Guide

Common Timesheet Mistakes

Avoid missing breaks, wrong decimal conversions, incomplete days, and overtime review mistakes.

Most common issues

Timesheet mistakes usually come from missed breaks, missing days, wrong decimal conversions, or unchecked overtime.

Check every day, confirm break minutes, convert minutes correctly, and compare weekly totals against the threshold.

If hours are corrected after submission, keep a note of what changed and why.

Add weekly shifts, breaks, overtime threshold, and hourly rate to estimate timesheet totals and gross pay.

Subtract unpaid lunch or meal breaks from a shift and see paid work time.

Split total hours into regular and overtime hours, then estimate gross pay from an hourly rate and overtime multiplier.

What is the biggest timesheet error?

For many manual timesheets, missed or duplicated break time is the most common issue.

Can decimal conversion cause payroll errors?

Yes. Writing 30 minutes as 0.30 hours instead of 0.50 hours changes pay.