Contractor Timesheet
A contractor timesheet is used to track billable hours contractors have spent working on projects or tasks for their clients.
As a contractor, to accurately track work hours, manage and differentiate between individual projects, and send reports and invoices to clients, you would have to invest a substantial amount of time. To help you with all of that and more, we’ve decided to share with you some free contractor timesheet templates pulled directly from our My Hours timesheet app.
Why Timesheets?
Timesheets contain data about the number of hours you’ve spent working on projects, tasks, or providing services, as per your contractor's agreement with your clients. They allow you to send accurate invoices to clients, track the progress of different projects, and gather information about your performance in case it needs improving.
Contractors need timesheets for:
- Accurate billing. Before you can send an invoice to your client, you need to ensure it has all the details about your work hours, billing rate, and any additional info that your client might request. With a contractor timesheet, you can calculate rates for client invoices, either per individual project or by the number of hours you’ve put into a particular project.
- Project management. Managing your time between different projects, tracking progress for each one, and ensuring every client has their needs met, is a difficult task. With our free templates for contractors, you can manage and differentiate between separate projects, track your progress and work hours, and improve your project management skills with ease.
- Better estimates. Knowing how many work hours you’d need to finish a particular project before it starts is vital for contractors. With our free templates, you can gather all the data you need to analyze your performance and create more accurate estimates for your respective clients.
Timesheet Calculator for Contractors
A timesheet calculator will help you calculate your work hours by doing all the math for you. Our free timesheet templates can be used together with our timesheet calculator, making the entire time-tracking process a walk in the park.
The timesheet calculator will allow you to create timesheets or time cards based on the data you input. You can add work hours for each day of the week, including weekends. Add breaks, overtime, and absence days, set hourly rates, and your preferred time format. Click on Calculate, wait a couple of seconds for the calculator to do its magic, and then easily download the timesheet as a pdf file or send it to your email address.
Pros and Cons of using spreadsheets for time tracking
Pros
- Both you and your team are likely to be familiar with spreadsheet tools.
- Spreadsheet tools are widely used and come as a standard time tracking procedure for most organizations as they have an intuitive learning curve. Mastering them, on the other hand, is a whole different thing.
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- Free of charge.
- The most popular spreadsheet software, such as Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel, is free to download.
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- Your team is used to workflows that correlate with spreadsheet approvals.
- They’re accustomed to sending their timesheets via email or storing them in a common repository. Once you have a time tracking policy for your company, you can easily integrate time tracking into the workflow using spreadsheets.
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- Spreadsheets are the most common method of integrating data with other systems.
- Managers can either analyze the time entry data with a business intelligence tool or integrate the approved timesheets with dedicated payroll software.
Cons
- Despite their intuitive learning curve, spreadsheets are not very user-friendly.
- Keeping timesheet spreadsheets up to date can become a cumbersome and time-consuming task. Moreover, if you’re using a mobile device, your thumbs might become sore.
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- Tracing previous spreadsheet versions may leave you lost in history.
- Spreadsheets can be edited by anyone with access, which is why it’s hard to see who made the last changes. Online spreadsheets usually have a version history but they are most commonly downloaded locally and forwarded via email.
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- Spreadsheets are prone to human error and data loss.
- There can be cases where employees misenter their work data, forget to send their timesheets altogether, or end up sending them to the wrong person. When a company systemizes its workflow with spreadsheets and chain emails, some data might slip through the cracks.
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- Spreadsheets require too much administrative work.
- Managers usually have to remind employees to submit their timesheets on time, collect them into a common format, and make sure they are timely forwarded to accounting or another responsible department. This takes a lot of time that managers could otherwise spend on more important tasks.
Timesheet Calculator for Contractors
A timesheet calculator will help you calculate your work hours by doing all the math for you. Our free timesheet templates can be used together with our timesheet calculator, making the entire time-tracking process a walk in the park.
The timesheet calculator will allow you to create timesheets or time cards based on the data you input. You can add work hours for each day of the week, including weekends. Add breaks, overtime, and absence days, set hourly rates, and your preferred time format. Click on Calculate, wait a couple of seconds for the calculator to do its magic, and then easily download the timesheet as a pdf file or send it to your email address.
Our timesheet calculator is free to use and allows you to do the following:
- Track work time with the help of some necessary tools like entering work hours and breaks with keyboard-only input. The only clicks you need are “Calculate” and “Download”.
- Calculate overtime.
- Calculate payroll or billing with hourly rates.
- Include employee absences and attendance information.
- Download the finished timesheet as a PDF file. You can send this PDF file to your accounting department if you want them to check it before sending it as an invoice or instructing your employees to do that instead.
- Make use of the advanced features that allow you to embed the timesheet on your website, integrate it with Google Sheets, or create a bookmark with pre-defined settings.
Timesheet App for Contractors
Most timesheets and templates, both digital and paper, will do the job of time-tracking just fine. However, they will require a significant time investment, as almost all information needs to be entered manually.
With time-tracking software, you can streamline the entire time-tracking process, make project management easier, and ensure a human error is a thing of the past.
With the My Hours free online timesheet app, you will be able to organize multiple projects straight from the UI, add unique rates for each client, track your work hours for each project, create, save and share client reports with ease, generate invoices, and more.
Tired of messy spreadsheets? Give My Hours, online timesheet app a try.
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