Employee Time Sheets for Labor Tracking

Time Sheets are one way of telling Total Office Manager how to calculate an employee’s pay. In the employee payroll items, you can tell Total Office Manager to calculate an employee’s hours via time sheet or not. Enabling time sheets forces the payroll administrator to add the time to the time sheet.

For example, an employee that always works 40 hours and does not need their hours tracked can be setup in Total Office Manager to not use Time Sheet hours. However, this means that they MUST have default hours entered for their pay period (see the Earnings Tab of the Employee Payroll Items).

To fill in time sheets, use the Time sheet menu item in the payroll menu. All time sheets are viewed in one week time frames. The time sheet uses the earning types used by the employee and all customers/jobs entered into Total Office Manager. The earning type is required; the job is not. However, if the users wish to track time against a job, the Job ID information must be selected.

Form Access

From the main menu, click Employees > Time Sheets/Time Tracking.

Tip: You can open this form from many places in the software to save time. Example: If you come from a Work Order, the relative WO information will copy into the Time Sheet.

Step-By-Step

1. Select Employee and Date Range. In the Employee drop down list, select the active employee you want to use. Only active employees are displayed.
2. Using the calendar, select a day to view. If the day has any data, that day will be bold and in red.
3. Enter hours or edit data as needed in the time sheet line area. See “Using the Time Sheet form” below for details.

Using the Time Sheet Form

Use of this form is pretty simple. Please check out the Time Sheet Grid – Daily Data Tab below to see what each column and field means. Once complete, you can print the time sheet.

Use the Week at a Glance tab to see the entire week in summary form. You cannot edit any of the data on this tab.

Button and Field Definitions

Automatic Overtime Feature

The feature will automatically add overtime for employees exceeding 40 hours in one week. This is a preference on the time sheet form. In the Employee Payroll Item Setup form, there is a selection box for a Default Overtime Earning Item. Selecting a value is optional but is required for the new overtime feature. Additional labels were added to the time sheet form to indicate regular and overtime hours for the week and the number of hours to go before overtime kicks in. This was one of the most popular feature requests Aptora has ever had.

The following is a list of each label and what that label means or is used for. See “Automatic Overtime Calculations – Overview” below, if you would like additional information.

Time Off Hours for Today: Total “Time Off” hours for today. This comes from a “Time Off” earning item type.
Time Off Hours for the Week: Total “Time Off” hours for the entire week. This comes from a “Time Off” earning item type.
Hours for the Selected Day: Total hours for the selected day. All earnings types all included.
Total Hours for the Week (includes today): The total of all hours for all earning item types.
Hours Remaining Until 40: The number of regular time hours left in this pay period. PTO earning items are not included.
Total Hours Over 40 (less PTO): (Total Hours – PTO Hours). Hours greater than 40 in the pay period. Does not look at OT earning types.

General Time Sheet Form

Employee Combo: Select the active employee you want to edit. All employees are displayed on this list; even if they are not setup as hourly.

Date Selection: Select the date to view using the calendar. If the day has time sheet information, that day will be bold and colored red.

Drop Down Calendar: In the “Hours” field, there is a calculator that you can use if you find is handy.

Advance One Day On Save: The next day will be automatically selected when you click the Save button. This is a time saving feature.

Print: Print preview a simple time sheet for the select employee and the selected week. The style of the report will depend on what tab you are viewing.

Exit: Saves changes and closes the form.

Time Sheet Grid – Daily Data Tab

Delete: Click the red X to delete the line item and all data on that line including hours, earning type and job type.

Earning Item: Drop down that has all of the active earning types for the currently selected employee. This field is mandatory – you cannot enter timesheet data (hours) without first selecting an earning type.

Cust:Job: Drop down that has all of the active customers/job in Total Office Manager. This field is optional.

WO #: The WO field is used to indicate the work order to which the line item is associated. If the Customer field has been filled in, the WO drop-down list will display work orders for that customer only. If the Customer field has not been filled in, the WO drop-down list will only make available <Lookup> as a selection. Clicking <Lookup> will open the Work Order Lookup list, which can be used to lookup any work order in the system. Double-clicking on a work order will populate both the Customer field and the WO field in the original purchase order.

Alternatively, when working from within a work order, the Complete/Add Time Sheet Entry command will open the time sheet and automatically populate the employee, date, Customer:job, WO #, start time, stop time, and hours (duration).

Service Item: Optional. Select a Service Item type from the list. This associates the labor you will pay the employee with this particular service item. This labor will become that service item’s COGS for this Customer:job. This is very important if you wish to job cost and do it accurately.

Department: Optional. Select a department from the list to associate this labor expense with the department. This is very important if you wish to track expenses by department (recommended).

Start Time: Optional. Enter the “time in” or the starting time for this labor entry. This is handy if you wish to track the actual time employees start and stop on jobs.

Stop Time: Optional. Enter the “time out” or the ending time for this labor entry. This is handy if you wish to track the actual time employees start and stop on jobs.

Hours: Required. The total hours worked for that line. This field will auto calculate if you use the Start and Stop time fields but you can still change it to any number (not recommended).

Topic: Select a topic to briefly describe the payroll entries. In other words, select a topic that best describes the payroll for that day. A topic maybe selected for each day. This information is saved ONLY when you have entered hours for that day. The selections come from the Log Topic List (Company | Lists | Log Topic List).

Odometer/Meter: Enter the odometer reading or operating hours (if any) for a particular job or day. This may be entered for each day. This information is saved ONLY when you have entered hours for that day. Enter the odometer reading and not the number of miles driven. This information is entered into the asset’s history and can be used to calculate operating costs. The information may also be used to create reminders for maintenance or any handy reminder that is driven by miles, hours, or dates. See Asset Manager for more information.

Notes: Enter notes (if needed) to explain the entry. Notes may be entered for each day. This information is saved ONLY when you have entered hours for that day.

Payroll Time Sheet Tips

1. If you wish to use time-sheet hours when processing payroll, you will need to check the Use Time Sheet Hours check box in payroll items. Click Employees | Employee List | Select the Employee | Click the Payroll Items button | Check the Use Time Sheet Hours Box on the General Tab.
2. You can still use the Time Sheet feature for salaried employees. This can be helpful if you wish to track time and other information for analytical purposes.
3. When you complete a WO, you may select the Complete\Add Time Sheet Entry option. This will automatically populate the employee, date, Customer:job, WO #, start time, stop time, and hours (duration).
4. There are preferences to prevent one user from editing or adding time sheet entries and notes for another user. Please click Edit | Preferences to see all of your options.

Time Sheet FAQ

Q: Will the time sheet form automatically add overtime hours when the employee gets into overtime?

A: No. There are so many variables. For many companies, overtime can be required for many more reasons that just exceeding forty hours in one work week. You will need to add overtime hours manually to an Earning Item created for overtime pay. While entering data in the Time Sheet, you will be able to see how many hours the employee has for the work week. If overtime is warranted, select a Payroll Earning Item created for Overtime Pay. Enter the number of minutes for overtime.

Automatic Overtime Calculations – Overview

The Automatic Overtime feature automatically identifies and applies overtime once an employee exceeds 40 worked hours in a payroll week. When enabled on the Time Sheet form, the system continuously evaluates time entries as they are entered, edited, copied, or saved, and determines whether hours should be treated as regular time or overtime. This feature was one of the most frequently requested enhancements and is designed to reduce manual adjustments while improving accuracy and visibility.

To use this feature, each employee must have a Default Overtime Earning Item selected in Employee Payroll Item Setup. While the overtime preference itself is optional, a default OT earning item is required for the system to apply overtime automatically. As hours are entered, the system tracks cumulative worked hours for the pay period. When the 40-hour threshold is crossed, the software automatically splits the entry into regular and overtime portions or converts the entire entry to overtime, depending on the situation. For example, if an employee has 30 hours already recorded and 12 additional hours are entered, the system will keep 10 hours as regular time and create a separate overtime entry for the remaining 2 hours using the default OT earning item. Any additional worked hours for the week will be treated as overtime.

Overtime calculations are based only on worked hours. Paid Time Off (PTO) and other “Time Off” earning types are tracked and displayed separately and do not count toward the 40-hour threshold. The feature honors the company’s payroll week settings, including the payroll week start day, and includes labels on the Time Sheet form that display time-off totals, daily and weekly hour totals, remaining regular hours before overtime, total hours over 40 (excluding PTO), and the current payroll pay period. These indicators provide real-time transparency into how hours are accumulating and when overtime begins.

This feature identifies overtime hours but does not alter pay rules, pay rates, or jurisdiction-specific labor laws. Overtime always begins after 40 worked hours in a payroll week and does not assume daily overtime rules. Existing overtime earning item types are not treated differently by the calculation itself; the system does not infer intent based on time of day or shift length. If a user later edits time entries, the system will automatically re-evaluate and adjust entries as needed to ensure overtime is applied correctly.

Limitations: Automatic Overtime does not apply to imported time sheets or time entries created through other applications such as Aptora Mobile II. It applies only to time entered or edited directly within the Time Sheet form.

Related Payroll Time Sheet Topics

Employee Time Sheet Report