It’s nearing the end of the month and payday is approaching. Unfortunately, the fun Friday work night out planned for after payday is currently being overshadowed by HR asking for timesheets. One employee can’t remember what work they’ve done when since it’s been a frantic month. The cherry on top is that the rota for that week changed so HR can’t even know which days were worked per employee.
So, want to avoid having that extremely dull conversation? Well, this is where a Monthly Timesheet Template could, would, and should have saved the day. With one of these, the team lead could have known what days and hours their employees worked, what overtime was worked, and what holidays and sick days were taken all at a glance.
Let’s dive in and find out more about these simple but useful little sheets.
What should a timesheet include?
The simplest timesheets will just include when employees worked during the month, but a great timesheet will include all the information needed to pay employees correctly, charge clients correctly, and more. For example, if a company pays more for overtime on the weekends, the Monthly Timesheet Template would have a different section where work done during that time is recorded. This makes it easy to see how much to pay an employee or to charge clients based on hours worked. That means when payday comes around or it comes time to charge a client, all that’s needed is a quick look at the Monthly Timesheet and the information is easily available.
So, what exactly should you include in your timesheet? Well, first let’s look at what information you actually need. You need to know: how much to pay your employees; how much to charge your clients; and how much to budget for different types of projects (more on this later!). For this, you need to know when your employees are working and what they’re working on.
Your timesheet should include:
- Days worked
- Hours worked
- Details of overtime taken – especially if employee pay changes for overtime.
- Holidays taken
- Sick days taken
- What projects employees worked on – are employees paid more for some projects than others?
These few things mean you can easily figure out what to pay your employees and what to charge clients, without any hassle. Now, armed with this knowledge, let’s look at which template applies to you.
What type of Monthly Timesheet Template should I use?
Certain types of Monthly Timesheets will be more useful to some organizations than others. So what should you use? Well, the short answer is it depends. If you’re a consultant or consultancy, for example, your Monthly Timesheet will be different to that of a group of freelance creators.
For example, if overtime is paid at a higher rate at certain times (like on weekends), then the Timesheet should show what overtime was worked and how much of it was at a more expensive time. You include things relevant to your workplace specifically, and any information that you do include should help you to do one of the many things Monthly Timesheets are useful for.
How to use a Monthly Timesheet Template
One important thing is that US businesses are legally required to prove that they pay their employees above the minimum wage. A Monthly Timesheet can help do this easily by keeping a record of how much work was done by employees. Together with their rate of pay, the timesheet can show that workers are being compensated fairly.
But fear not! Monthly Timesheets can do much more than help you jump through legal hoops - they can also easily tell you how much employees worked and when they took holiday and sick days. This makes knowing what to pay them as easy as a glance at a spreadsheet. Similarly, it’s easy to track how many holiday days are being taken by employees.
This also makes knowing how much to charge clients far easier. Instead of banging your head against a wall guessing hours worked and relevant labor costs, you already have all of this in a convenient Timesheet and can use that to figure out what to charge the client. No micromanaging needed!
A Monthly Timesheet can also help you better and more easily plan budgets and allocate resources for future projects. You already know from your Monthly Timesheet how much time was spent on past projects, and therefore what you paid your employees for that project. You can then use that information to help look back at how much different types of projects have cost in the past, and therefore what they’ll probably cost in the future.
Monthly Timesheet Templates – a tool to make your business better
So, we’ve learned that Monthly Timesheet Templates can do a lot for you and your business. They can make it easy to know how much to pay your employees, and you can use that information to also help figure out how much to charge clients. And, you can also track holiday days and sick days for employees, as well as using all of this information to better estimate how to budget in future.
It’s time to leave the boring conversations about who worked when behind, and Monthly Timesheets are the tools to do that with.
