HAWKEYE SYSTEMS

Construction Timesheets: What to Track, Which Format to Use

Construction timesheets done right: required fields, paper vs. app, subcontractor time tracking, certified payroll rules and a checklist for picking a tool.

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A good construction timesheet records who worked, on which job, in which cost code, for how many hours, and who approved it. That is enough for payroll, but not for job costing, billing or a public-works audit. This guide covers the fields to capture, when a spreadsheet template is fine, when it stops being fine, how to handle subcontractor hours, and what to look for in a timesheet app.

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TL;DR

A construction timesheet needs more than start and end times: add job, cost code, task, equipment and a supervisor approval.
Paper and spreadsheet templates work for a small crew on private jobs. They break down with several crews, several sites or public-works payroll.
Federal law requires employers to keep hours-worked records, and public-works jobs add certified payroll with state-specific data points.
Subcontractor hours need their own process: agree on the format up front, and check what your contract and state rules require.
Choose a tool by how well it connects field hours to billing and payroll, not by the clock-in screen alone.

What a construction timesheet has to do
The fields every construction timesheet should capture
What the law expects you to keep
Paper, spreadsheet or app?
A weekly timesheet process that holds up
Subcontractor timesheets and time tracking
How to choose a construction timesheet app
Our perspective: a timesheet is one page of a longer record
Where Hawkeye fits
Common timesheet mistakes to fix first
Why accuracy matters beyond payroll
FAQ
Sources

What a construction timesheet has to do

On an office job, a timesheet answers one question: how many hours should this person be paid? On a construction site it answers at least four.

Payroll. What does each worker get paid, including overtime and any prevailing-wage classification?
Job costing. What did each phase or cost code really cost in labor, compared with the estimate?
Billing. Can you back up a time-and-materials invoice or pay application with field records the owner will accept?
Compliance. Can you produce the record if a wage claim or an agency audit arrives two years later?

A timesheet that handles only the first question forces someone in the office to rebuild the other three from memory, text messages and photos. That rebuilding is where most payroll errors and disputed invoices begin.

The fields every construction timesheet should capture

Start with the legal minimum, then add what your project controls need.

Field | Why it matters

Worker name and ID | Ties hours to the right payroll record

Date, start, end, breaks | The basis of overtime and daily-hour rules

Project and site | Needed when one crew moves between jobs in a week

Cost code or phase | Feeds job costing and change-order pricing

Task or work description | Supports billing and resolves “what were they doing?” questions

Trade classification | Required on prevailing-wage work, where rates differ by classification

Equipment used and hours | Lets you bill equipment time and match it to the labor

Foreman or supervisor approval | Turns a self-reported entry into a reviewed record

Location or site confirmation | Settles disputes about whether the entry happened where it says

The last two are the ones most templates skip. An unapproved timesheet is a claim, not a record. Approval by someone who saw the work is what makes it defensible.

What the law expects you to keep

This section covers U.S. rules. Other countries have their own, so check local requirements if you work elsewhere.

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, covered employers must keep records of hours worked each workday and each workweek for non-exempt employees. The Department of Labor’s recordkeeping fact sheet says the Act requires no particular form, so a template, an app or a paper card can all qualify as long as the content is there. The same fact sheet sets retention periods, so read it for the current numbers before you set your own archive policy.

Public works add a second layer. Contractors and subcontractors on federal or federally assisted construction contracts must submit payroll information weekly. The Department of Labor explains in its WH-347 instructions that using the WH-347 form itself is optional, but the weekly submission is not.

States add their own rules on top. Illinois, for example, requires contractors and each subcontractor on public works to keep certified payroll records for at least three years under 820 ILCS 130/5, and that statute is stricter about what the records contain than a generic timesheet is. Washington has its own rule under RCW 39.12.120, which sets a three-year period from the date the public body accepts the project. The details differ by state, so confirm yours with the awarding agency or your attorney.

The practical lesson: a generic timesheet can show perfectly accurate hours and still get a certified payroll rejected because it lacks fields the state demands. If you do public work, design the timesheet backward from the payroll form, not forward from a downloaded template. Our guide to certified payroll reporting walks through how field records catch errors before they reach the awarding authority.

Paper, spreadsheet or app?

There is no shame in a template. Free daily and weekly sheets, such as the printable contractor timesheet templates in PDF, Excel and Sheets formats, are a reasonable starting point for a small crew on one job. Here is where each format lands.

Paper card | Spreadsheet template | Mobile timesheet app

Setup cost | Almost none | Almost none | Subscription

Entry at the site | Easy | Awkward on a phone | Built for it

Rework in the office | Re-keying every week | Re-keying or copy-paste | Little or none

Cost-code accuracy | Depends on handwriting | Depends on discipline | Can be enforced with required fields

Approvals | Signature, if you chase it | Email threads | In-app, with a timestamp

Audit trail | Filing cabinet | Version chaos | Change history

Fits public-works payroll | Poorly | With effort | Depends on the product

The tipping point usually arrives when one person spends a day each week turning handwritten hours into payroll entries. Add a second crew or a second site and the errors multiply. They show up as underpaid overtime, missing cost codes and invoices the owner questions.

The cost of staying on paper is hard to see because it hides in office hours and disputes. Our piece on construction labor tracking for project managers shows where payroll errors originate and how to trace them back to the field entry.

A weekly timesheet process that holds up

Whatever tool you use, the workflow matters more than the format.

Assign before the work starts. The crew should know the job, task and cost code when they start, so they are not guessing at the end of the day.
Record at the point of work. Entries made on the day, by the worker or foreman, are more reliable than entries rebuilt on Friday.
Tie hours to the daily record. Hours should sit next to what was done: quantities, equipment, delays, notes. That context is what you need in a dispute.
Review daily or at least weekly. The foreman approves, then the project manager reviews exceptions: overtime, unusual hours, missing codes.
Lock and export. Once approved, entries should lock, with any later change logged.
Feed payroll and billing from the same data. Re-keying creates a second version of the truth.

If your crews also complete paper work orders, the same logic applies. See how to move field crews off paper with digital work orders.

Subcontractor timesheets and time tracking

Subcontractor hours are the gap in many general contractors’ records. Your employees are on your payroll system. A subcontractor’s crew is not, yet their hours can still decide whether you can bill a time-and-materials job or defend a change order.

What to ask for depends on the contract, but these are the usual points:

A defined format. Put the timesheet template, or the required fields, in the subcontract so nobody argues about it later. A subcontractor timesheet template should carry the same job, cost code, classification and approval fields as your own.
Signed daily or weekly submissions. A foreman on your side should countersign the hours worked on your site, close to the day they happened.
Classification and rates, when required. On public works, each subcontractor generally has to maintain its own certified payroll. Verify what your contract, the awarding agency and your state require, and ask your attorney for anything unclear.
Link to the work performed. Hours without a description are hard to bill. Ask for task, area and any extra work that might become a change order.
A deadline. Late subcontractor hours are the main reason pay applications get held up.

When subcontractor hours support extra work, the paper trail needs to connect timesheet, daily record and approval. Our guides on time and materials billing and change order tracking show how to assemble that proof so the owner’s rep has less reason to push back.

How to choose a construction timesheet app

Search for the best construction timesheet apps and you will find many near-identical clock-in tools. The differences that matter are quieter. Use these criteria.

Does it work where your crews work?

Sites often have weak coverage. The app should let workers record time offline and sync later. Check how it handles a worker forgetting to clock out, and how corrections are logged.

Does it capture cost codes and tasks?

A clock-in with no job or cost code only solves payroll. Required fields at entry are what make job costing accurate.

Can it handle prevailing-wage and certified payroll data?

If any of your work is public, ask a vendor to show you the actual certified payroll output for your state, not a promise of “compliance support.” The Illinois statute cited above is a good test of whether a tool captures what a state actually requires.

Does it connect to billing and payroll?

Ask where the hours go after approval. Exporting to a payroll provider is common. Pulling the same hours into a time-and-materials invoice with supporting daily records is rarer and more valuable.

Can you see the field in real time?

The Associated Builders and Contractors’ 2025 Field Tech Report argues that technology gains now happen at the “last mile” of the jobsite, and that real-time labor productivity visibility has moved from nice-to-have to essential in a tight labor market. A timesheet that only reaches the office on Friday gives you none of that.

How is it priced, and who needs a seat?

Ask whether foremen, office staff and subcontractor users each need paid seats, and what happens to pricing when you add a site. Get the answer in writing before the demo ends.

Our perspective: a timesheet is one page of a longer record

We build field operations software, so we see timesheets from the other end: after the hours are recorded, when someone has to bill them. The same pattern repeats. A crew’s hours are correct, but the invoice is rejected or delayed because nobody can show what the crew was doing, with which equipment, under whose assignment.

That is why we treat time as one part of a connected record that runs from assignment to billing. Crew scheduling, job planning, labor and equipment tracking, field tickets and daily work records all sit in one place, so the timesheet is not a standalone number. When the office reviews hours, the context is already attached. Each handoff, from foreman to project manager to billing specialist, is traceable.

Our advice for any contractor choosing a system: test it on the ugliest week you have had. Pick a week with a change order, a subcontractor crew, overtime and a public-works report due. If the tool produces payroll and billing documents from that week without anyone retyping, it will survive normal weeks too.

— Client

Where Hawkeye fits

If your timesheets are one of several disconnected records, Hawkeye Field Ops brings crew scheduling, labor and equipment tracking, field ticketing, daily work records and the preparation of billing and payroll documents into one platform. It is built for construction, field services and utilities teams. See the construction page for how it applies to contractors, or request a walkthrough to see it against your own workflow.

Common timesheet mistakes to fix first

Rounding by habit. Rounding every entry to the nearest quarter hour can shortchange workers over time. Follow your written policy and the rules that apply to you, and ask your attorney if you are unsure.
Letting workers fill in a week at once. Late entries are guesses. Daily entry, even a quick one, improves accuracy.
No cost code discipline. If “general labor” becomes the default code, job costing is useless.
Approvals by exception only. If nobody reviews, errors accumulate quietly.
Separate records for subcontractors. Keep their hours in the same review flow as your crews.
No retention plan. Know how long you must keep records and where they live. Photos and daily logs that back up hours are worth keeping with them; see our guide to jobsite photo documentation.

Why accuracy matters beyond payroll

Construction has a productivity problem, and labor data is part of how firms respond. An Australian Productivity Commission paper presented at the 2025 ABS-RBA conference reports that physical productivity in housing construction, measured as dwellings completed per hour worked, has fallen over 30 years while the wider economy has grown. That is Australian data and it is not a U.S. figure, but the point carries: you cannot improve output per hour if you cannot measure the hours against the work. Timesheets tied to tasks and quantities are the raw material for that measurement.

FAQ

What should a construction timesheet include?

At minimum: worker, date, start and end times, breaks, project, and a supervisor approval. For useful job costing, add cost code, task, classification and equipment hours. On public works, check your state’s certified payroll requirements, since they can demand more data than a generic template provides.

Can I use a free template for construction timesheets?

Yes, for a small crew on private work, since the FLSA requires no particular form for hours-worked records. The limits appear when you have multiple crews, subcontractors or public-works payroll, where re-keying and missing fields cause errors. At that point an app that enforces required fields saves more than it costs.

How do I track subcontractor time?

Put the required timesheet format in the subcontract, require signed submissions on a fixed schedule, and have your foreman countersign hours worked on your site. Keep those entries in the same review process as your own crews. On public works, confirm what each subcontractor must file under your contract and state law.

How long should I keep construction timesheets?

It depends on the rule that applies. The Department of Labor’s FLSA recordkeeping fact sheet sets federal periods, and public-works statutes set their own, such as three years in Washington and at least three years in Illinois. Keep the longest period that applies to any of your projects, and confirm with your attorney.

Sources

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Walk through the handoffs that slow your team down—and see where a connected record can help.