Whether you have a team of five or five thousand, keeping track of timesheets takes…well…time! In the search for something better, you’ve probably come across free timesheet templates online. But there are a few compelling reasons why you might want to avoid them.
1. Timesheet rules have changed
In 2020, the Australian Government announced changes to workplace laws to protect award-covered workers from underpayment. Now, employers must show they are properly paying salaried staff for breaks and overtime. That’s added a whole new level of complexity for business owners and managers. And it shows where paper timesheet templates fall short: it simply takes too much time and effort to make sure your business is compliant. To complicate things even further, managers also have to let staff know when they’ve gone beyond their allocated overtime or penalty rate hours and may be underpaid. That’s going to take a lot of mental gymnastics!
2. Timesheet templates aren’t the truth
A timesheet has one job: to show when someone was working. But what if they showed up late – or not at all? And where do you record a swapped shift or overtime? Quite quickly, the timesheet becomes a mess of scribbles and strikethroughs – and you might never know what really happened. As you can see, paper timesheets are fine for reporting rostered hours…but they rarely reflect reality.
3. People make mistakes
Your staff are human, so they’re bound to make mistakes from time to time. At the end of the week, it’s easy to forget when they clocked in or out – or took a longer or shorter break. And if they’re in a rush to get home, it’s easy to make an error. For managers, that means your records may not accurately reflect what actually happened in that pay period. Not only can it cost you money, but it may also put you at risk of non-compliance.
4. They don’t map to your payroll
Whether you use MYOB, Xero, Reckon or other accounting software, you likely have it set up with categories to suit your workplace. But if you use a timesheet template, it can’t “talk” to that platform. So you won’t know if your staff go into overtime or a negative leave balance, or are otherwise being paid properly. You’ll also have to go into your accounting software and adjust pay for every employee, if they’re sick or swap shifts.
What’s a better way?
It’s pretty clear that timesheet templates don’t make life any easier. They waste time, cost money, and lead to inaccurate payments and records. And with workplace laws becoming more complex by the day, most businesses can’t afford to keep doing things manually. So if you’re looking for a better way to manage your team’s time, consider a timesheet app. In just a few clicks, you can see who’s working when – and make adjustments. You can also sleep easy knowing that if staff are veering into overtime or negative leave, you’ll be notified before mistakes happen. And they can be confident they’re being paid correctly, too.
Plus, a timesheet app like Wageloch talks to your accounting system. So you simply click and send the data to payroll. And to save even more time, you can set up timesheet templates within Wageloch to use whenever you need – such as for public holidays or busy periods.
If you’d like to see how Wageloch makes timesheets easy, book a demo with our friendly team in Australia today.