Timesheet template: what it must contain and how to fill it in correctly

What the collective attendance sheet is and why it is mandatory

The Romanian Labor Code (Law 53/2003) requires the employer to keep a record of the hours worked daily by each employee, showing the start and end times of the work schedule, and to present this record to labor inspectors on request. The collective attendance sheet is the practical instrument used to meet this obligation.

The document is drawn up monthly, for each workplace or department, and consolidates the attendance of all employees in a team. From it you can derive directly the number of days and hours worked, overtime, night work, annual leave days, medical leave, permissions and unjustified absences.

In practice, the timesheet is the bridge between what actually happens at the workplace and the payroll: without an accurate record of hours you cannot correctly calculate salaries and the bonuses required by law, nor can you justify payments to the ITM, the tax authority or an internal audit.

What a correct timesheet template must contain

There is no single official form imposed by law for the private sector, but a usable and verifiable template must contain a minimum set of information. The structure below is the one used by most companies and accepted during audits.

• Header: employer name, registration number, workplace/department and the month/year the sheet covers.
• Employee data: full name, job title and, optionally, badge number or the number from the employment register (Revisal).
• One column for each calendar day of the month (1-28/29/30/31), in which you enter the hours worked or the symbol matching the situation.
• Total hours worked in the month and total days worked.
• Separate columns (or totals) for overtime, night hours, weekend/public holiday hours.
• Columns for justified absences: annual leave (CO), medical leave (CM), unpaid leave, permissions.
• A signature area: prepared by (person responsible for the timesheet), verified/approved by (line manager or administrator).
• The legend of the symbols used, usually placed at the bottom of the table, so that the document can be read by anyone.

The legend of symbols used in a timesheet

To save space, each day cell contains either the number of hours worked (e.g. 8) or a conventional symbol. There is no coding imposed by law, but there are widely used conventions. What matters is that the legend is explicit and consistent throughout the document.

A common set of symbols, which you can adapt, looks like this:

• The hours figure (e.g. 8, 4, 12) - the number of hours actually worked that day.
• CO - annual (rest) leave.
• CM - medical leave (based on a certificate).
• CFP - unpaid leave.
• N - night work (hours in the night interval).
• OS or S - overtime.
• L - day off / weekly rest.
• SL - public holiday.
• Î - permission / short leave.
• A or AN - unjustified absence.
• D - business trip / delegation.

What a downloadable sheet looks like (PDF vs. Excel)

The most common timesheet template is a monthly table in which rows are the employees and columns are the days of the month. You can use it in two formats, each with its own advantages.

The PDF version is good for archiving and for signing: it has a fixed layout, cannot be modified by accident and prints identically every time. It is ideal as the final document, which is signed and filed.

The Excel version (or Google Sheets) is useful during the month: you can add formulas that sum the hours automatically, separate night hours from day hours and compute per-employee totals. In effect, Excel does the arithmetic and you just fill in the days.

A minimal Excel template has: a header row with days 1-31, one row per employee, a final column with =SUM() for total hours, and extra rows/columns for CO, CM, overtime and night hours. The legend goes in a separate area of the sheet. Unfortunately, both the PDF and the Excel depend entirely on a person filling them in correctly, day after day - and that is where the problems begin.

Manual vs. automatic time tracking

Manual time tracking (on paper or in Excel) works for small companies, but it has a few well-known weaknesses: it is often filled in at the end of the month from memory, real arrival/departure times are rounded, and overtime and night hours are miscalculated. On top of that, a sheet filled in retroactively proves nothing to an inspector who asks about the actual start and end times of the schedule.

Automatic time tracking solves exactly these points. The employee clocks in and out in real time, and the system builds the timesheet itself from the real data. This gives you exact hours, correct calculation of bonuses under the Labor Code (overtime, night work in the night interval, work on public holidays) and a document you no longer have to fill in by hand.

This is where Appy's Time-clock (Pontaj) module comes in: employees clock in with a 6-digit PIN plus a non-biometric selfie (a GDPR-friendly approach that prevents buddy punching), and the app automatically generates the monthly timesheet, ready to export for the ITM or for accounting. The module includes an hours engine aligned with current legislation (overtime, night hours, public holidays), shift planning, mobile punching, GPS geofencing and QR punching. It works for any type of company, not just hospitality.

Common mistakes and best practices

Even with a good template, a few mistakes come up repeatedly during audits and in payroll. They are worth avoiding from the start.

• Filling in the timesheet only once, at the end of the month - exactly what the law requires is missing: the real start and end times of the schedule.
• Failing to reconcile the timesheet with payroll and with the employment register - the totals must match.
• Not treating night hours and overtime separately, since they have distinct regimes and bonuses.
• Missing legend or inconsistent use of symbols - the document becomes impossible to verify.
• Not attaching supporting documents for annual leave, medical leave or permissions.
• Careless archiving - the timesheet is a document that must be kept and presented on request.