set both to the rule in your contract, your workplace or your location, or clear Overtime after if you are not paid overtime. In the United States, the Department of Labor's overtime page says the federal overtime provisions are in the Fair Labor Standards Act, and that covered, nonexempt employees must get at least time and one-half their regular rate for hours worked over 40 in a workweek. The same page notes that averaging hours over two or more weeks is not permitted, which is why the two-week version counts overtime for each week on its own.
The page also describes a workweek as a fixed, regularly recurring period of seven consecutive 24-hour periods that need not match the calendar week. Pick Monday or Sunday above to match the week your employer uses. State law and your own job can change what applies, so check with your employer or your state labor office if you are unsure. To check a single week by hand, the overtime pay calculator works out the overtime pay from your wage and hours.
Printing and signing
Choose the paper size loaded in your printer and turn off fit to page or shrink in the print dialog, so the rows keep their height. The one-week sheet has a notes box under the table; the two-week sheet uses that space for the second week. At the end of the period, add up the Hours column into the Week total box, write any hours over your overtime limit next to it, fill in the four boxes at the bottom and sign. If a manager approves your hours, they sign on the right.
Related tools
Freelancers who bill by the hour can use the hourly rate calculator to work out the rate that covers their income, costs and time off, and the invoice template to bill the hours from the sheet. Employees in the United States can turn the gross pay into take-home pay with the paycheck calculator.
Frequently asked questions
Is the timesheet template free?
Yes. Download it as often as you like, for yourself, for a small team or for a client you bill by the hour. No account, no email address, no watermark. A single small line with our web address sits at the bottom of the sheet and the page.
How does the spreadsheet work out the hours?
For each day it takes the end time minus the start time, subtracts the break in minutes and rounds the result to two decimals, so 8 hours and 30 minutes show as 8.50. The Hours cell stays blank until both times are filled in, and the week total adds up the days.
Does it work for a night shift?
Yes. If the end time is earlier than the start time, the spreadsheet takes it as the next day, so a shift from 10:00 PM to 6:00 AM counts as 8 hours. Write the shift on the day it started. A shift longer than 24 hours does not fit in one row.
How is overtime counted?
The spreadsheet counts the hours of each week above the number in the Overtime after cell, which starts at 40, and pays them at the Overtime rate, which starts at 1.5 times the hourly rate. Both cells can be changed, and clearing Overtime after turns overtime off. In the two-week version, each week is counted on its own. Which rule applies to you depends on your job and where you work.
Can I use 24-hour times?
Yes. Pick 24-hour on this page and the spreadsheet shows times like 17:30, while the printed sheet notes that times are in 24-hour format. With 12-hour, the spreadsheet shows times like 5:30 PM and the printed sheet has a small am and pm in each time box to circle.
Which currencies can I use?
Any of the 20 currencies in the list. The spreadsheet formats the hourly rate and the pay in the one you pick, and the PDF names it under the title. To switch later, download the file again, or change the number format of those cells in your spreadsheet program.