Free timesheet templates in PDF and Excel

What belongs on a timesheet?

Timesheet, time record or hours sheet: the same document, one that records start, end, breaks and net working time per working day. It contains:

• name, employer and period
• the date of every working day
• start, end and the breaks taken
• net working time per day and the total for the period
• signature fields, if your workplace wants them

What the template looks like

The printable sheet is deliberately plain: a head with name, employer and period, one line per day (two in the weekly sheet), totals and signature fields at the end. The fields:

Weekly template, one page · Open the PDF (new tab) →Monthly template, page 1 of 2. Totals and signatures are on page 2 · Open the PDF (new tab) →

Date

The day of the stint. In Excel the column fills from the first day of the period, with the weekday, and stops where the calendar stops.

Start and end

The time you actually started and stopped, not the contractual one.

Next day

Tick it when the stint ends after midnight, so 22:00 to 06:00 reads as eight hours instead of an error.

Break from – to

When you took the break. Under regular recording in Switzerland the employer must record when a break of 30 minutes or more was taken, not only how long.^[1]

Break (min)

The sum of breaks deducted from the working time.

Net

End minus start minus break, in hours and minutes.

Notes

A second stint, a compensatory rest day, the reason for extra hours. No diagnoses, nothing private.

Total, target, difference

Time worked, time expected, and what lies between. You enter the target yourself.

Signatures

Fields for agreeing the sheet with your employer. None of the rules below makes a signature generally mandatory; the German minimum-wage records, for instance, need none.^[2]

How to fill in the timesheet

Enter your name, employer and period, then per day the start, the end and the break you actually took. Excel computes the net time and the difference to your target. Which further details are required depends on the country and on your workplace's rules; the legal notes below cover Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

1. Fill in the head. Name, employer and period. Staff number or site, if your workplace wants them, go in the notes.
2. Enter each day on the same day. A record kept as you go is more credible than a week reconstructed on Friday. Enter the real times, not the contractual ones.
3. Deduct breaks honestly. Only the break you actually took. A lunch worked through is working time; a longer break than planned is not.
4. Check and keep it. Add up, compare with the target and keep your own copy, so you do not depend on later access to the workplace system.

A filled-in example day

Scroll sideways on small screens.

9 hours 15 minutes present, 30 minutes of break, 8:45 net. The note records why it ran long and who wanted it, which is exactly what is missing later when overtime is discussed.

Excel: breaks, night shifts and target hours

The Excel template calculates in whole minutes and shows times as hours:minutes, so 7:30 is not read as 7.3. The shaded cells are inputs; date, net, total, difference and the check notes are computed. "Break from – to" sits to the right of net there.

• Night shift. 22:00 to 06:00, next day 1, break 30 minutes gives 7:30. Without the 1, the check column reports that the end is not after the start instead of silently assuming a night shift: a swapped end should stand out, not pass as a 15-hour night.
• Split shift. Two stints on one day go on two rows: the first on the day's row, the second on one of the rows under "Further stints" with the same date. The total counts both. The monthly sheet has six such rows, the weekly four. Rows you insert are not calculated; if you need more, use a second file or the weekly sheet.
• No break. Leave the break empty or enter 0. The template deducts nothing automatically, not even by legal thresholds; it deducts what you enter. The two break fields belong together: the minutes calculate, the time documents. A time without minutes is reported by the check column, and so is a number pasted as text.
• Target and difference. Enter the target as the expected hours of the period. Example: 160:00 planned hours minus 8:00 for a planned day you were absent all day gives 152:00. The template does not recognise absences and credits no time. The difference appears as +2:30 or −2:30.
• Errors stay visible. A break longer than the stint, an end before the start, a start without an end or a stint on a row without a valid date inside the period, say 30 February: the check column names the problem, the row turns red and net stays empty. The number of open rows appears beside the total, and the difference to the target stays empty as long as a checked entry contains an error.
• Across the month boundary and the clock change. A stint from midnight into the 1st belongs on both periods: on the 31st from 22:00 to 00:00 with next day 1, on the 1st from 00:00 to 06:00 with next day 0, the break in the part where it was taken. For the clock change in March and October, enter the deviation in the "Correction (min)" column, say +60 for the October night, and explain it in the notes; start and end stay as they were.

Proving overtime: what your own record can and cannot do

A timesheet records the working times you entered. For a claim to overtime pay in Germany you must additionally show that the employer brought the overtime about, that is ordered, approved or tolerated it, or that it was necessary for the work owed; the recording duty does not shift that burden by itself.^[10]

So for extra hours, also note what work was needed and who ordered or approved it; that is what the notes column is for. A positive balance on the sheet shows your time; on its own it does not create a claim to pay.

Frequent questions