Benefits of electronic timesheets: Get paid faster.

Learn how you and your employees can get paid faster by integrating electronic timesheets into your payroll system.

Who doesn’t like getting their money sooner? Electronic timesheets can make it faster and easier to process payroll so that everyone gets their money without all the headaches. Keep reading to learn about the benefits of electronic timesheets and how you can create your own.

Can any business use electronic timesheets?

According to the US Department of Labor, every employer covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) must retain certain records for employees, including hours worked and wages earned. However, no specific form is required to keep track of these records as long as they are complete and accurate. Electronic timesheets fulfill this recordkeeping requirement and can be implemented for any size business.

The benefits of electronic timesheets for businesses.

What is a timesheet that’s electronic most beneficial for? Electronic timesheets have a variety of benefits, from being simple to fill out to including features that allow you to automatically collect data and process it in the payroll. Key features that make electronic timesheets so appealing include:

• Highly customizable
• Efficient to collect
• Built-in reporting to help you track time and automate payroll
• Easy to correct or amend
• Centralized database storage

The benefits of electronic timesheets for employees.

Electronic timesheets were made for modern employees who want to save time and effort. Timesheets can be updated anywhere using software-supported locations, such as a computer browser, kiosk, or mobile app. Not only can employees fill out an electronic timesheet faster, but they also benefit from improved accuracy and less human error. They can view their current and previous hours at any time, so if they need to make a change, they can revise entries as needed before the approval deadline — and without having to contact someone in management to help them.

Good electronic timesheet systems provide time-tracking reminders to employees so they complete their entries regularly. They’ll also allow employees to duplicate entries from previous weeks, simplifying the entry process and eliminating the need to create repetitive entries to reflect repeating tasks.

Why use an electronic timesheet with payroll systems?

An electronic timesheet provides an employee’s timekeeping tasks to HR, accounting, managers, and others who may need to reference this information easily. Management can view overtime payments, personal time off, or hours spent on a specific project instantly — without requiring any manual calculations. Automation can also help teams process payroll and reporting more efficiently and use historical data to predict future costs and billable time.

When using electronic timesheets, you’re also supporting the environment and sustainability. Timesheets and reports can be easily exported into a variety of electronic formats, removing the need to regularly print and distribute paper copies every time an update is made. Removing the need for paper from the office not only reduces a large amount of waste but also saves your company money, time, and physical storage space.

How to create your own electronic timesheets.

Now that you know why you need an electronic timesheet, consider the details that you need to include for your own electronic timesheet template. Design a template that creates a structured plan for employees to note their time. This template will help you plan which elements should be required and allows you to customize other details as needed, such as overtime, vacation, medical leave, or other personnel exceptions.

Creating your own basic electronic timesheet is fairly straightforward. To make one, you’ll need these basic fields:

1. Name
2. Position
3. Department
4. Date
5. Week ending date
6. Weekly calendar with input fields for hours worked
7. Signature

Electronic timesheets are just the start for digitizing documents.

To add an additional layer of security, make sure you enable e-signatures on your electronic timesheets so you can verify the signatures on each timesheet submitted.

Adobe makes creating and digitizing paper files like timesheets, signed contracts, and more incredibly easy. Find out more about everything that’s possible with Acrobat for business today.