How to Use Timesheet Templates to Manage Your Home Service Business [Free Download]
As a home service business owner, you need to keep track of your employees’ hours to manage payroll and accurately bill clients for your services.
One of the easiest ways to capture your employees’ working hours is to use a timesheet template.
In this article, you’ll learn everything you need to know about timesheets, including the benefits, how to track overtime, and best practices for reviewing them.
You can also download a free Excel timesheet template to help you get started right away!
In this article, we’ll cover:
What is a timesheet?
A timesheet is a simple tool used to track the hours that your employees work. It’s used to record when they start and finish their jobs, how many hours they put in each project and day, and any breaks they take. This information is important for paying employees correctly and keeping your business organized.
A landscaping business, for instance, may send its crew to mow lawns and trim hedges at different locations. With a manual timesheet, each worker writes down the time they start each job and when they finish. This way, you know how long they spent on each task, making it easier to calculate their pay and bill your customers.
Timesheets are also helpful for tracking work over longer periods of time. For a construction business, where projects might last several days or weeks, employees can use timesheets to log their hours every day. At the end of the week, the business has a record of how much time was spent on each project.
Here’s an example of what a timesheet template looks like:
How home service businesses should use timesheets
Timesheets are an easy way to keep track of work hours, manage payroll, and bill clients correctly.
Here’s how your service business can use them.
Tracking time on a job
For many home service businesses, a timesheet helps to keep an eye on how long different tasks take. This is especially useful when managing multiple jobs in a single day.
When employees fill out timesheets after each job, you get a clear view of how much time is spent on each client. This is valuable for seeing which jobs are the most profitable, planning future projects, and even adjusting your service pricing.
Tracking time has allowed us to make an educated decision on pricing rather than just my gut feeling.
Payroll and billing
Timesheets play a big role in managing your payroll and billing clients. Without accurate time records, it can be challenging to know how much time each employee worked. Or how much time was spent on a job. This can lead to two problems:
- Overpaying or underpaying employees.
- Charging clients the wrong amount.
When your staff fill out their timesheets properly, they give you a reliable record of hours worked. This ensures everyone is paid for their actual time logged and clients are billed accurately.
For example, if a plumber spends three hours fixing a pipe, the timesheet will show that time. So, the customer is billed appropriately for those hours, rather than four or five.
Examples
Here are a few examples of how different service businesses can use timesheets:
- Cleaning: If employees are cleaning multiple homes in a single day, they can use a timesheet to record the time they arrive and leave each location. This helps see exactly how long each job took.
- General contracting: Projects often last several days or weeks. The crew can use timesheets to track how much time is spent on different tasks, like framing, electrical work, or painting. This helps with scheduling and staying on budget.
- Lawn care: Employees can log the time they spend on different clients’ lawns or projects. If a team mows five different lawns in one day, for example, a timesheet will show how much time they spent at each location.
- Plumbing: Plumbers often move between multiple service calls each day. Using a timesheet allows them to bill customers for the actual time spent on repairs, which can vary from job to job.
Pros and cons of using timesheets
Using timesheets can be a great way to keep track of hours, but there are both advantages and disadvantages to consider.
Pros
- Better job tracking: Track the time spent on each task so you can use the data to improve scheduling and make sure you’re charging the right amount for your services.
- Accurate payroll: Pay employees for the actual hours they work.
- Improved billing: Bill clients accurately by recording how much time was spent on each job.
- Overtime tracking: See when employees are working overtime. This can help you manage labor costs and compensate your team for extra hours.
Cons
- Time consuming: Filling out paper timesheets can take up extra time, especially if employees forget to do it and have to fill them out later. This can lead to inaccurate entries.
- Manual errors: If employees make mistakes while filling out their timesheets, it can cause problems with payroll and billing.
- Compliance issues: Some employees may not take timesheets seriously. Or they forget to fill them out, which makes it hard to get accurate records.
Different types of timesheets and when to use them
Timesheets come in different formats to fit the needs of your business. Choosing the right type depends on the kind of work you do and how you pay your employees. Here are the common types of timesheets and when to use them.
Weekly and biweekly timesheets
If your business handles short projects or jobs that change often, a weekly timesheet template is a good choice.
For example, if you run a lawn care business and your employees mow different lawns every day, a weekly timesheet lets them track hours for each day. Weekly timesheets are also helpful if you pay your employees every week.
For businesses with ongoing or longer-term projects, like general contracting, a biweekly timesheet might be better.
If your crew works on a project that takes several weeks to finish, a biweekly timesheet allows you to track hours over that period. This is especially useful if you pay employees every two weeks, or if your business has a steadier workflow.
Here’s an example of what a biweekly timesheet template looks like:
FREE TOOL: Download Jobber’s free weekly and biweekly timesheet templates in Excel format or printable PDF format.
Project-based timesheets
If you need to track time per job or per client, a project-based timesheet is ideal. This is especially useful for plumbers and general contractors, where employees may be working on different jobs throughout the week.
For example, if you run a plumbing service and your team handles multiple service calls every day, they can use a project-based timesheet to log how many hours they spend on each job.
Hourly timesheets
If you have employees who work different hours each day, an hourly timesheet template is the way to go. These are great for when shifts or hours can vary, like a cleaning business where employees may work four hours one day and eight the next.
With hourly timesheets, your team can record the exact time they start and finish each day, helping you keep an accurate record of their hours.
How to track overtime using a timesheet template
Tracking overtime is an important part of managing your team’s hours to pay them fairly. Here’s how to do it using an employee timesheet template:
- Separate regular vs. overtime hours: Your template should have separate sections for regular and overtime hours. Employees can fill in their regular hours first. Any time worked beyond that should go into the overtime section.
- Know the legal requirements for overtime: Federal law requires that non-exempt employees (such as those not on salary) who work more than 40 hours in a week must be paid overtime. Overtime is usually 1.5 times the regular hourly rate.
- Be aware of when overtime kicks in: Overtime usually begins after 40 hours logged in a week, but it can vary depending on your local laws or company policy.
How to create a timesheet template
Creating a timesheet template for your business is simpler than you think. Follow these steps to make a template that fits your needs:
- Decide on the time period: Choose whether your timesheet will cover a day, a week, or two weeks.
- Include employee details: Have a section at the top of the template for the employee’s name, their job title, and the date.
- Add columns for days and hours: Create columns for each day of the week (or two weeks if using a biweekly timesheet template). Next to each day, add space for employees to log their start time, end time, and hours worked.
- Include job and project details: If your employees work on multiple projects, include a column where they can note which job they worked on.
- Add a section for overtime: To track extra hours, include a section for employees to log any overtime they worked.
- End it with a signature field: At the bottom of the template, add a space for both the employee and the manager to sign.
To make tracking time even easier, use Jobber’s time tracking software to track your team’s hours, record labor costs, and download employee timesheet reports.
With location-based timers, your team’s timers automatically start and stop when entering and leaving a client’s property. Once the job is done and the timer stops, the billable hours are automatically added to the job and your employee’s timesheet.
This means no more worrying about whether someone forgot to clock in or out—they can focus on the job while Jobber handles the time tracking.
Here are some other ways Jobber’s time tracking app helps your business:
- Get detailed job reports to understand labor costs clearly.
- Automatically calculate profitability for each job, including labor costs.
- Prevent timesheet errors by controlling timers from the office in case your team forgets.
- Sync approved hours to QuickBooks Online to make payroll faster and easier.
Best practices for using timesheets
To get the most out of timesheets, follow the best practices. From reviewing for accuracy to ensuring employee compliance, properly managing timesheets keeps your business running smoothly.
Here are some steps to ensure that timesheets are filled out correctly and consistently, so you can avoid payroll issues and keep everything on track.
Reviewing for accuracy and consistency
As a business owner, it’s important to review and approve timesheets carefully.
- Check for accuracy: It’s your job to make sure that the hours recorded are correct. Look for any obvious errors like missed or overlapping hours.
- Verify against job schedules or GPS tracking: Compare timesheets to job schedules to check that your team’s logged hours are legitimate. Or, if available, compare against GPS tracking data.
- Handle discrepancies right away: If you notice any discrepancies, like unclear entries or missing hours, address them immediately. Talk to the employee to understand what happened and adjust the timesheet data as needed.
Using an hourly timesheet template only works if the information is accurate and consistent.
- Give clear instructions: Make sure your employees know exactly how to fill out their timesheets. Explain that they need to write down their start and end times, including any breaks they take.
- Record time every day: Encourage your team to fill out their timesheets every day—not at the end of the week. If they wait until the end of the week to record their hours, they might forget when they started or finished each day. This leads to inaccurate timesheets.
- Set a consistent submission process: Establish a clear process for submitting timesheets. For example, have all employees turn in their completed timesheet at the end of each week. Or at the end of each biweekly period. This makes it easier for you to keep track of payroll.
READ MORE: Learn how a furniture business created a better, data-backed pricing strategy using time and expense tracking software.
Employee compliance and accuracy
When timesheets are filled out accurately, your business runs smoother. Here’s how to encourage compliance and accuracy:
- Set clear expectations: From the start, make it clear to your employees how important it is to fill out their project timesheet template correctly. Accurate time tracking leads to accurate payroll and client billing. Let your team know they need to log their hours, breaks, and overtime.
- Train employees to use timesheets: Take the time to train your team on how to properly fill out their timesheet. Take them through the process. A general contracting business, for example, might show workers how to record time for multiple job sites on the same day.
- Use positive reinforcement: While it’s important to address incomplete or incorrect timesheets, try to focus on positive reinforcement. Remind employees that accurate timesheets lead to smooth payroll processing. They ensure everyone gets paid on time and for the total hours they worked.
Tracking employees’ time on jobs is important for staying productive and managing projects better. You can use a free timesheet template, or try software like Jobber to make time tracking easier and more efficient.