Free Employee Timesheet Templates

An employee timesheet records the hours worked in a pay period, and it is the document that stands between hours worked and a correct paycheck. Get it right and payroll is fast and accurate; get it wrong, or lose it, and you have both a payroll problem and a compliance gap. For a small business, the timesheet is often the only wage record you keep, which makes the format you choose and how you store it matter more than they seem.

These six templates cover the range: weekly, biweekly, semi-monthly, and monthly versions for each payroll cycle, a contractor version that doubles as an invoice basis, and a blank printable for manual entry. Each downloads as an Excel file, free and without an email, with the overtime columns and totals already built as formulas. Because hours sit next to leave and attendance, this pairs with your time off policy and your absenteeism policy.

What an Employee Timesheet Is

An employee timesheet is a record of the hours an employee worked during a pay period, used to calculate pay and to satisfy federal recordkeeping rules. It lists each day with a time in, time out, and break, separates regular from overtime hours, and totals the period. Timesheet, time sheet, and staff timesheet describe the same document; Google treats the spellings as equivalent.

It is an employer-side record, filled in by the employee or a manager and approved before payroll runs. Beyond driving pay, it does two jobs: it creates the approval trail that settles hours disputes, and it forms part of the wage record the Fair Labor Standards Act requires. The Department of Labor recordkeeping rules let employers use any accurate timekeeping method, including employees writing their own times.

Timesheet vs. Attendance Sheet

A timesheet and an attendance sheet are often confused, but they answer different questions. A timesheet records hours worked, and often the tasks those hours went to, which is what drives pay and overtime. An attendance sheet records presence and absence, whether someone showed up and in what status, which is what you use for staffing and to spot patterns. Knowing which one a task needs keeps a small business from making one sheet do both jobs badly.

The practical rule: use a timesheet to capture the hours that drive pay, and an attendance sheet to track who is present and to manage absence. If you need to record presence and absence status rather than hours, a dedicated attendance sheet is the right document; this page covers the hours side.

What to Include

A complete timesheet covers four groups: identifying fields, hours data, totals and pay, and an approval trail. The groups below are the consensus set that strong timesheets share.

The two elements small businesses most often skip, and most need, are a separate overtime column and a manager approval line. The templates here build both in by default, with the overtime figured per workweek.

Which Template Should You Use?

Match the template to your payroll cycle and worker type. Weekly for the simplest overtime math, biweekly for the most common US cycle, semi-monthly or monthly for salaried staff, the contractor version for freelance work, and the blank for manual entry.

6 Free Employee Timesheet Templates

Download all six as a single Excel set or grab individual templates. Each downloads as an Excel file with the time columns, overtime, totals, and a setup tab already built, free and with no signup. Every template also opens cleanly in Google Sheets. Fill in the hours and the totals calculate themselves.

Template 1: Weekly Timesheet

Seven days with time in, time out, break, and separate regular and overtime columns that total automatically. The cleanest fit for hourly pay and weekly overtime.

Template 2: Biweekly Timesheet

Two weekly grids on separate tabs with a combined pay-period total, keeping each workweek separate so overtime is still figured per week. For the every-two-weeks cycle.

Template 3: Semi-Monthly Timesheet

A pay period running the 1st to the 15th and 16th to month end, with regular, overtime, and PTO columns. For the twice-a-month cycle that splits calendar weeks.

Template 4: Monthly Timesheet

A full-month day-by-day grid with regular and overtime totals, for monthly payroll or salaried staff, with a note that overtime is still figured per workweek.

Template 5: Contractor Timesheet

Date, project or task, start and end, hours, rate, and an auto-calculated amount, so the sheet doubles as an hours record and an invoice basis for independent contractors.

Template 6: Blank Printable Timesheet

A blank grid with name, date, time in and out, break, and totals, plus a signature line. Print it and fill it in by hand when a formula sheet is more than you need.

Choosing a Pay Period

The pay period you run determines which timesheet fits, and each has tradeoffs. Weekly is simplest for overtime; biweekly is the most common US cycle; semi-monthly suits salaried staff but splits calendar weeks; monthly is easiest to administer for small salaried teams. Here is how they compare.

Whichever you choose, the rule that never changes is that overtime is figured per workweek. A semi-monthly or monthly period will split workweeks across pay periods, so track hours by week underneath the pay period, then sum. For the difference that decides whether someone earns overtime at all, the exempt vs. non-exempt guide covers the classification tests.

How to Fill Out the Timesheet

Filling out a timesheet takes a minute a day once it is set up. Here is the sequence the templates are built around.

Overtime and FLSA Recordkeeping

Two federal rules sit underneath every timesheet: how overtime is calculated, and how long you keep the record. Getting either wrong is a common and expensive small-business mistake, and both are simple once you know them.

Overtime is owed to non-exempt employees at one and one-half times their regular rate for hours worked over forty in a workweek, and it is calculated per workweek, not per pay period. A workweek is a fixed, recurring 168-hour period. Pay biweekly or monthly all you like; the overtime math still happens one week at a time. Some states add a daily overtime rule, so confirm your state.

When an employer cannot produce adequate time records, the law shifts the advantage to the employee in a wage dispute, which is why keeping approved timesheets is not just tidy but protective. Many advisors keep everything for three years to cover the longer window. For the discipline side of chronic time problems, the absenteeism policy templates cover the progressive-discipline steps.

Timesheets for a Small Business

A large company runs time tracking through software and a payroll team. A small business has an owner or a manager collecting sheets directly, between everything else, and pays the price when hours are wrong or a record goes missing. The framework is the same at any size; a small business just needs it simple, per-workweek accurate, and retained.

The single most valuable habit is collecting an approved timesheet every period, in one consistent format, and holding onto it. A signed, retained record is what turns a payroll question into a two-minute lookup instead of an argument.

From Spreadsheet to HR Software

A spreadsheet timesheet is the right tool for a small team, and these templates work on their own. The strain shows up when hours, approvals, and record retention live in scattered files, when chasing sheets every period 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 and rates, a self-service portal lets employees submit and managers approve, e-signature captures the approval, 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