Printable time sheets or digital? 5 free templates inside

August 17, 2025

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If your business is still using printable timesheets, you may be missing out on payroll accuracy, productivity data, and compliance safeguards.

Every businesses lose hours of productivity and thousands of dollars in preventable payroll errors, and it often starts with one missed entry on a printable time sheet.

Let’s say, It’s payroll day. You’re sorting through a stack of handwritten time sheets. Half have missing end times, a few have smudged numbers, and one is sitting on someone’s desk at home.

Now the pay run is delayed, your billable hours are off, and you can’t give leadership a clear workforce report.

In banking, finance, and healthcare, those small gaps aren’t just frustrating. They affect payroll accuracy, compliance readiness, and the ability to spot trends in productivity or resource allocation.

Every unclear hour means a missed opportunity to forecast capacity, control labor costs, and make confident decisions.

For many organisations, printable time sheets have been a long-standing method to capture attendance and hours worked.

According to the Select Software Reviews (SSR) survey, “51% of companies still use spreadsheets for payroll, while nearly 1 in every 5 (19%) continue to rely on manual or paper processes, leaving room for inconsistencies that can impact decision-making.”

When there is uncertainty around attendance or task allocation, it becomes increasingly difficult for leaders to make confident decisions, allocate resources with precision, and achieve performance targets.

This is because tracking time goes beyond simply counting hours. Without complete and reliable data, these processes lose precision and consistency. This creates a chain reaction where priorities drift away from strategic goals, deliverables arrive later than planned, and valuable chances for improvement slip by.

In this article, we’ll share practical, editable, and printable time sheet templates, along with digital alternatives that can improve accuracy and simplify payroll.

Already seeing the limits of manual tracking? See how Time Doctor simplifies time tracking

5 free printable timesheet templates (PDF, Excel & Google Sheets)

Here are 5 handy printable time sheets you can use for your business.

To use a template, click on the links to download it in your preferred format (Google Docs, Google Sheet, MS Word, PDF, or Excel format).

After you customize (if necessary) and print the timesheet template, you can start recording your staff’s hours.

Tip: The templates in the Google Sheets and Excel format include a Sample Sheet. These have built-in formulae to automatically fill in dates, end time and perform time and pay calculations. So, they double as a working Excel timesheet template.

1. Hourly timesheet template

This timesheet template allows employees and freelancers to record their tasks during each work hour. The template is designed to help you understand your staff’s daily activities.

Hourly Timesheet Download Links:

2. Daily timesheet template

This printable daily timesheet template is for recording employees’ daily tasks. It allows employees to note down time in, time out, specify tasks for hours worked, etc., on a simple timesheet.

Daily Timesheet Download Links:

3. Weekly timesheet template

This printable weekly timesheet features two daily clock-ins. It’s a weekly time card that lets employees record when they take a long break, like a lunch break. Staff members can also note their total hours and weekly pay.

Weekly Timesheet Download Links:

4. Biweekly timesheet template

The biweekly employee timesheet template works similarly to the weekly timesheet above but covers two weeks. Employees fill out the timesheet for managers to calculate pay twice a month.

Biweekly Timesheet Download Links:

5. Monthly timesheet template

This monthly timesheet follows the weekly and biweekly printable timesheet template format but includes five weeks. Employees can record their hours daily, then calculate their weekly hours and pay. Managers can then pay employees on a monthly basis.

Monthly Timesheet Download Links:

Looking to create your timesheets from scratch?

Here’s how you can make a simple timesheet template of your own.

How to create a printable timesheet (step-by-step)

Step 1 – Choose your spreadsheet tool

Start with a reliable spreadsheet platform like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets. These give you a structured grid to easily format your timesheet and allow quick adjustments as your needs evolve.

Step 2 – Set up the basic framework

Create a clean layout that is easy to read and update. Add clear column headers and keep spacing consistent so every entry is accurate and legible.

Step 3 – Add essential fields

Include all key data points that will make the timesheet valuable for payroll, compliance, and workforce analytics, whether you are building a weekly, monthly, or semi-monthly timesheet template.

Employee name
Relevant dates
Days of the week
Month
Time in and time out
Total hours worked
Projects or tasks worked on
Percentage of tasks completed
Additional notes for reminders or special messages

Step 4 – Format for accuracy and consistency

Use formulas where possible to calculate totals automatically. This reduces manual input time and ensures every hour is accounted for correctly.

Step 5 – Export and prepare for printing

Once the template is ready, export it to a printable format like PDF or Microsoft Word. This ensures the layout remains consistent when shared or archived.

Step 6 – Review before use

Check that every field captures the information you need for payroll accuracy, project tracking, and compliance reporting. A well-prepared template will make future record keeping smoother and more reliable.

Next, let’s explore why some businesses may choose printable time sheets, even when online timesheets are available.

How to make a printable timesheet

The best software to make a printable timesheet is a spreadsheet software like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets. These provide a convenient grid to format your timesheet. You can then export the sheet to any other document format, such as Microsoft Word or PDF format.

Fields to consider adding to your timesheet template include:

Employee name.
Relevant dates.
Days of the week.
Month.
Time in and time out.
Working hour totals.
Projects and/or tasks worked on.
Percentage of tasks completed.
Additional notes (to communicate any reminders or special messages).

Next, let’s explore why some businesses may choose printable time sheets.

3 key benefits of printable time sheets

Here are the 3 main reasons employers might use paper timesheets:

1. Anyone can use printable timesheets

Your less tech-savvy employees may struggle to get used to digital time tracking.

On the other hand, all your employees should be able to use a simple timesheet system to write their regular hours on paper.

2. Physical timesheets are available for records

Paper timesheets allow you to create a physical record of each employee’s work history. You can collect all their timesheets and store them in a folder for easy access.

In contrast, some digital solutions require you to pay extra to store and access historical data.

3. No onboarding or setup required

Printable time sheets don’t require any setup besides downloading and printing. This simple process doesn’t require much time or computer literacy.

However, free printable timesheets do have some drawbacks. Let’s explore those next.

Why printable timesheets are risky: 4 major drawbacks

Here are four core reasons why using a time sheet template may not be as beneficial as you think:

1. Risk of human error

Employees may occasionally make calculation errors on their timesheets. A team member could lose or forget about their sheet and fill it inaccurately later.

Inaccuracies are harder to catch on a paper time sheet template as there are no built-in checks for managers. This can cause you to pay employees incorrectly.

2. No security against time theft

Employees may purposely report false hours or tasks if they are underworking. This is called time theft.

Paper timesheets limit staff accountability. Unless you can watch your employees all day, you won’t know if they’ve filled their timesheets only for the hours they’ve worked. This, too, can lead to overpaying employees.

3. Lack of time and productivity reports

With paper timesheets, there’s no quick way to analyze employee time and productivity data to answer questions like:

How productive are your team members?
Are employees entertaining distractions (e.g. social media)?
Do employees have a manageable workload?
Are there productivity bottlenecks?
What tasks do employees complete across each work hour?

You could perform some manual analysis, but this can be time consuming and likely won’t provide much insight. You need to analyze more than just hours worked to fully understand your staff’s time management.

4. Limits scalability

As your business and workforce or agencies grow, keeping track of paper timesheets for multiple employees may become troublesome. For example:

Manually reviewing timesheets, making calculations, and running payroll may take a lot of time.
You can only calculate employee overtime hours at the end of the pay period. This makes it harder to prevent excessive overtime costs.
You can end up overspending on paper and ink, especially if you are printing a project timesheet and using a lot of storage space.
Your business will need to maintain a separate system for tracking sick days and vacation time.

Each of these limitations will likely become more serious and costly when your team grows.

So, what’s the alternative to printable time sheets?

Let’s find out how a digital alternative to a free timesheet template could be the next logical step for your business.

Best digital time tracking software to replace printable timesheets

A digital time tracker can help you automate and streamline your employee time tracking process. Plus, they eliminate the hassle of printing timesheets.

Let’s take a look at the features, customer ratings, and pricing of three different time tracking software options:

1. Time Doctor

Time Doctor is a powerful timesheet app for time tracking and productivity management.

Time Doctor is a flexible, user-friendly alternative to a free timesheet template. You can use it as a desktop app (for Windows, macOS, and Linux), web app, and mobile app for Android. The Chrome extension also provides 60+ integrations with other apps (e.g., project management software like Asana and Trello).

Key features

Let’s take a look at some of Time Doctor’s fantastic features.

A. Interactive and silent time tracking options

Time Doctor provides two simple time tracking modes: Interactive and Silent.

The interactive mode lets employees to track time by starting and stopping a timer. The app automatically syncs time data to the employee’s digital time card when the timer is running.

The silent mode is an automated time tracking option that works in the background when a device is in use. The app generates an accurate automatic time card while employees work. This allows employees to focus on their workflow without disruption.

B. Advanced productivity management

Time Doctor offers several features to encourage and measure employee productivity.

They include:

Idle time detection: Time Doctor detects keyboard and mouse usage to determine an employee’s activity levels. It calculates a percentage of idle time in a work hour or selected period.

Inactivity pop-up notifications: If an employee is inactive for too long, the app displays a pop-up asking if the employee is still working. The app automatically stops the timer if the employee doesn’t interact.

Web & app tracking: The app keeps a record of all websites and applications employees visit while the timer is on. It also assesses the productivity of each with customizable Productivity Ratings.

Screenshots and screencasts (optional): Time Doctor can take regular screenshots and screen recordings of employee devices to ensure they are working responsibly.

C. Detailed time and productivity reports

Time Doctor can also generate comprehensive reports about time and productivity, including:

Activity summary reports: Understand the time employees spend active, idle, or unproductive.
Hours tracked reports: Review the total hours employees tracked in a given period.
Web & app usage reports: See the time employees track on different websites and applications with optional Screen Monitoring to validate activity when needed.
Attendance reports: Get an overview of employee attendance and punctuality based on work schedules you configure.
Timeline reports: View a real-time timeline of each employee’s activity (E.g., what they’re currently working on, or what they did throughout the day).
Custom export reports: Create custom reports to suit your business needs, downloadable in a CSV (Microsoft Excel) or PDF format.

D. Payroll integration

Time Doctor allows you to accurately track employee hours to the second, as well as set up billable rates. You can then generate and run payroll right from the app for the billable hours tracked.

The app also integrates with several payment gateways, such as PayPal, ADP, Wise, and Gusto to process payments.

You can customize the payroll in terms of:

The pay period and currency.
Selecting to pay an hourly rate or monthly salary.
Paying multiple employees in bulk or paying individually.

Check out Time Doctor’s full list of features to discover what it can do for your business.

Pricing

Time Doctor offers a 14-day free trial, and no credit card is required.

Annual pricing starts at $6.70/user/month.

Basic – $6.70 (annual) / $8 (monthly)

Automatic tracking, projects & tasks, timeline reports, screenshots, online/offline tracking.

Standard – $11.70 (annual) / $14 (monthly)

Adds schedules, attendance, time approvals, web & app usage reports, productivity ratings, leave/break tracking, real-time alerts, and integrations.

Premium – $16.70 (annual) / $20 (monthly)

Enterprise – Custom pricing

Adds private cloud, BI dashboards, custom contracts, guided onboarding, and professional services.

Customer ratings

G2: 4.4/5 (414+ reviews)
Capterra: 4.5/5 (545+ reviews)

2. RescueTime

RescueTime is an automatic timesheet software. It aims to help employees improve their time management and productivity with features like the End of Day focus review.