Should salaried staff fill in timesheets?
Salaried staff should fill in timesheets when the company sells their time or plans work around it, as agencies, software houses and consultancies do. The point is different from hourly pay: timesheets show where the week went, project by project. PeopleMuster keeps that to a short daily log by project, approved weekly.
The question usually comes with some resentment attached. A salaried person isn't paid by the hour, so a timesheet can feel like a check on whether they worked. Explained properly, it's nothing of the sort.
Timesheets answer business questions nobody can answer from memory. Which client absorbed 30 hours more than the estimate? How much of the design team's month went on internal work? Who has room for the new project next week? Utilisation, capacity plans and client reports all rest on logged hours.
If nobody reads the timesheets, stop collecting them. A team doing only internal work, with no project planning and no client reporting, gains little from a daily log. The cost is real, and so is the goodwill it uses up.
Keep the log light. Ask for hours per project per day, not minute-by-minute tasks. A few minutes at the end of each day beats rebuilding the whole week on Friday, and it's far more accurate.
Make it fair and visible. Tell people what the numbers are used for. Let them see their own summary. In PeopleMuster each person sees the hours logged against an expected week, 40 hours by default, with a completion percentage and an insights tab.
Give people a window, not a deadline cliff. PeopleMuster lets everyone log their own recap for the last 5 working days, and admins set how far back logging stays open. A weekly Slack reminder nudges anyone who hasn't submitted, and managers approve the week from one queue.
Keep attendance separate from project time. Timesheets record what the hours were spent on. Arrival and departure belong in attendance, which PeopleMuster records from a fingerprint terminal or a browser check-in. Mixing the two turns a planning tool into a surveillance tool, and people start logging what they think you want to see.
Related questions
Why do companies ask salaried employees to fill out timesheets?
To see where time goes by project. Firms that sell time use timesheets to price work, plan capacity and report to clients. The pay stays the same whatever the sheet says.
How detailed should a salaried timesheet be?
Hours per project per day is enough for most teams. Anything finer takes longer to fill in than it saves in planning, and accuracy drops as the detail rises.
How far back can people log their time in PeopleMuster?
Everyone can log their own recap for the last 5 working days. Admins set the logging window for the company, so late entries stay possible without leaving months open.
Should timesheets be used to track attendance?
No. Attendance and project time answer different questions. PeopleMuster records attendance from a fingerprint terminal or browser check-in, and keeps timesheets for hours by project.