What is a timesheet? A clear record of the work.

A timesheet records who worked, when, for how long and on what. For client billing, it also needs to distinguish the hours you can charge from the hours you cannot.

Cambridge defines a timesheet as a record of time spent working. It can be paper, a spreadsheet or a view in an app. The useful question is what decision the record needs to support: paying someone, reviewing a project, or invoicing a client.

Choose the purpose before the columns

An attendance or payroll record focuses on working time and the pay rules that apply. A project record explains where effort went. A client-billing timesheet links time to the client, project and agreed charging terms. The same record can inform several jobs, but a billable label does not determine whether an employee must be paid.

For client work, record the person, date, client, project or task, duration, a short work description and billable status. Retain start and finish times and breaks when you need that detail. Keep the applicable billing rate and invoice link with the work so you can explain both the hours and the charge later.

A timesheet example you can check

Here is one designer's illustrative workday. The durations are hours and minutes, not decimal quantities.

The total is 6.25 decimal hours, with 4.5 billable hours and 1.75 non-billable hours. At an agreed $120 per hour, the client work amounts to $540 before tax. See the billable-hours calculation, including the difference between conversion and rounding.

Do not fill unexplained gaps by assuming they were client work. Check your records, add missing entries and correct duplicates. The total should describe what happened, not a target you are trying to reach.

Review the work before it becomes a charge

A useful weekly review asks whether the dates, client, task, duration and billable status are correct. Then check rates and whether any entry has already been invoiced. Grouping work can make an invoice easier to read, but keep the source entries available for questions.

Some organizations require a person to submit a timesheet and a manager to approve it. That is a separate workflow from reviewing an invoice draft. Decide who reviews the work and what they are confirming; do not treat an invoice preview as employee timesheet approval.

Logged-time reports can also help you test your hourly-rate assumptions. A week full of internal work still costs time, even when there is little to invoice. Use several representative periods rather than one unusually busy week.

How timesheets work in BillGrid

Open Time and choose Timesheet for hours by project and day. Calendar and List show the same underlying work in different ways. You can log a duration directly, describe it in a line or use a timer. Your team can record work on the projects they can access.

When the work is ready, Invoice time lets people with billing access select entries, check saved rates and preview the invoice. Creating a draft links the selected time to it, so that work is not offered again. This is a client-billing workflow; BillGrid does not provide payroll processing or a formal submit-and-approve timesheet workflow.