Employee Timesheets: What They Are and How to Make One

A timesheet is a record of an employee's working hours for one period, usually a week or a month. It shows when the employee started and finished each day, how long their breaks were, how many working hours that adds up to, and how much overtime they worked. For HR teams, the timesheet is the basis for reviewing attendance, calculating overtime pay, and preparing payroll.

This article explains what a timesheet is, what it should record, what a weekly timesheet looks like, and how to set one up in line with the working hours and overtime rules in force in Indonesia as of October 2026. For attendance reporting in general, see employee attendance reports and audit trails.

Summary

The essentials of employee timesheets:

• A timesheet is not the same as attendance. Attendance records presence, such as clock-in and clock-out times. A timesheet turns those records into working hours, overtime hours, and leave or permission notes for one period, which a manager then reviews and approves.
• There are two common types. An attendance timesheet records each employee's daily working hours. A project timesheet records how many hours went to each project, client, or task, and is common among consultants, agencies, and teams that bill clients by the hour.
• The working hours baseline. Article 21(2) of PP 35/2021 sets 7 hours a day and 40 hours a week for a 6-day week, or 8 hours a day and 40 hours a week for a 5-day week. These hours do not apply to certain business sectors or types of work, and a company's working hours are set in the employment contract, company regulation, or collective agreement.
• Overtime must be recorded. Under Article 28 of PP 35/2021, overtime requires an order from the employer and the employee's agreement in writing and/or through digital media. The employer must also keep an overtime log listing the employees who worked overtime and for how long.
• Overtime limits. Overtime on working days is limited to 4 hours a day and 18 hours a week, not counting overtime on weekly rest days or public holidays.

The DPR passed the UU Pelindungan Ketenagakerjaan (Employment Protection Law) on 6 October 2026. Until its official text is promulgated and takes effect, the rules above still apply. This article will be updated when the new rules apply.

Common Challenges

Timesheets look simple, but problems tend to surface at the end of the period:

1. Filled in after the fact. Employees enter a whole week of hours from memory, so start and finish times are guesses.
2. Out of step with attendance. The timesheet lives in a separate spreadsheet, so its hours can differ from the attendance records.
3. Overtime mixed with regular hours. Without separate columns, HR struggles to tell working-day overtime from rest-day overtime, or from extra hours nobody ordered.
4. Overtime approvals scattered across chats. When calculating overtime pay, HR has to dig through private messages for proof of approval.
5. Breaks and leave not marked. Totals come out wrong when breaks are counted as work or a leave day reads as an absence.
6. Spreadsheet formulas break easily. One overwritten formula throws off the whole team's totals, and nobody notices until payroll.

Practical Checklist

A complete attendance timesheet has these columns:

• Employee name or ID, job title, and department.
• The timesheet period, such as one week or one month.
• Date, weekday, and type of day: working day, weekly rest day, or public holiday.
• The schedule or shift that applied that day.
• Start time, finish time, and break length.
• Total working hours after breaks.
• Overtime hours, split between working days and rest days or holidays.
• Proof of overtime approval, such as the request number or date.
• Notes on leave, permission, or sick days.
• For a project timesheet: the project, client, or task and the hours spent on it.
• The approving manager's name and the approval date.

Sample Employee Timesheet

The illustrative example below is a weekly timesheet for an employee on a 5-day week, scheduled Monday to Friday from 08:00 to 17:00 with a 1-hour break.

From this timesheet, HR can calculate overtime pay right away. Say the employee's base pay and fixed allowances are Rp5,190,000 a month, so the hourly wage is Rp5,190,000 divided by 173, or Rp30,000:

• Tuesday, 2 hours on a working day: the first hour is 1.5 × Rp30,000 = Rp45,000 and the second is 2 × Rp30,000 = Rp60,000, for a total of Rp105,000.
• Saturday, 3 hours on a rest day (5-day week): 3 × 2 × Rp30,000 = Rp180,000.
• Total overtime pay for the week: Rp285,000.

Use the overtime calculator for other rates, such as a 6-day week or more than 8 hours on a holiday.

Recommended Workflow

1. Set the working hours rules. Decide on a 5- or 6-day week, the schedules or shifts, break length, and the timesheet period, and put them in the employment contract, company regulation, or collective agreement.
2. Record hours as they happen. Start and finish times should be captured when employees arrive and leave, not filled in at the end of the week.
3. Approve overtime before it is worked. The manager gives the order and the employee agrees in writing or digitally, and overtime hours are recorded separately from regular hours.
4. Mark leave, permission, sick days, and holidays. That way days without working hours don't read as absences.
5. Review at the end of the period. Managers check their team's timesheets. If anything is corrected, record what changed and why.
6. Total up for payroll. HR adds up working hours, splits overtime by type of day, and calculates overtime pay.
7. Keep the records. The overtime history in the timesheet can serve as the basis for the overtime log the employer must keep.

Workflow Comparison

A timesheet built from attendance data cuts out retyping, and every number in it can be traced back to its source.

How OmahKu HRIS Helps

OmahKu HRIS brings the data an attendance timesheet needs into one platform:

• GPS and geofence attendance, so start and finish times are recorded when employees clock in and out.
• Shifts and work schedules, as the reference for each employee's working hours.
• Overtime requests and assignments through approvals, so every overtime hour has proof of approval.
• Leave and permission requests through an approval workflow, so leave days are recorded in the same period.
• Attendance monitoring for lateness, short hours, missed clock-outs, and grace periods.
• Attendance, leave, and overtime reports with an audit trail for end-of-period totals.

For a closer look at overtime approvals, see how to manage employee overtime with approvals.

Getting Started

1. Decide which timesheet you need: attendance, project, or both.
2. Make sure your working week, schedules, and break rules are written down.
3. Set up a template with the columns from the checklist above.
4. Decide who approves overtime and timesheet corrections.
5. Run one period as a trial, then check the totals against payroll.

To see how OmahKu HRIS records attendance, shifts, leave, and overtime for timesheet totals, reach our team through the contact page.