5 min read

Free Printable Monthly Timesheet Templates [for Excel]

A Monthly Timesheet Template is a data table used by an employer to track the time taken by an employee to work on a project or a task in a month.

As a company grows, it usually becomes hard to keep track of what every employee is doing, where they are spending more time, and which projects need to be allocated more time. Timesheets offer a solution to problems that can affect the overall functionality and the growth of a company as they help in time wastage, consequently improving employee productivity.

Timesheets are an excellent way of knowing:

  • Who is working on what?
  • What tasks are still due?
  • Who is busy and logging lots of hours?
  • What tasks are going to throng their scheduled time
  • Who isn’t recording many hours and may have the ability to pick more work?

For any HR, the best way to ensure maximum employee productivity is by ensuring that they are responsible for the time they spend on a project.

Contents of a Monthly Timesheet Template

Following are the contents of a standard monthly timesheet template

  • Name
  • ID number
  • A row of each day of the week
  • A list of all the tasks allocated to the employee
  • Date
  • Start and end time
  • Overtime hours
  • Sick leave
  • A section for both the supervisor and the employee to put a signature authenticating the accuracy of the information provided in the timesheet

Benefits of Using Monthly Timesheets

Timesheets help employees in managing their time well. It also helps the managers and the company executives to make better-informed choices that can reduce time waste and help inspire employees to work productively.

Some of the benefits of using a monthly timesheet include:

Bill more accurately

Monthly timesheets are a great way of assuring your clients that their projects are being managed effectively and efficiently and that their money has been put to good use. By using a timesheet, you will be able to bill more accurately as you will be able to validate all your invoices and billed hours through reliable, impartial reports.

Maintain records and resolve disputes

The primary purpose of using a timesheet is to maintain a clear record of how many hours an employee has put in handling a project or given task. Timesheets offer you a competent and reliable way of tracking how many hours an employee has worked, thereby helping you gauge their performance.

Consequently, timesheets are an excellent way of avoiding payroll disputes between an employer and the employee regarding their hours worked, and any overtime worked as they offer a clear record of the hours worked, including any overtime and sick leaves by the employee.

Track project costs

One of the best ways of tracking how much has been used on a project or how much needs to be allocated for a project is using timesheets. By utilizing a timesheet, you can be able to tell whether you are making a loss or profit off a project. For prepaid projects, it is always important to keep track of the time and money being spent on the project. This will enable you to make the needed adjustments, thereby avoiding any losses.

Building a database

Timesheets offer you a way of tracking the total time taken to complete a given project. By compiling this data, you can be able to estimate the time it will take to complete such projects in the future. This analysis will also enable you to make the right decisions on resource allocation when you have similar projects.

Increase efficiency based on powerful insights

Having an insight into how an employee tackles a given task can help in organizing your employees based on their strengths and weaknesses, thereby having an easy time tracking the project progress.

Save money through better HR

Having a better understanding of your employees helps in making informed decisions when it comes to employee performance appraisal. By comparing the time spent working on a specific task, you can be able to see which employee should be rewarded and which one costs you more money through poor performance and time-wasting. Being better informed also helps in making decisions around resourcing and staffing, and costly hiring mistakes.

Reduce time wastage

Timesheets help one to understand where resources are being over or underutilized. Monthly timesheets help in identifying projects that take longer than required and assist one in making decisions on how to tailor the tasks to achieve the best results within the stipulated period.

Monitor projects and anticipate delays

One of the benefits of using timesheets is that they provide you with an insight into the project’s progress. Following the average working hours of your employees allows you to estimate the time needed to finish a project. With this data, you can be able to plan and devise new ways of avoiding delays.

Removes biasness

Timesheets enable you to judge each employee based on their performance since you can easily see the time it has taken them to complete a project and the overall time they have worked in a month.

Free Monthly Timesheet Templates

Following are monthly timesheet templates that can be downloaded for free:

1st Basic Monthly Timesheet Template for Excel

2nd Monthly Timesheet Template with Mileage Calculator

Monthly Timesheet Sample Form
vertex42.com

Timesheet Monthly for Track Time
tracktime24.com

Excel Template Monthly View Form
clicktime.com

Emloyee Monthly Timesheet Example
templates.office.com

    Filling out Monthly Timesheets on Time

    To make your work easy, you can download our already preformatted templates. Our templates are well-tailored to ensure that the process is easy for employees to use, thereby making it easy for you as a manager to analyze and compile the data for use when preparing payrolls. By focusing on the following, you can be able to get your employees to fill out the monthly timesheets on time:

    Start from the top

    The best way of making sure that monthly timesheets are adopted by everyone in your organization is by having the top-level employees use them in their every workday. By starting from the top, your employees will feel a sense of urgency to use the timesheet, and this will create a positive attitude towards the use of the timesheets.

    Distribution

    With the advancement in technology, most corporations now opt to share their timesheets on a shared workspace like a google doc or Dropbox. This makes it easy for employees to fill and submit their timesheets on time. Others opt to email the timesheets to the employees.

    Collection

    During the collection of the monthly timesheets ensure that:

    • You set a deadline for the submission of the timesheets
    • Ensure that the forms are signed during submission
    • Use a standard format

    Be transparent

    Foster a culture of transparency in your workplace. The best way to do this is to make the monthly timesheets available to everyone. This way, they will all know what everyone is working on. Making the sheet available among your employees also fosters competition, which in turn improves the overall performance of your employees.

    Only let managers create projects and tasks

    Having a standard timesheet is a great way of making sure that the employee will provide all the details required when filling in the timesheet. It is also a great way of avoiding confusion or mix-ups that may arise during the submission of the timesheets.

    Allowing only managers to allocate projects not only ensures that no one task is distributed twice but also ensures that the tasks are equally distributed based on the strengths and weaknesses of your employees or in accordance with the job description.

    Final Words

    Monthly timesheets not only help in promoting employee productivity and the entire payroll process much more accessible but also promotes transparency and ensure that your employees are well organized.

    Keep reading