Check out our free printable time sheet templates your team can use to manually track their time. We also offer alternatives if manual time entry isn’t the right fit.
Free Downloadable Time Sheet Templates for Your Small Business
Charlette has over 10 years of experience in accounting and finance and 2 years of partnering with HR leaders on freelance projects. She uses this extensive experience to answer your questions about payroll.
Heather is a staff writer and payroll specialist with several years of experience working directly with small business owners. Her expertise allows her to deliver the best answers to your questions about payroll.
Small businesses use time sheets to track the number of work hours for their employees over a period, while independent contractors and freelancers use them to bill clients for time worked. Time sheets take the guesswork out of time tracking. Download any of our six free printable time sheet templates: weekly, biweekly, monthly, semimonthly, daily, and project-based.
If you are looking for an electronic time sheet software you can use for free and have one physical location (with up to 20 employees), consider Homebase. You can create and replicate a weekly schedule, and your employees can log their time through a mobile app. All the time calculations are done by the system to ensure overtime compliance, saving you time and reducing math errors. Sign up to try it out today.
Printable Time Sheet Templates
The best time sheet template for tracking your employee hours depends on how often you pay your employees’ wages. We’ve prepared six options that you can customize, so simply click on the one you want to download.
Pros and Cons of Using a Free Printable Time Sheet Template
Using a printable time sheet template to calculate your employees’ hours worked has highlights and drawbacks. It is good for those with a limited number of employees and budget. However, it may not be right for your business if you need more advanced payroll processing features.
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
| Reporting. Time sheet templates offer reporting capabilities such as pivot tables and financial reports. | Inaccurate Hours. Time sheet templates, like Excel files, don’t provide the option of tracking hours in real time. You must rely on the accuracy of the employees’ input. |
| Cost Efficient. Since these time sheet templates are free to use, there is no cost involved other than the overhead to manage the spreadsheets. | Input Errors. Using a time sheet template can result in errors as you must be sure you are on the correct line when inputting time. |
| Simple to Use. Most employees and business owners already know how to use spreadsheets, making this type of time tracking easy to understand. | Time Consuming. Entering data into a spreadsheet and verifying the accuracy can be time-consuming for a small business. |
If you’d prefer to use a time tracking software for your time sheets, check out our guide to the top four scheduling softwares to learn about all of their offerings:
Bottom Line
Tracking time worked correctly is crucial to your business and choosing the best time sheet template should be decided by your pay frequency and the type of spreadsheet that works best for your growing needs. Excel-based time sheets may work well for your needs; however, they can lead to accuracy errors, which can be costly for your business.
New to managing employees? Check out our guide to employee management for practical advice.
