Tracking employee time means instructing workers to record their work hours — start and end times, breaks, and overtime.
As a manager, recording employees’ hours will help you improve project visibility and ensure payroll accuracy and overtime compliance.
Read on to learn more about easy-to-use employee timekeeping methods for your business.
Why accurate time tracking matters
Accurate time tracking matters for the following reasons:
- Payroll precision — when teams keep accurate timesheets, managers and small business owners can calculate payroll and ensure fair compensation.
- Project visibility — tracking the time your employees spend working on tasks and projects is the safest way to stay within project budget and finish your projects before deadlines.
- FLSA compliance — the Fair Labor Standards Act is a federal law that covers regulations like recordkeeping, overtime, and minimum wage. Under this law, employers must record employees’ hours worked, breaks, overtime, and wages.
Time tracking can also improve both employee and team productivity. If team members track time on each task and project, they’ll know whether they dedicate enough time to vital tasks.
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Does tracking multiple projects at once sound overwhelming? It doesn’t have to be, and here are some ways to do it properly:
Method 1: Paper/manual timesheets
A timesheet template is a sheet of paper with predefined data where employees enter their time and then hand it in, usually on a daily, weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly basis.
How to use paper/manual timesheets?
Employees need to enter the time tracking data — such as start and end time, lunch breaks, and overtime hours — to calculate their regular hours.
At the end of the week, they need to add up their daily totals to get a weekly total — multiplying that by the hourly rate gives the weekly earnings needed for payroll.
For more data, employees on sick leave or vacation will need to enter “8 hours” in the “Vacation/Sick Leave” column for that day.
| ✅ Pros of paper/manual timesheets | ❌ Cons of paper/manual timesheets |
| Requires no training | Audit trails are sometimes inaccurate |
| Some employee timesheet templates allow you to add their vacation time, sick leave, and other similar data | The employees can easily make mistakes in their calculations — mistakes that will influence payroll and even bring the company into serious problems |
| Good for very small teams or field/low-tech environments | No way to distinguish billable client time — as opposed to time spent on company meetings, inbox management, and administrative work |
Method 2: Spreadsheet timesheets (Excel / Google Sheets)
If you’re wondering how to track employee hours in a spreadsheet, this method is quite easy. You can use either Excel or Google Sheets as your staff timesheets. Google Sheets works better when you want to share your free employee timesheet templates with your workers, HR, or accounting team.
The gist of this method is simple — your employees just need to add the projects and tasks they’re working on, along with the time they’ve spent on them.
Later, as an operations manager or small business owner, you can approve or reject timesheets for payroll processing.
How to use spreadsheet timesheets in Excel/Google Sheets?
If you want to use Excel for tracking employee hours, instruct your employees to create the following table with formulas:
- Add the basic information labels — such as “Name,” “Time period,” “Company department,” and “Manager.”
- Add the basic timesheet labels — such as “Date,” “Day of the week,” “Morning hours,” “Lunch time,” “Afternoon hours,” “Daily total,” and “Weekly total.”
- Add your work hours — type the time worked during “Morning hours” and “Afternoon hours” for each day of the week.
- Add the formula for the “Daily total” — write =sum(D8+F8) in the first “Daily total” cell (marked here as G8).
- Expand the formula to the remaining cells — select the G8 cell (“Daily total” for Monday) and expand the selection by dragging the outer left plus sign down to the G12 cell (“Daily total” for Friday).
- Add the formula for the “Weekly total” — write =sum(G8:G12) in the “Weekly total” cell (marked here as G14).
Once you add work hours for an entire week, your “Daily total” and “Weekly total” will be automatically calculated.
| ✅ Pros of spreadsheet timesheets | ❌ Cons of spreadsheet timesheets |
| These formulas are easy enough for anyone to replicate | Spreadsheets work well for up to about 10–15 employees, then become difficult to manage |
| You can add additional formulas for other data you want to track | Each employee sends out a separate Excel timesheet for approval, so it’s easy to misplace someone’s timesheet |
| If you’re using Google Sheets, you can share your timesheets with team members | It may be time-consuming to create, fill out, and approve such tables every week |
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You can instruct your employees to create staff timesheets — or you can do it yourself and simply share the document. Check out our guide on how to create simple daily, weekly, and monthly timesheet templates with formulas:
Method 3: Time clock app
Since manual time tracking can be error-prone and time-consuming, you can opt for a more reliable employee timekeeping method, such as time clock apps.
Unlike paper and spreadsheet timesheets, time clock apps are a digital solution that help you and your employees:
- Record work hours with a timer or automatically,
- Track overtime,
- Create reports, and
- Use GPS tracking for remote teams.
How to use time clock apps?
With time clock apps, you don’t have to worry about misplacing your timesheets.
To monitor your time, just start your online timer when you start working and stop it at the end of the day. If you have field workers, have them record their work hours with a mobile app.
Reliable time trackers such as Clockify by CAKE.com also work offline — your time entries will be synced when you regain internet connection.
Aside from a timer, you can use Clockify’s Kiosk. With this time clock kiosk, your remote workers can clock in and clock out from a shared device using a Kiosk link.
Once you create your Clockify kiosk and invite team members to join, your employees can:
- Clock in and out using their personal PINs,
- Start and finish their breaks with 1 click, and
- Switch projects they’re working on during the day.
If your business operates across different locations, you can create a kiosk for each location.
| Time tracking method/options | Paper/manual time tracking | Time clock app |
| Setup time | 🔍 It can be fairly easy or time-consuming to set up, depending on the number of fields you add | ✅ It’s usually easy and quick to set up |
| Accuracy | 🔍 Depends, it can be accurate if you double-check time entries and calculations for you and your employees | ✅ It’s highly accurate, since time clock apps have automatic calculations |
| Payroll-ready | 🔍 It can be, but it takes time to calculate daily and weekly payroll | ✅ It’s payroll-ready, because the tool calculates everything automatically |
| Available on mobile | ❌ It’s not, since it includes tracking time with a paper/manually | ✅ Yes, time clock apps have mobile versions |
| Audit trail | 🔍 There can be audit trails, but employers/managers need to spend a lot of time to ensure audit trails are accurate | ✅ Audit trails are highly accurate |
Method 4: Dedicated time tracking software
If you’re looking for an easy-to-use, but powerful timekeeping app, Clockify by CAKE.com can digitize the entire process — from entering time to approving it for payroll. All data is securely stored within the app.
Employees enter their time manually or track it as they work, and the system automatically calculates their daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly totals, as well as totals for custom time periods.
How to use a dedicated time tracking software?
Invite your employees to the employee time tracking software, such as Clockify. Instruct them to track their time:
- With the Timer — as they work,
- Manually,
- With Timesheets,
- With the Auto tracker, or
- With the Calendar view.
As their manager, you can analyze employee-tracked time using Clockify’s Reports. For example, in Clockify’s Summary report, you can see how your team members spend their time and break down the data by project or billability. You can also filter your data:
- By client -> user to see which team members have worked on which clients.
- By group -> user to see tracked time by teams and particular teammates.
When you click on the team name, you’ll have a list of team members and their total tracked time. If you track billable time, reports will show you a breakdown of billable hours — so you’ll know how profitable projects and clients are. Finally, export your reports for payroll (as CSV, Excel, or PDF files).
Another valuable option that Clockify offers is Required fields. If you think all time entries should include project information, you can make this field mandatory for all your employees. Other fields you can set as mandatory are tasks, tag, and description.
With Clockify, you can also approve employee timesheets. All pending approvals will be in one place, reducing the risk of forgetting to approve/reject someone’s timesheets.
In addition to these practical features, Clockify provides users with 24/7 human customer support, even on the Free plan.
What to look for in an employee hours tracker
When choosing the best timesheet app for employees, here are some questions you should ask yourself:
- Do I want to approve timesheets and expenses? Some time trackers allow admins and managers to approve or decline team members’ timesheets and expenses, such as travel or software costs.
- Do I need to track both billable and non-billable hours? Time tracking tools that let you differentiate between billable and non-billable hours improve your payroll process.
- Does a time tracker need to have a payroll export option? For instance, Clockify lets you track work hours, add billable rates, analyze tracked time with reports, and export payroll reports in PDF, CSV, or Excel.
- Is this time tracking app easy to use? Opt for a tool that all employees can use without any major learning curve. A few minutes should be enough to learn the basics.
- Does a time tracker have a GPS tracking option? This is a practical feature if you have field workers and your company operates on several worksites.
- Does time tracking software have a mobile app? Bonus points go to time trackers that have mobile, web, and desktop apps, and their data is synced across platforms, like with Clockify.
- Is there a free plan? If you have a small team, a free time tracking plan might be enough at the beginning.
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Legal requirements: What you must track and for how long
To be compliant with the FLSA recordkeeping, employers with non-exempt employees must track the following data:
- Employee’s basic information — name, social security number, address and zip code, birth date (if an employee is younger than 19), sex, and occupation.
- Time tracking data — when the workday begins, and total hours worked per day and per week.
- Payroll data — how an employee’s wage is calculated (by the hour, per piece of work, per week), hourly rate, and total regular earnings per day and week, as well as total overtime earnings per day and week.
- Additions and deductions from a wage — if an employee has any.
- Wages paid for each pay period and dates of payment.
Employers are obligated to keep such payroll records for at least 3 years. However, they should retain time cards, work schedules, and other documents used to calculate wages for 2 years.
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Not sure which employees are classified as exempt and which are non-exempt? Find out from our blog:
FAQs about tracking employee hours
Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about employee work hours.
What is the best way to keep track of hours worked?
There’s no single best way to track hours worked, because it depends on your needs and preferences. If you want an online method to track employee regular and overtime hours, use a kiosk and GPS tracking. In that case, time clock apps like Clockify by CAKE.com are the most reliable and powerful solutions.
How can I track my employees’ hours for free?
To track your employees’ hours for free, you can opt for time tracking software that has a free plan, like Clockify. With Clockify’s Free plan, you can track time for up to 5 users, add projects and tasks, and record time with the Pomodoro timer.
Who is responsible for tracking employee hours?
Both employees and employers are responsible for tracking employee hours. Employees are responsible for recording their work hours, while employers are responsible for keeping employee time tracking data — so that they’re compliant with the FLSA and DCAA laws.
What is the 7-minute rule for employees?
The 7-minute rule is a time-rounding rule that many companies use. This is how you round time according to the 7-minute rule:
- If an employee clocks in during the first 7 minutes of a 15-minute interval, you need to round the time down.
- If an employee clocks in during the second 7 minutes of a 15-minute interval, you need to round the time up.
For example, if an employee clocks in between 07:53 and 08:07, the rounded time will be 08:00. But if they clock in between 08:08 and 08:22, the rounded time will be 08:15.
Is it legal to track salaried employees’ hours?
Yes, it’s legal to track salaried employees’ hours. As an employer, you can and should track employee hours, no matter whether they’re salaried or hourly workers.
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For more information about salaried and hourly employment, differences, their pros and cons, read the following blog post:
How do employees log work hours?
To log work hours, employees can use a time tracker like Clockify by CAKE.com. This time tracking app allows workers to record their work by:
- Using a timer,
- Adding the time manually,
- Using Timesheets, or
- Using an Automatic time tracker.
