How to Create a Timesheet Template in Excel

Monitoring working hours is a task many face: business owners, managers, project managers, and regular employees. If you are looking for a quality Excel timesheet template, you’ve come to the right place.

Read on to learn more about different timesheet templates and their features. We will explain some basic principles of creating timesheets in Excel and provide a few Excel timesheet templates that you can download for free.

Payroll processing with self-calculating timesheet Excel templates

Monitoring working hours with employee timesheet templates in Excel

A timesheet is a table that summarizes the number of hours worked by an employee and sometimes contains other information. Excel is the most commonly used tool for processing tables, and it can help you with timesheets, too. Here is an example of the most basic timesheet in Excel:

You can share a timesheet and let employees fill it in themselves or ask the manager to do so. If your company uses time tracking applications, you can import data to timesheets automatically by using Coupler.io and its integration with Excel.

To import data from a time tracking application into your Excel timesheet, perform the following steps:

1. Sign up to Coupler.io using your Google or Microsoft account.
2. On the Importers page, click Add new.
3. Click the edit icon to name your importer, and then select the source. Let’s use Clockify in our example:

4. Click Continue, and then provide the required parameters:

Click the links below each field for details on where you can find the values of the parameters.

5. Enter the Start date and the End date if you want to import data for a specific period. Otherwise, just click Continue.
6. Select Microsoft Excel as the destination:

7. Connect your Microsoft Office account.
8. Select the workbook and the worksheet where you want to import the data:

9. Optionally you can specify the cell that will be used as a starting point for importing the data, change the import mode and add an Updated at column.

11. If you want to schedule automatic data updates, enable the Automatic data refresh toggle switch, and then set up the schedule:

12. Click Save and Run.

Enhancing Excel timesheet templates with formulas

Excel timesheets are not just a substitute for paper ones; they are also a powerful tool for accounting and performance monitoring. Excel allows using formulas for automatic calculations. For example, you can add a formula to calculate the total weekly number of working hours to the above example:

As calculations are now performed automatically, you can modify the timesheet template in Excel to track the lunch time and deduct it from the total worked hours. Let’s add two columns where we will record the lunch time. We also need to apply a formula to the Total hours column to deduct the lunch time:

Note that you do not have to fill in similar formulas in Excel. When you enter the formula for the first cell in the column, hover the cursor over the lower-right corner of the cell. Then click and drag the cursor down until the whole area with similar formulas is highlighted:

Excel will populate the cells with formulas, and they will be correct for each row.

Combining timesheets and invoices in a template for Excel

If you work alone without employees, chances are that you have clients who pay you on an hourly basis. In this case, you can also benefit from Excel timesheets by combining them with invoices.

Let’s create a 2-in-1 Excel timesheet template:

In the example above, we multiply the total hours for each day by the hourly rate. Note the $ symbol in the cell address. It ensures that hours are multiplied by the same hourly rate when you extend the formula.

Using Excel timesheets for project management

Project timesheet template for Excel

Project management is another field where timesheets are of great use. If you manage projects, you definitely want to know how the time is distributed among different project stages. That kind of information is crucial for analysis and future project planning activities.

Have a look at the following project timesheet Excel template for a software development team. It clearly shows both each project team member’s contribution and the effort required for each project stage. Feel free to download and use it for your project.

Download the project timesheet template for Excel

Multiple-employee timesheet template for Excel

Team managers often need to report the working hours of their team members. This can be a very time-consuming task, especially if your team is large and distributed. Luckily, there is a simple way to automate the process. All you need is a timesheet template, Excel, and a tool to share the file with the team. Just ask the team members to fill in the following Excel timesheet template:

Download the multiple-employee timesheet template for Excel

In this timesheet template, Excel also calculates the number of overtime hours worked by the team. This is done by simply deducting 40 from the total weekly hours. To prevent Excel from displaying negative numbers (for example, if some of your team members work part-time), use the ‘IF’ statement:

=IF((L10-40)<=0;"";L10-40)

• (L10-40)<=0 is a logical_test – the condition that will be checked. We are checking if the L10 cell value minus 40 is less than or equal to 0.
• "" is the value_if_true – the value to be displayed if the condition is true. In the example, the cell will be left empty.
• L10-40 is the value_if_false – the value to be displayed if the condition is false.

Using biweekly timesheet templates for Excel in Agile sprints

If your company has adopted the Agile methodology, your projects are probably divided into two-week iterations or sprints. In this case, one of the best methods to evaluate your team member’s performance is filling out a biweekly timesheet Excel template. Have a look at the following Excel timesheet template. You can download it and make necessary changes, or use it as is.

Download the biweekly timesheet template for Excel

Excel timesheet template with tasks

A project manager needs various sources of information to analyze the project flow, determine bottlenecks, suggest improvements, etc. Sometimes it is more useful to concentrate on tasks rather than on employee performance. Download the following timesheet Excel template with tasks and put your data into it. Then you will be able to see clearly how the time is distributed among tasks.

Download the Excel timesheet template with tasks

Excel timesheet templates for all occasions

Daily timesheet Excel template

You have to report the tasks you worked on at the end of each week. But at the end of the week, you can’t remember anything because there were so many! Is that you? Just use the following daily timesheet template. Excel will keep the data for you in a readily accessible form.

Follow these steps:

1. At the beginning of each working day, create a copy of “Sheet 1” and name it according to the current date.
2. Fill in the start and the end of your work day. The timesheet will automatically adjust to the specified working hours.
3. Set your watch or any online timer so that it signals every hour.
4. When the timer goes off, write down the task you have been working on during the last hour.
5. Save the workbook.

At the end of the week you will have a detailed and precise report.

Download the daily timesheet Excel template

Weekly timesheet template for Excel

In the following timesheet Excel template, weekly working hours are calculated with the deduction of lunch time. Use this timesheet if your contract requires you to work a fixed number of hours a week.

Download the weekly timesheet template for Excel

Monthly timesheet template for Excel

The following Excel template timesheet will store the working hours data for one month (up to five weeks, to be exact). It is ready for use. Just fill in the name, the dates of the weeks, and the number of working days in the month. Total monthly working hours and monthly overtime will be calculated automatically.

Download the monthly timesheet template for Excel

Yearly timesheet template for Excel

The following Excel template timesheet is a perfect tool for work-life balance research. You need to enter the number of working hours for each day of the year. For vacations and holidays, leave cells empty. The result is calculated automatically and can be used in further studies.

Download the yearly timesheet template for Excel

Templates save time

Timesheets are indispensable in many areas. Both managers and employees use them for time tracking, performance review, analysis, and billing.

But building a timesheet from scratch may be a very time-consuming task. We have provided you with several well-designed Excel timesheet templates with formulas. You can download them and adapt them to your needs or use them as is. If your working hours are recorded by a time-tracking application, you can use Coupler.io to import the data into Excel. Moreover, Coupler.io lets you set up a schedule for automatic data synchronization.