Timesheets to payroll: month-end checklist

For teams who work in shifts across many sites, month-end is where every small gap in the month catches up: the clock-out nobody pressed, the extra shift nobody rostered, the break nobody recorded. Payroll can’t start until the hours are right, and the hours are only right if someone has looked at the exceptions. This is a routine that makes month-end an afternoon instead of a week.

The habit that matters most: approve weekly

The easiest month-end is one where most of the month is already approved. Ask managers to review their team’s timesheet every week, while the shifts are fresh in everyone’s mind. A query about last Tuesday is a quick question; a query about something five weeks ago is an argument. In TDS Workforce Management the timesheet page opens on a week and can show only the entries awaiting approval, so a weekly review is short.

The month-end checklist

1. Close out shifts with no clock-in. For every published shift with no clock-in, decide whether the work happened. If it did, correct the times; if it didn’t, reject the entry so it isn’t paid.
2. Fix missing clock-outs. An entry with a clock-in but no clock-out usually falls back to the scheduled end. Check whether the person actually left on time.
3. Add unrostered work. Hours worked without a rostered shift, such as a callout, go in as manual entries, which need approval like any other.
4. Record unpaid breaks. Make sure each entry carries the right unpaid break, especially on long shifts. In TDS Workforce Management, breaks staff start and end in the app fill this in, and entries short of your break rule are flagged.
5. Look at the exceptions. Late clock-ins, clock-ins far from the site and skipped duties on the clock-out checklist are worth a second look before approval.
6. Approve everything hourly. Nothing should be paid on unchecked hours. TDS Workforce Management won’t finalise a month while any hourly entry in it is still waiting. If most shifts run to time, let entries within a few minutes of the roster approve themselves and spend your time on the rest.
7. Check salaried staff and rates. Confirm anyone who joined, left or changed rate during the month, and that the month's public holidays are entered so holiday and overtime rates land on the right hours.
8. Finalise the month. Lock the figures so nobody changes an approved entry after the numbers have gone to payroll.
9. Send it to payroll. Download the approved hours in your payroll system's shape (TDS Workforce Management has a timesheet file for Employment Hero and hours per earnings rate for Xero, or Excel and CSV for anything else) and load it in. Your payroll system calculates tax, retirement contributions and deductions and issues payslips.
10. Keep the files. Store the exports with the month’s payroll records, for as long as the law where you operate requires.

Why lock the month?

Once hours have been paid, they shouldn’t change quietly. Locking a month means a late edit can’t make the timesheet disagree with what was paid. In TDS Workforce Management, finalising a month turns the figures into earnings statements that later rate changes don’t alter, stops entries in that month being edited, and stops its shifts being moved. Each person is emailed their statement and can open it in the app.

Notes for each region

• Australia: employers must keep time and wages records for seven years and give each employee a payslip within one working day of paying them. Issue the payslip from your payroll system.
• Saudi Arabia: salaries are paid through the Wage Protection System, and GOSI contributions are worked out in payroll from the month’s pay.
• UK: workers are entitled to an itemised payslip on or before payday, and payroll records are kept for at least three years after the end of the tax year.
• EU: rules differ by country, but a reliable record of daily working time is expected throughout, so keep the approved timesheets with the payroll records.

What good looks like

By the first working day of the new month, every shift from the old one is either approved or rejected, the month is locked, payroll has the file, and staff can see what they’ll be paid. See how timesheets and payroll work in TDS Workforce Management, or how clock-ins feed them.