Looking for the ultimate construction timesheet template?
Construction timesheets are a useful way to track the hours worked by a construction employee or general contractor.
The information collected is primarily required for accurate billing as timesheets make it easier to calculate the time employees and contractors took to complete each job.
In this article, we’ll explain everything you need to know about construction timesheets and also provide you with free printable construction timesheet templates. We’ll also offer the perfect alternative to using manual templates.
This article contains:
(click on the links below to jump to a specific section)
- 4 excellent construction timesheet templates (Free downloads)
- What is a construction timesheet?
- 2 key benefits of using construction timesheets
- 3 disadvantages of using construction timesheets
- The smart alternative to construction timesheets
Let’s get started.
4 excellent construction timesheet templates
Here are some of the best construction timesheet templates, all easily downloadable and free!
They’re available in printable PDF, Microsoft Word, and Excel timesheet template format.
(Note: If you want to know everything about construction employee timesheet templates before downloading them, skip to this section.)
Here are a few of the best construction timesheet templates:
1. Daily timesheet template
A daily timesheet template will provide more details about the tasks done by the worker each day.
The daily timesheet template is useful for calculating the pay for hourly employees as it shows an hourly report of all the work that was done.
Download links
2. Weekly timesheet template
With this timesheet, information is tabulated weekly. While it doesn’t provide as many details as daily timesheet templates, the data is easily readable.
You will find this weekly timesheet template helpful if you make weekly payment for construction work to employees and contractors at the end of every work week.
Download links
3. Bi-weekly timesheet template
A bi weekly timesheet template (sometimes referred to as fortnightly timesheets,) presents the data about the number of hours worked over a two week period.
This simple timesheet template is useful if you’re paying your workers and contractors twice a month.
Download links:
4. Monthly timesheet template
This free timesheet template helps you keep track of the work completed over an entire month.
The monthly timesheet template is the least detailed of the worksheets, but it makes monthly payrolls much easier.
Download links:
What is a construction timesheet?
A construction timesheet is a record of the time an employee or contractor spends on various construction tasks like structural repair, drywall, inspection, etc.
Some of the information usually contained in a construction timesheet include:
- When construction workers clock in and clock out.
- The duration of each task in a day/week or month.
- Lunch breaks and other breaks taken.
- Overtime hours worked.
- Attendance record and sick leave.
But why do you need a timesheet?
Construction workers usually have flexible schedules dictated by the urgency of specific jobs or callouts instead of regular hours. Additionally, many workers are paid an hourly rate.
Using a timesheet, managers can easily keep track of how long employees work and pay them accordingly. More on this in a minute.
How do you maintain construction timesheets?
While paper timesheets and the time card template can be used to keep track of worker hours, they aren’t the most convenient way to do so.
Instead, you can go for Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, or a similar spreadsheet app to maintain construction timesheets.
All you need to do is download a construction timesheet template, like our simple Excel timesheet, so you don’t have to create one from scratch!
The construction employee timesheet template helps an employer, HR professional, foreman, or manager monitor the start and end time of employee work hours (as well as sick leaves,) in order to make accurate payments.
2 key benefits of using a construction timesheet template
Construction timesheet templates can certainly save you time, but there are a few other benefits as well. Here are some of the advantages of using construction timesheet templates:
1. Simplified payroll management
Not only do timesheets help you pay your employees for the total hours they’ve worked, but these templates also come in handy when you have to bill your clients.
For example, if you’re a contractor with construction workers hired on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, you can calculate the total time you’ve spent on a client’s project. You can then send an accurate invoice when billing the client for the work done.
2. Efficient project management
On a construction site, there are usually many people working on numerous projects simultaneously — which makes it difficult to keep tabs on each worker.
And if you’re a project manager for a group of construction workers, supervising can get even more trickier. You’ll have to physically walk around the site, constantly checking up on each worker and the progress of their tasks.
Timesheets provide more accurate details of the activities going on at the site. This data can be used to monitor work and gauge the progress individually for each project.
Additionally, being able to see what everyone is working on and how long they spend working on tasks throughout the day will help you plan better. You can also identify and address any problem areas that might be slowing down their progress.
3 disadvantages of using construction timesheet templates
A few decades ago, filling out paper timesheets was a tedious process.
While timesheets have advanced a lot since then, digital timesheets still have a few limitations.
Here are three major disadvantages of using construction timesheet templates:
1. Discrepancies between actual and reported times
To ensure the accuracy of payments, timesheets need to be accurate.
However, an Excel or spreadsheet-based timesheet is only as accurate as the data manually entered.
Even when employee hours are recorded honestly, there’s always room for human error during documentation. These errors could lead to incorrect payments to employees and billing of clients.
2. Lack of productivity assessment features
The number of hours worked isn’t necessarily an accurate reflection of productivity and progress. Getting a clear idea of productivity involves determining how those work hours were spent.
With a spreadsheet-based timesheet, you are only informed of the number of hours worked and not how much progress your construction team made at the site during those hours.
In other words, the data you get from a timesheet may not accurately reflect how productive your employees and contractors are when working on your projects or tasks.
3. More work involved
While a timesheet does help track hours worked, it can be a tedious task because you have to manually fill in all the hours worked and calculate it yourself for each pay period.
The lack of automation means a lot of extra work.
When you’re managing numerous employees and contractors, checking every individual timesheet takes a lot of time — especially if you’re going at it alone.
While you can hire someone to handle your payroll for you, it will only add to your expenses.
Fortunately, there is a better alternative.
The smart alternative to construction timesheets
Clearly, timesheet templates have a number of disadvantages and limitations, especially for the construction industry.
Don’t worry. There’s a smarter way to track time — using time tracking or timesheet software!
Time tracking software allows you to manage timesheets as well as assess the productivity of employees. It also helps employees and contractors analyze and improve their own time management.
Time Doctor is one such productivity management tool. It automatically generates reports that are way more accurate than traditional timesheets.
What is Time Doctor?
Time Doctor is a powerful employee productivity management software, widely used by large corporations as well as SMBs to simplify employee productivity management.
Here’s a quick look at how Time Doctor overcomes the limitations of tracking time using a Google Sheet:
1. Improved time tracking
Spreadsheet-based timesheet templates rely on constant manual data entry, which can lead to inaccurate entries.
Time Doctor addresses this issue by automating time tracking and productivity monitoring — making it more efficient and accurate.
Employees and contractors can easily track the time they spend on any given task or project.
How can they do this?
Here’s how:
- Download Time Doctor.
- Sign in with your credentials.
- Fill in the task name and project.
- Press the Start button to start time tracking.
The app will run in the background and perform an automatic calculation of task time so employees and contractors can focus on their work instead of worrying about filling in timesheets.
Once they stop work or go on a lunch break, employees can stop the timer, and the software stops tracking time. This way, Time Doctor only tracks time when the worker voluntarily turns on the timer.
2. Productivity dashboard and timesheet reports
The dashboard is the first page you see when you log into your Time Doctor web account.
It’s a great way to take a look at what your workers are working on in real time. You can also see how many hours they’ve worked for the day/week/month.
Workers can view their own time tracking stats but won’t be able to view that of their coworkers.
Time Doctor also provides accurate timesheets and productivity reports to help analyze your team’s performance. Here’s an overview of some of the reports you can view:
A. Timesheet report
The online Timesheet Report shows the total time worked on a particular day of the week for all workers across a chosen date range.
B. Time use report
The Time Use Report shows a breakdown of the total amount of time each person worked. It also shows the amount of time spent on each task, along with associated projects.
C. Timeline report
This report shows a precise, detailed breakdown of a single day, by the minute for one or more workers.
D. Web and app usage report
The Web and App Usage Report can be enabled to show which sites and apps you and your workers have used while at work.
E. Projects report
Instead of the typical project timesheet template, you may be familiar with, Time Doctor’s Project Report accurately displays how much time is spent on specific projects. It also shows which worker was involved with which projects and on which dates.
3. Better payroll management
Most small businesses rely on Microsoft Excel templates for payroll records.
Thankfully with Time Doctor, you no longer have to rely on an Excel timesheet template and formulas to calculate your payroll.
Time Doctor allows you to easily generate payroll invoices and pay employees, freelancers, and contractors at any time.
With Time Doctor, you can:
- Specify a payment rate for each employee or contractor.
- Select the required payment currency and payment method for each user.
- All the information entered for employees (payment rate, currency, and payment method) will be saved for your next payroll.
- Another handy feature is that you can export your payroll as a CSV file and upload it to PayPal or Wise, formerly TransferWise to make batch payments to multiple employees at a time.
4. Multiple integrations
No one uses just one software anymore, and maintaining productivity across these apps can be challenging.
Time Doctor allows you to integrate software to make productivity management even easier. Some of Time Doctor’s popular integrations include Asana, G Suite, ClickUp, Evernote, Zendesk, and more.
Final thoughts
Tracking your construction team’s work hours not only helps you pay them fairly but it also helps analyze their productivity.
While the free Excel timesheet templates (and PDF & Word templates) we’ve provided can help speed up the process, it can be manually tiring to use them for a massive team.
If you really want to streamline the process, there’s a much better option — an employee productivity management tool like Time Doctor. You’ll be able to track billable hours with increased accuracy and efficiency, which means more profitability down the line!
Time Doctor is the ultimate productivity solution for any construction company out there, so why not sign up today?
Liam Martin is a serial entrepreneur, co-founder of Time Doctor, Staff.com, and the Running Remote Conference, and author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller, “Running Remote.” He advocates for remote work and helps businesses optimize their remote teams.