Every business needs effective time management systems in place to manage and optimize operations. You may need to track employees’ working hours to measure productivity, manage payroll and calculate any overtime. Alternatively, you may have part-time employees or freelancers with pay-per-hour contracts that need to track their own time to send invoices. In any case, time management systems are essential. There is a simple solution: to create an employee timesheet template in Excel and integrate it with your business operations.
Having an employee timesheet in place allows you to monitor employees’ working hours without having to be present for the entire time. This is particularly important if your team members are working remotely. By having an online timesheet, everyone can input their data at any time and any place.
Although there are many specialist time-management systems available, these can be extremely costly. Instead, you can create your very own custom-made hour-tracking system within Excel, simply using an employee timesheet template.
Why use Excel to manage timesheets?
- Flexibility: Excel spreadsheets can be modified and changed according to your organization’s needs and requirements. As such, there is no need for complicated software solutions or putting pressure on your IT department to build a customized system.
- Accessibility: Whether you are working from a tablet, a desktop, laptop, or smartphone, HR managers and employees always have access to the workflow.
- Compatibility: Microsoft Excel is easily compatible with other software that your organization might be using. Therefore, any related employee data you already have is easily imported into Excel spreadsheets.
- Ease of use: Many employees are familiar with spreadsheets and if they are not, it is easy to train them. Indeed, using an Excel-based template is ideal for beginners and advanced users alike.
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Sheetgo’s Employee timesheet template in Excel
Sheetgo’s Employee timesheet template in Excel is a workflow template. That means it’s a pre-built system for automated timesheet management, for multiple team members.
The template gives each employee an individual file in which they log and monitor their working hours and breaks. At the same time, the manager gets an overview of timesheets for the entire team.
What’s a spreadsheet-based workflow template?
Whereas a regular spreadsheet template is a single file containing tables, charts, and formulas, a Sheetgo workflow template is an entire system.
This means that it’s a group of connected Excel files that send data back and forth. It enables users to share data with others without sharing their own personal spreadsheets.
A spreadsheet-based workflow template gives you:
- Organization and data privacy: Each spreadsheet is dedicated to one task which keeps data flows secure and separated.
- Scalability: Excel’s sharing function is powerful but when you have a lot of people working in the same spreadsheet, the file becomes large and slow. Keeping data in individual files ensures that the system works smoothly. Every time you need to add another timesheet, you simply copy one of the spreadsheets and share it with the additional colleague.
- Integration: As well as being able to import data from different software, a spreadsheet-based workflow allows HR managers to merge data from departments. In a couple of clicks, connect your employee timesheet workflow with your accounting workflow (or those from other departments) to create reports for directors.
What you get with this template:
When you install the Employee timesheet template for Excel, Sheetgo creates three Excel files with pre-built connections and saves them to your Drive storage:
- Two Employee spreadsheets in a folder. Rename and share these files with team members and make as many copies as you need for additional employees. Each employee uses their personal file to record the hours they work.
- One Employee Timesheet Management master sheet for the HR manager. Data flows into this file from the Employee spreadsheets, providing a summary of everyone’s working hours and automated dashboard charts.
How to get the workflow template
Click on the blue button below to install the Sheetgo Employee timesheet template in Excel.
- Login to Sheetgo with your Google, Microsoft, or Dropbox account.
- Click Install template on Sharepoint (or choose your preferred storage).
- Wait a few moments while Sheetgo creates copies of the files and connects them.
How to use the Employee timesheet template in Excel
Step 1: Delete the sample data
You’ll notice that the Employee files contain sample data in the Timesheet tab — this is just to show you how the whole template works.
Delete this information or ask your colleagues to do it themselves before they start using the spreadsheet.
Step 2: Share the spreadsheets with your colleagues
From inside Sheetgo, open one of the Employee by double-clicking its icon on the workflow view.
Now rename the spreadsheet and share it with the appropriate colleague using the green Share button.
Step 3: Employees start clocking their hours
Once they have been allocated a personal spreadsheet, each employee should start to register their working hours in the Timesheet tab.
There’s no need for them to enter anything in the gray Column F (Hours Worked) as the template calculates this automatically.
Step 4: Update the connections
When all your team members have started recording their hours, pull that data into your master sheet by updating the workflow.
The template contains pre-built Sheetgo connections, so you can do this in one click.
Go back to Sheetgo and click Run to update your employees’ timesheet data into your master sheet and dashboard.
Start tracking worked hours automatically
Step 5: Automate your timesheet workflow
If you’re managing a large team and dealing with multiple timesheets, schedule the workflow to run automatically so you’ve always got the latest timesheet data from every employee.
Inside Sheetgo, select Automate from the menu bar.
Choose how often you want automatic updates: from once an hour to once a month.
How to add more Employee timesheets
Add more Employee timesheets to the workflow by duplicating one of the input sheets and connecting it with new Sheetgo connections.
1. First, go to your Drive storage and open the folder Sheetgo Templates > Employee Timesheet management.
2. Now right-click on one of the Employee files and click Copy to.
3. Inside Sheetgo, open the Employee Timesheet management workflow and click Connections on the sidebar on the right of the screen.
4. Next, click on the 3-dots menu (⋮) next to the connection All Timesheet Reports and select Edit connection.
Under Source data: Multiple files, you will see the two Employee files that are currently connected.
5. Click +Add another source file
6. Click +Select file, locate the new employee file inside your Drive storage, and click Done.
7. The file appears in Sheetgo. Now select the correct file tab: Timesheet.
8. Finally, click Finish and save.
If you take a look at the Workflow, you will see that the new file is now connected.
Build a complete HR system in Excel
If you want to create a more advanced system, you can customize the template further. Do this by connecting other HR data, or linking your timesheets to accounting and finance workflows.
However, if you’d like us to build a tailor-made system for you, book a call with our automation experts here.
