Hourlane
Keep a simple timesheet in 5 minutes a week
A timesheet is there for one thing: being able to say, without hesitating, how many hours you worked, when, and on what. It prevents the end-of-month gaps and the debates about a week nobody remembers.
What it should hold
For each working day, four pieces of information are enough:
- the start time and the end time;
- the length of the breaks;
- the project, client or place, if you have several;
- a short note when something is out of the ordinary (travel, on-call duty, night hours).
The day's total and the week's total follow from these. There is no need to copy them by hand: that is where mistakes creep in.
Fill it in as you go
The most reliable way is to log your hours on the day, in two taps, rather than rebuilding the week on Friday evening. A few habits help:
- Keep a typical day (for example 9:00 – 17:00 with a one-hour break) and only correct what changes.
- Note anything unusual straight away: an extra hour, a shortened break.
- Read the week through once, on its last day, before sharing it.
Share it with your team manager
Sending a spreadsheet every week works, but a calendar shared read only is often simpler: your team manager sees your up-to-date hours without asking, and cannot change them.
In Hourlane, the "Send my hours to my team manager" scenario creates that calendar and walks you through sharing it. Pay amounts never appear in it. For a whole team, see also the Team offer.
In short
A good timesheet is short, filled in on the day and calculated for you. Everything else — totals, overtime, exports for payroll — follows from it.