How to Complete a Monthly Timesheet

Start with the correct dates

Choose the year and month in the monthly calculator. April has 30 days; January has 31. February has 28 days in 2027 and 29 in 2028. A 14-row biweekly record is not a calendar-month timesheet.

For a half-month, choose the semi-monthly calculator. Its first period is the 1st–15th; the second is the 16th through the actual last day.

Record each day before adding the month

1. Enter clock-in and clock-out for the actual worked dates. Keep unworked dates blank.
2. Record separate work periods separately; gaps between periods are already excluded.
3. Enter only unpaid deductions that fall inside a recorded period. Do not subtract a paid rest break.
4. Review daily totals and invalid entries before using the monthly total.
5. Use Print or CSV to retain a copy, and verify the report’s selected period.

Verify a simple monthly total

If the actual record contains 20 worked days of 7:30 each, the total is 20 × 450 = 9,000 minutes, or 150:00 hours. That is a worked example, not a claim that every month has 20 workdays.

Add minutes before rounding decimal displays. Use the decimal conversion guide when importing a total into another system.

Do not reset a workweek at the first of the month

A recurring workweek can straddle two months. If Monday and Tuesday in the previous month contain 16 hours and Wednesday–Friday in the selected month contain 27, that workweek contains 43 hours. A weekly 40-hour rule gives 3 overtime hours. Looking only at the 27 hours inside the month would miss them.

Choose Employer workweek starts to match the recurring weekday boundary. This tool supports a midnight start; it does not model a workweek beginning at another time of day. For every outside-period date in a boundary workweek, enter actual paid H:MM or explicitly enter 0:00 for no work. A blank means unknown and suppresses overtime/pay estimates, while the period’s worked-hours total remains available.

Outside-period hours establish the applicable thresholds; they are excluded from the selected period’s hours and pay. The calculator allocates configured tiers chronologically, which is an estimate rather than a payroll determination. For U.S. federal rules, see DOL Fact Sheet 23.

Keep a useful record without overstating compliance

An overnight period is assigned to its starting date and has no daylight saving adjustment. If it crosses the applicable daily or weekly midnight boundary, the calculator blocks the overtime estimate until it is split into separately dated periods with the actual deductions.

A report name, date range and notes help you identify the record. Do not add confidential employee identifiers just to calculate hours. Blank PDFs, spreadsheets and CSV resources are available from Monthly Timesheet Template and the template hub.

The calendar calculator supports saving ordinary records after sign-in, reopening them, and sharing a saved version. Personal calendar templates are not supported; public blank downloads are a separate resource. Neither a saved record nor a download automatically satisfies every employer’s recordkeeping duties. Compare pay-period types if your schedule is not a full calendar month.