Free Daily Timesheet Templates
Free daily timesheet templates for small business: simple, by task, multi-employee, construction, time log, and FLSA. Excel with auto totals. No signup.
Daily Timesheet Templates
Six free daily timesheet templates for small business: a simple daily form, a by-task version, a multi-employee time card, a construction field sheet, a time log, and an FLSA overtime version. Download as Excel with auto totals and sign-off built in. No signup.
A daily timesheet records the hours one employee works in a single day, down to the time in, time out, breaks, and split between regular and overtime hours. For a small business, it is the finest-grained time record you keep, and the source detail behind every weekly or biweekly payroll total. Get the daily record right and payroll and compliance follow from it; skip it, and you are reconstructing hours from memory when a question comes up.
These six templates cover the range: a simple daily form, a by-task version for billable work, a multi-employee card for a whole shift, a construction field sheet, an activity time log, and an FLSA overtime version built to map to federal recordkeeping. Each downloads as an Excel file, free and without an email, with the totals built in as formulas. For the weekly and biweekly pay-period versions, see the employee timesheet templates, and for empty forms to fill by hand, the blank timesheet templates.
What a Daily Timesheet Is
A daily timesheet is a record of the hours one employee works in a single day, with time in, time out, breaks, and a split between regular and overtime hours. It is the finest-grained timesheet: a weekly sheet summarizes a week, but a daily sheet documents one workday in detail. Daily timesheet, daily time sheet, and daily timesheets describe the same thing; the spacing and number vary, but the form is identical.
It is an employer-side record, filled in by the employee or a manager and approved before it rolls into payroll. Daily records are the natural unit for shift work, billable hours, and field crews, and they are the source detail behind the weekly total. The Department of Labor recordkeeping rules require employers to record the hours worked each workday, which is exactly what a daily timesheet captures.
Daily Timesheet vs. Attendance and Time Log
Three documents get confused because they all track time, but they answer different questions. A daily timesheet records how many hours were worked and on what. An attendance sheet records whether someone was present. A time log breaks the day into activity blocks. Knowing which one a task needs keeps a small business from forcing one document to do all three jobs.
| Daily timesheet | Attendance sheet | Time log | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Answers | How many hours, on what? | Was the person here? | Where did the time go? |
| Unit | Clock in and out per day | A status code per day | Activity per time block |
| Drives | Payroll and overtime | Staffing and absence | Productivity and billing |
| Approved? | Yes, for payroll | Usually not | Usually not |
The practical rule: use a daily timesheet for the hours that drive pay, an attendance sheet to track presence, and the time log variation when you need to see how the day was spent. Many small businesses use the timesheet for payroll and keep an attendance sheet separately.
What to Include
A complete daily timesheet covers four groups: identifying fields, time entry, hours and pay, and an approval trail. The groups below are the consensus set that strong daily timesheets share.
The two elements small businesses most often skip, and most need, are a separate overtime column and a manager approval line, because the first keeps payroll accurate and the second makes the record defensible.
Which Template Should You Use?
Match the template to the work. Simple for straightforward hourly tracking, by task for billable work, multi-employee for a crew, construction for field work, the time log for activity tracking, and the FLSA version when compliance is the priority.
6 Free Daily Timesheet Templates
Download all six as a single Excel set or grab individual templates. Each downloads as an Excel file with the fields, formulas, and totals already built, free and with no signup, and every one opens cleanly in Google Sheets. Enter the times and the totals calculate themselves.
Template 1: Simple Daily Timesheet
The baseline daily form with time in and out, lunch, regular and overtime hours, rate, and a daily gross that calculates itself. The cleanest fit for hourly and shift workers.
| A | B | C | D | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Field | Entry | Field | Entry |
| 2 | Time in | 8:00 AM | Regular hrs | 8.0 |
| 3 | Lunch out | 12:00 PM | Overtime hrs | 0.5 |
| 4 | Lunch in | 12:30 PM | Total hrs | =D2+D3 |
| 5 | Time out | 5:00 PM | Hourly rate | 20.00 |
| 6 | Daily gross | =D4*D5 |
Template 2: Daily Timesheet by Task
One row per task with client, start and end, hours, and a billable flag, plus an auto-summed billable total. For agencies and professional services tracking billable time.
| A | B | C | D | E | F | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Task / Project | Client | Start | End | Hours | Billable |
| 2 | Discovery call | Acme Co | 9:00 AM | 10:00 AM | 1.0 | Y |
| 3 | Design mockups | Acme Co | 10:15 AM | 12:30 PM | 2.25 | Y |
| 4 | Internal sync | 1:30 PM | 2:00 PM | 0.5 | N | |
| 5 | Revisions | Beta LLC | 2:00 PM | 4:30 PM | 2.5 | Y |
| 6 | ||||||
| 7 | Total hours | =SUM(E2:E5) | ||||
| 8 | Billable total | =SUMIF(F2:F5,"Y",E2:E5) |
Template 3: Daily Multi-Employee Time Card
A single card for a manager or foreman to log an entire shift, with a row per worker, regular and overtime columns, initials, and a team total. For crews and shift teams.
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Employee | Time In | Time Out | Break | Reg Hrs | OT Hrs | Total | Initials |
| 2 | Jordan Lee | 7:00 AM | 3:30 PM | 30 | 8.0 | 0 | =E2+F2 | |
| 3 | Sam Rivera | 7:00 AM | 4:00 PM | 30 | 8.0 | 0.5 | =E3+F3 | |
| 4 | Alex Morgan | 8:00 AM | 4:30 PM | 30 | 8.0 | 0 | =E4+F4 | |
| 5 | Taylor Kim | 8:00 AM | 4:30 PM | 30 | 8.0 | 0 | =E5+F5 | |
| 6 | ||||||||
| 7 | Team total | =SUM(E2:E5) | =SUM(F2:F5) | =SUM(G2:G5) |
Template 4: Daily Construction Field Timesheet
A field sheet with worker, trade, cost code, and hours by job site, rolling up into the weekly payroll summary, with a note on certified payroll for federal projects.
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Worker | Trade | Cost Code | Time In | Time Out | Reg | OT | Total |
| 2 | Jordan Lee | Carpenter | 03-100 | 6:30 AM | 3:00 PM | 8.0 | 0 | =F2+G2 |
| 3 | Sam Rivera | Laborer | 02-200 | 6:30 AM | 3:30 PM | 8.0 | 0.5 | =F3+G3 |
| 4 | Alex Morgan | Electrician | 16-050 | 7:00 AM | 3:30 PM | 8.0 | 0 | =F4+G4 |
| 5 | ||||||||
| 6 | Crew total | =SUM(F2:F4) | =SUM(G2:G4) | =SUM(H2:H4) |
Template 5: Daily Time Log Sheet
An hourly activity log with task, project, and notes for each block, totaling productive hours. For productivity analysis and reconstructing billable time.
| A | B | C | D | E | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Time Block | Activity / Task | Project / Client | Hours | Notes |
| 2 | 8:00 - 9:00 | Email and planning | Internal | 1.0 | |
| 3 | 9:00 - 11:00 | Client deliverable | Acme Co | 2.0 | Billable |
| 4 | 11:00 - 12:00 | Team meeting | Internal | 1.0 | |
| 5 | 1:00 - 3:30 | Project work | Beta LLC | 2.5 | Billable |
| 6 | 3:30 - 5:00 | Admin and follow-up | Internal | 1.5 | |
| 7 | |||||
| 8 | Total productive hrs | =SUM(D2:D6) |
Template 6: FLSA Overtime Daily Timesheet
A compliance-focused form whose fields map to federal recordkeeping items: full name, ID, occupation, workweek start, hours worked, and separated regular and overtime hours. For non-exempt staff.
| A | B | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Field | Entry |
| 2 | Employee name (in full) | ____________________ |
| 3 | Employee ID number | ____________________ |
| 4 | Occupation | ____________________ |
| 5 | Workweek start (day and time) | Sunday 12:00 AM |
| 6 | Date (workday) | ____________________ |
| 7 | Time in | 8:00 AM |
| 8 | Time out | 5:00 PM |
| 9 | Unpaid break (min) | 30 |
| 10 | Hours worked this workday | 8.5 |
| 11 | Regular hours | 8.0 |
| 12 | Overtime hours (over 40/week) | 0.5 |
| 13 | Regular hourly rate | 20.00 |
How to Fill Out a Daily Timesheet
Filling out a daily timesheet takes a minute. Here is the sequence the templates are built around.
What the FLSA Requires You to Record
The Fair Labor Standards Act recordkeeping rules, at 29 CFR Part 516, list what an employer must record for every non-exempt employee. A daily timesheet is a natural place to capture the hours-worked items. Here is how the required fields map to a daily sheet.
| FLSA record item | On the daily timesheet? |
|---|---|
| Employee full name and ID number | Header fields |
| Occupation | Header field |
| Time and day workweek begins | Workweek start field |
| Hours worked each workday | Daily hours total |
| Total hours each workweek | Rolled up from daily sheets |
| Regular hourly rate | Rate field |
| Regular and overtime hours | Separate columns |
For the classification that decides whether overtime is owed at all, the exempt vs. non-exempt guide covers the duties and salary tests in depth.
Daily Timesheets for a Small Business
A large company runs time tracking through software and a payroll team. A small business often has an owner or a foreman collecting daily sheets directly, between everything else, and pays the price when hours are wrong or a day goes undocumented. The framework is the same at any size; a small business just needs it simple, per-workweek accurate for overtime, and retained.
The single most valuable habit is collecting a signed daily timesheet in one consistent format and holding onto it. A signed, retained daily record is what turns a payroll question into a quick lookup instead of a reconstruction.
From Spreadsheet to HR Software
A spreadsheet daily timesheet is the right tool for a small team, and these templates work on their own. The strain shows up when daily sheets, approvals, and record retention live in scattered files, when chasing sheets every day eats a manager's time, and when a lost record becomes a real liability.
When that point arrives, FirstHR centralizes what the spreadsheets were doing separately: employee profiles hold the roster, rates, and job titles so headers fill themselves, a self-service portal lets employees submit and managers approve, e-signature captures the sign-off with a timestamp, and document storage keeps timesheets and wage records in one retrievable place for the retention period, alongside the employee handbook and time-off policy. FirstHR is an onboarding and HR platform, not a payroll processor: it does not run payroll, calculate wages, or replace a dedicated time clock, so pair it with your payroll provider and, for wage questions, a professional advisor. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a daily timesheet?
A daily timesheet is a record of the hours one employee works in a single day, capturing time in, time out, breaks, and total hours, often broken down by task or project. It is the finest-grained timesheet: where a weekly sheet summarizes a week, a daily sheet documents one workday in detail, which is useful for shift work, billable-hour tracking, field crews, and any situation where you need a per-day record. A typical daily timesheet includes the employee name and department, the date, the time in and out, the lunch or break, the regular and overtime hours, and a place for the employee and manager to sign. Daily timesheets roll up into weekly or biweekly totals for payroll. The point is an accurate, day-level record of hours worked, which is exactly what federal recordkeeping expects an employer to keep.
What is the difference between a daily timesheet and an attendance sheet?
A daily timesheet records how many hours an employee worked and on what; an attendance sheet records whether the employee was present. The timesheet answers the payroll question, capturing clock-in and clock-out times and totaling hours, which is what drives pay and overtime. The attendance sheet answers the staffing question, marking each person present, absent, late, or on leave with a status code, which is what you use to spot patterns and manage coverage. A daily timesheet also usually carries a manager approval that makes it a payroll record, while an attendance sheet is typically not approved the same way. For a small business that pays hourly workers, you generally need the timesheet for pay and may keep an attendance sheet separately for presence tracking. They complement each other rather than replacing one another.
What is a daily time log sheet?
A daily time log sheet is an activity-oriented version of a daily timesheet that breaks the day into time blocks and records what was done in each, rather than just a single clock-in and clock-out. Instead of one start and end time, it has a row per hour or per task, with the activity, the project or client, the hours, and notes. This makes it useful for two things: productivity analysis, seeing where the day actually went, and billable-time reconstruction, where a professional or freelancer needs to account for every hour against clients. It overlaps with a task-based timesheet but leans more toward continuous activity logging. The time log on this page is built this way, with a time-block grid and a productive-hours total, so it serves both the productivity and the billing use cases.
How do I calculate hours on a daily timesheet?
To calculate the hours for a day, subtract the time in from the time out, then subtract any unpaid break. If someone clocks in at 8:00 AM, out at 5:00 PM, with a 30-minute unpaid lunch, that is 9 hours of elapsed time minus 0.5 hours, or 8.5 hours worked. Payroll uses decimal hours, so convert minutes by dividing by 60: 30 minutes is 0.5, 15 minutes is 0.25. Overtime is the piece people miss: hours over 40 in a workweek are owed at one and one-half times the regular rate, and overtime is figured per workweek, not per day, so a single long day does not by itself create federal overtime unless the weekly total passes 40. On the spreadsheet templates here, the totals and gross pay calculate automatically once you enter the times.
Does a daily timesheet need a manager signature?
It is not legally required to have a signature, but it is strongly recommended and is standard practice. The Department of Labor allows any timekeeping method that is complete and accurate and does not mandate a signature, but a manager approval line does two things that protect a small business. First, it creates an audit trail: a signed, dated timesheet is evidence the hours were reviewed and agreed, which matters if pay is ever disputed. Second, it builds a review step into the process, so errors get caught before payroll runs rather than after. Every template on this page includes an employee acknowledgment and a manager approval line for this reason. If you collect timesheets electronically, an e-signature with a timestamp serves the same purpose and is legally valid.
What does the FLSA require an employer to record?
The Fair Labor Standards Act recordkeeping rules, at 29 CFR Part 516, require employers to keep specific information for each non-exempt employee. That includes the employee's full name and identifying number, occupation, the time and day the workweek begins, the hours worked each workday and total hours each workweek, the regular hourly rate, and the wages paid. A daily timesheet is a natural place to capture the hours-worked items: the workday hours, the workweek total when rolled up, and the regular and overtime split. The FLSA defines a workday as any fixed 24-hour period and a workweek as any fixed, regularly recurring 7-day period. Payroll records must be kept for at least three years, and the time records wage computations are based on for at least two years. The FLSA overtime timesheet on this page is built to map to these items. This is general information, not legal advice.
Do daily timesheets work for construction and field work?
Yes, and daily is often the natural unit for construction and field work, because crews move between job sites and cost codes and the day is the practical unit to capture. The construction field timesheet on this page records worker, trade, cost code, job site, and hours, then rolls up into the weekly payroll summary. One important note for federal work: on federally funded construction projects covered by the Davis-Bacon Act, contractors must submit weekly certified payroll, commonly using DOL Form WH-347, and daily field timesheets are the source records behind that weekly submission. So a daily field timesheet is both an everyday operational tool and the underlying documentation for certified payroll compliance. Confirm the specific requirements for your project. This is general information, not legal advice.
How long should I keep daily timesheets?
Under federal law, timesheets are part of the wage record and must be kept for a set period. The Department of Labor recordkeeping rules require payroll records to be preserved for at least three years, and the underlying records used to compute wages, which include time cards and work and time schedules, for at least two years. Electronic records are permitted as long as they can be produced for inspection. In practice, many advisors recommend keeping everything for three years to cover the longer window and the statute of limitations for wage claims, and some states require longer. For daily timesheets specifically, that means not discarding them once they roll into the weekly total; keep the daily source records, because they are the detail behind the summary you would rely on in a wage dispute or audit. This is general information, not legal advice.