Paper Timesheets vs Digital: What Paper Really Costs and When It Still Works

Paper timesheets are cheap, familiar, and need no training, which is why plenty of small teams still hand them out every Friday. The printing costs next to nothing. What costs money is the work afterwards, when someone has to read the handwriting, chase missing signatures, type every line into payroll, and work out which client those hours belong to.

This guide compares paper and digital timesheets on accuracy, effort, cost, and record keeping. It works through what paper costs a 25 person team, lists the places where paper systems usually break, and gives a step by step plan to stop using paper timesheets without losing the people who prefer them.

What a paper timesheet is and when it still works

A paper timesheet is a printed form on which an employee writes down the hours they worked, usually by day, with start and end times, breaks, and sometimes the job or task. A manager signs it, and someone in payroll or accounting copies the totals into a payroll system or spreadsheet. Paper time cards work the same way, except that a punch clock stamps the times instead of the employee writing them.

Paper still makes sense in a few situations:

• you have a handful of hourly employees at one site and pay them by total hours only, with no client billing or project costing
• people work where phones or computers are impractical, and a supervisor transfers the hours the same day
• you need a fallback for days when devices fail or for a temporary worker who will not get an account

If that describes you, a well designed form helps more than software would. Once hours have to be split by client, project, or task, or more than a few people fill them in, paper starts to cost more than it saves.

What to include on a paper timesheet and how to fill it in

Whether you print a template or design your own, a paper timesheet needs enough detail for payroll to calculate pay without calling anyone. Include these fields:

• employee name and ID, and the pay period dates
• a row for each day with the date
• start time, end time, and the start and end of each unpaid break
• daily total hours and a total for the period, with overtime hours shown separately
• the client, project, or job code, if you bill clients or cost jobs
• employee and manager signatures with the date

To fill one in, write down the time you actually started work, not when your shift was scheduled, then the start and end of each unpaid break, and the time you actually stopped. The daily total is the end time minus the start time minus unpaid breaks. Someone who works from 8:30 to 17:15 with a 45 minute unpaid lunch has 8 hours 45 minutes on site minus 45 minutes, which is 8 hours. Add up the days for the period total. In the US, federal law treats hours over 40 in a workweek as overtime for nonexempt employees, so mark those hours separately.

Fill the sheet in every day rather than at the end of the week, and correct mistakes in a way that leaves a trace: draw one line through the wrong figure, write the right one next to it, and have the employee and manager initial the change. Erasing or using correction fluid makes a sheet hard to defend in a pay dispute. Then sign, and have the manager sign before the sheet goes to payroll.

Our free timesheet templates include printable daily, weekly, biweekly, and monthly versions with these fields already laid out. You can also download a project timesheet template below.

Paper vs digital timesheets compared

A digital timesheet, sometimes called an electronic timesheet, records the same hours in software: a web app, a mobile app, or a timer. The table below compares the two on the criteria that usually decide the switch.

Spreadsheets sit between the two. Excel or Google Sheets adds totals with formulas and can be shared, but people still type their hours from memory, version control gets messy when files travel by email, and a broken formula can go unnoticed for months. Our guide to alternatives to traditional timesheets compares paper, spreadsheets, and software in more detail.

If you only need a digital record for individual employees, without approvals or project detail, the Department of Labor offers the free WorkWise timesheet app for iOS and Android. It records regular hours, breaks, and overtime.

What paper timesheets really cost

The paper itself costs almost nothing. The cost is in two places: the hours lost when people estimate their time at the end of the week, and the admin work of processing the sheets. Here is an illustrative example for a team of 25 hourly employees. The inputs are assumptions, so swap in your own.

• Each person overstates or misplaces 5 minutes a day when filling in a week of hours from memory
• Average loaded pay of $25 an hour, 50 working weeks a year
• Payroll spends 3 minutes per sheet reading, checking, and keying it in, at $30 an hour

The misreported time drives most of the result. If your team is more careful and drifts only 2 minutes a day, that line falls to about $5,200, and paper still costs more than three times the software. If you bill clients for those hours, the drift can run the other way: work that never makes it onto the sheet is revenue you never invoice.

One caution about the example: switching to software does not remove drift by itself. It shrinks because people log hours during the day instead of on Friday afternoon. A digital timesheet that everyone still fills in once a week from memory will give you most of the same errors, just in neater handwriting.

Where paper timesheets break down

Most paper timesheet problems are not dramatic. They are small leaks that repeat every week.

• Reconstruction from memory. Sheets filled in on the last day of the week turn into round numbers like 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, and short tasks such as client calls and quick fixes disappear.
• Ambiguous entries. A 1 that looks like a 7, a missing AM or PM, or a lunch break that is not marked all mean a phone call before payroll can run.
• Double entry. Every hour is written once by the employee and typed again by payroll, so every week brings a fresh chance of a typo.
• The signature chase. Approval waits until the manager is in the same room as the sheet, and late sheets push payroll back.
• No project detail. A form with a box for daily hours cannot tell you which client or task the time went to, so project costs and invoices are guesses.
• Hours you see too late. Overtime and budget overruns appear only after the week is over and the sheets are collected.
• Lost and damaged sheets. A sheet left in a van or soaked with coffee cannot be restored, and years of filing boxes are hard to search when a dispute comes up.

Are paper timesheets still compliant?

In the United States, yes, as long as the records are complete. The Department of Labor’s Fact Sheet #21 on FLSA recordkeeping says employers may use any timekeeping method they choose, provided it is complete and accurate. Time cards and other records that wages are calculated from must be kept for at least 2 years, and payroll records for at least 3 years. State laws can add requirements of their own.

Home care is the main US exception. Section 12006 of the 21st Century Cures Act requires states to use electronic visit verification (EVV) for Medicaid personal care and home health services that involve a visit to the client’s home. Agencies and caregivers paid through those programs record visits electronically, and paper timesheets are allowed only under the exceptions each state sets.

In the European Union the bar is higher. In its 2019 judgment in case C-55/18, the Court of Justice ruled that member states must require employers to set up a system that measures the time each worker works each day. The judgment does not ban paper. In practice, though, a paper system has to be just as reliable and accessible as software, which is hard to show when sheets are filled in once a week. Check the rules in each country where you employ people, because national laws implement the ruling differently.

Whichever system you use, the burden is the same: you have to produce the records when asked. With paper, that means a searchable filing system and a plan for the retention period. With software, it means exports you can produce on demand.

How to eliminate paper timesheets

When a switch fails, it is usually because people never got used to the new habit. These steps get you to paperless timesheets while keeping the change small and easy to undo.

1. Write down what the paper sheet captures today.

   List every field on the form and what each one is used for, such as payroll, overtime, client billing, or job costing. That list becomes your setup checklist and shows which fields nobody actually needs.

2. Set up projects and tasks before inviting anyone.

   Create the clients, projects, and tasks people will log time against, so the first timesheet they open already looks familiar instead of empty.

3. Run paper and digital side by side for two pay periods.

   Comparing the totals shows where the old sheets were rounding or missing time, and it gives payroll confidence before paper goes away.

4. Ask for daily entries, not weekly ones.

   The accuracy gain comes from logging hours on the same day. Agree that hours are entered before people finish work, and use the weekly submission only for review.

5. Keep a path for people who cannot log time themselves.

   For workers without a device, let a supervisor enter their hours from a paper slip the same day. You keep one system of record without forcing everyone onto a phone.

6. Move approval online and stop accepting paper.

   Once two pay periods match, switch approvals to the software, set a date after which paper sheets are no longer processed, and archive the old sheets for the retention period.

If you are still choosing a tool, our list of the best timesheet software compares the main options, and the guide to online timesheet apps explains what to look for.

Replacing paper timesheets with actiTIME

actiTIME covers the jobs a paper timesheet does and the ones it cannot, from recording hours to turning them into payroll costs and invoices.

• Several ways to record time. People fill in a weekly timesheet grid, log exact start and end times in a calendar view, use the mobile app for iOS and Android, or capture time with the Chrome extension’s timer.
• Hours tied to work. Every entry belongs to a customer, project, and task, so you can see where time went without a separate job costing sheet.
• Online approval and locking. Employees submit their week with one click, managers approve or reject in bulk, and locked periods cannot be edited after approval or invoicing.
• Supervisor entry. Managers with the right permission can enter or correct time for their team, which covers workers who still hand in a paper slip.
• Overtime and leave. Overtime is calculated against scheduled hours, and leave is logged against leave types with PTO and sick day balances.
• Payroll and billing data. Cost rates per person feed the Cost of Work report, billing rates per type of work feed invoices, and the Profit/Loss report compares the two. Data reaches other systems through CSV export, the QuickBooks integrator, or Zapier.

actiTIME is free for up to 3 users, and paid plans start at $5 per user per month, with a 30 day free trial.

We reduced payroll processing to 45 minutes per week

actiTIME is very robust, integrated well into your business process, and most important, helps you focus on your business instead of monkeying around with technology. actiTIME has reduced our payroll processing from 4-6 hours per week to 45 minutes per week.

Try actiTIME

Frequently asked questions

Is there a free paper timesheet template?

Yes. actiTIME’s free timesheet templates come in Excel, Google Sheets, and PDF formats that you can print, with daily, weekly, biweekly, and monthly layouts. To make your own instead, build a table with the fields listed above: dates, start and end times, unpaid breaks, daily and period totals, overtime, and two signature lines.

What is the difference between a time card and a timesheet?

A time card records when an employee clocked in and out, often stamped by a punch clock, and is used mainly for payroll. A timesheet records the hours worked and usually what they were spent on, such as the client, project, or task, so it also serves billing and project costing. Many paper forms combine the two.

What is an electronic timesheet?

An electronic timesheet records employee hours in software instead of on paper. Employees enter time in a web or mobile app or start a timer, the system adds up totals and overtime, managers approve the week online, and the data goes to payroll or invoicing as a report or through an integration.

Conclusion

Paper timesheets are fine for a small team that only needs total hours for payroll. Once hours have to be split by client or project, approved on time, or kept ready for an audit request, the cost of paper moves from the printer to the people who process it, and in most teams that cost is many times the price of software. Start with a side by side trial, ask for daily entries, and keep a simple path for anyone who cannot log time themselves.

To see how actiTIME turns daily timesheets into approved hours, payroll costs, and invoices, start a free trial.