Timesheet for Consultants

Timesheets for consultants are used to track the work hours a consultant has spent on projects and tasks for their clients.

Keeping track of your work hours becomes a tedious task, especially if your clients ask you to submit your timesheet records at regular intervals. That’s why we’ve prepared a nice bundle of free timesheets derived from My Hours, our native timesheet app for consultants.

Why timesheets?

Timesheets are documents that provide proof of the hours you have spent working for your clients. As consultants are required to keep tabs on their work hours for accurate billing, timesheets are an integral part of their workday.

Consultants need timesheets for:

Streamlined payment management. As a consultant, you get paid on an hourly basis, so it’s important that you submit an accurate report of the exact number of hours you’ve worked for your client. With a consultant timesheet, you can calculate the hours worked for a given day, week, or month to create an accurate time map of your work.

Task planning. When your client briefs you with their budget, you can calculate the approximate number of hours you’ll need to complete that project and use the data to create time estimates for future projects, i.e., tweak your hours for better productivity, which might net you higher profits in the long run.

Task management. Tracking your work hours for remote work is also important. The consultant timesheets will give you an in-depth look into all of your activities, monitor your present work, and keep track of the project's progress.

You can also determine which tasks require more time to complete and whether you’re approaching a bottleneck mid-project and need further instruction sessions with the client. Although you’ll have to manually extract the data, it’s better than having none at all.

Timesheet templates for Consultants

Tracking the exact amount of work hours for each client would require the consultant to spend a large chunk of their time figuring out how much they’ve worked for each client and accurately billing them. By using our templates, the time tracking endeavor is simplified and consultants can quickly and accurately track their work hours for multiple clients, create a better consulting schedule, and manage their tasks.

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 Consultants

Open Time card calculator

As a consultant, you can use a timesheet calculator to track your work hours side-by-side with our timesheet templates.

‍A timesheet calculator is a tool that helps you calculate your work hours by doing the math for you. The timesheet calculator calculates the hours based on the data you enter – work hours, lunch breaks, etc. – and adds them to a single timesheet or time card that you can later download.

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 Consultants

Open Timesheet app

Even though templates and other types of digital timesheets work just fine, most of the data has to be manually calculated and stored.

When you upgrade to a dedicated time tracking software, you can gain an edge in tracking your time and managing your projects with ease.

With our timesheet app, you can manage multiple clients directly from the interface, add your own custom billing rates for each client, set custom rates either per project or by the hour, track your time accurately, include overtime hours, monitor budgets, create and share reports with your clients, and more.

Tired of messy spreadsheets? Give My Hours, online timesheet app a try.

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Every employee gets their own credentials to access the timesheet app. The app is accessible from both mobile devices and desktop platforms. Its intuitive interface is identical on all platforms as user experience is something we don’t compromise on.

Standardized platform units such as projects and tasks give way to a simplified reporting process and eliminate the loss of data due to human error.

The submitted timesheets can be summed up in real-time reports without losing time creating custom reports.

With My Hours roles, you can regulate who sees what without over-engineered permission setting hacks.

The costs and billable amounts are automatically calculated with precisely defined rates.

Managers can set up budgets and enable their teams to track the budget in real time.

The software can be used to create timesheet reminders, approvals, and timesheet locking mechanisms that automate the workflow and leave more time for creative work.

The mobile time tracking app can be used to enter timesheets, assign tasks, and analyze the team’s progress on the go.

The software includes a full audit log of all the changes for auditing purposes.

Waste no more time,
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Get Started - It's Free

My Hours is Free to use for teams of any size.
‍Pro paid plan comes with additional features like invoicing, admin controls and priority support.