What Is a Timesheet?

A timesheet is a record of the hours someone has worked in a period, usually a week. For a recruitment agency's temporary and contract placements it does two jobs at once: it sets what the worker is paid, and it sets what the client is invoiced. The same approved hours are multiplied by the pay rate on one side and by the charge rate on the other, and the gap between them is the agency's margin (the temp charge-rate calculator works that through).

There is no statutory definition of a timesheet and no law that says one must be used. What the law does require is records. Under regulation 59 of the National Minimum Wage Regulations 2015, an employer must keep records sufficient to show that each worker is paid at least the minimum wage in every pay reference period. For hourly-paid temps, a timesheet is the most common way to capture the hours that evidence rests on.

Gov.uk's Calculating the minimum wage guidance deals with timesheets directly. It notes that some workers, typically agency workers, record their time on timesheets and are not paid until they submit them. Hours on a timesheet count towards the minimum wage for the pay reference period in which they were worked, and must be paid in that period or the next one. If a worker submits a timesheet late, a special rule gives the employer until the end of the pay reference period after the one in which it was submitted. The record-keeping section of the same guidance explains what enforcement officers can ask to see.

In practice a good timesheet shows who worked, for which client and assignment, the dates and hours (including breaks and any overtime), and who approved it and when. Because approval by the client often triggers both payroll and the invoice, a clear approval trail heads off most disputes about pay and billing later. Templio's timesheet software handles submission, client approval and invoicing from one set of hours.