A weekly time sheet template covers one workweek at a time: seven days, the times in and out, the unpaid breaks off, and a total at the foot of the column. That is the right unit even when nobody gets paid weekly, because overtime is counted on the workweek and on nothing longer. A workweek is a fixed and regularly recurring period of 168 hours, seven consecutive 24 hour days, chosen by the employer and then left alone, and the hours past 40 inside it are owed at the overtime rate no matter how the pay period is drawn around it. So the sheet stays weekly and the pay run stacks weeks: two of them for a biweekly period, and for a semi monthly period a set of weeks that will not line up with the 15th and the last day of the month. Fill in the weekly sheet, keep each week whole, and let the pay period be a wrapper. The free weekly timesheet template on this site works that way: one week per sheet, breaks off, hours past 40 onto the overtime line at your multiplier, the rate applied, and the sheets grouped into whichever period you actually pay.
Weekly, biweekly and semi monthly are pay periods
They describe how often money moves, not how hours are counted. Weekly pay is 52 runs a year on one week of hours. Biweekly is 26 runs on two whole weeks, so the period always starts on the same weekday and always contains exactly two workweeks. Semi monthly is 24 runs on the 1st to the 15th and the 16th to the month end, which is roughly the same money spread over fewer dates and is popular with anyone reconciling against a monthly ledger. Whichever you pay on, the overtime line inside each week is calculated before the periods are added together. Adding first and splitting after is the mistake that shows up in back pay claims, because it hides a heavy week behind a light one.
A biweekly period, worked through
Take one employee at 18 dollars an hour on a biweekly run. In the first workweek the card totals 44 hours after the unpaid lunches come off. The first 40 are regular pay, so 40 times 18 is 720 dollars. The remaining 4 hours are paid at one and a half times the rate, which is 27 dollars an hour, so 4 times 27 is 108 dollars, and that week comes to 828 dollars. In the second workweek the card totals 38 hours, so 38 times 18 is 684 dollars with no overtime line at all. The period pays 828 plus 684, which is 1512 dollars gross. Note what happens if the two weeks are averaged instead: 82 hours over two weeks looks like 41 a week and buries the 4 hours that were genuinely owed at the higher rate.
Why the semi monthly timesheet template is the awkward one
A semi monthly period ends on the 15th and on the last day of the month, and neither date cares which day of the week it lands on. A workweek will therefore be cut in half by a pay date several times a year. The way through is to keep counting on the week and pay on the period: total each workweek in full, work out its regular and overtime hours there, then allocate each week's hours to the period they fell in. The template keeps every week intact and shows the split at the period boundary, so the half week that crosses the 15th is paid in the right run without its overtime being recalculated from a partial total that was never a real week.
The nonprofit timesheet and its extra column
A nonprofit paying an hourly crew fills in the same week as anyone else, with one addition: a column saying which program or grant each block of hours belonged to. The day still totals the same way, the week is still split at 40, and the pay is still the rate times the lines. What changes is that the week now answers a second question, which is where the labor went, and the totals per program come from the same rows rather than from a second sheet kept in parallel. Two sheets for one week always disagree eventually. Add the column to the weekly sheet and the disagreement cannot start.
Questions people ask about weekly time sheet template
Can I just use a biweekly time card template and skip the weekly sheet?
You can print the two weeks on one page, but keep the totals separate. Each workweek needs its own line for regular hours and its own line for hours past 40, or the overtime figure will be wrong.
What happens when a semi monthly period splits a week in two?
Total the whole workweek first and decide its overtime there, then pay each part in the run it falls in. Never treat the part week as a complete week when you split the total at 40.
Which period should a small crew be paid on?
Biweekly suits an hourly crew best because the period is two whole workweeks, so overtime never straddles a pay date. Semi monthly suits a business reconciling to calendar months and costs a little more care.
How long should the finished weekly sheets be kept?
Federal recordkeeping rules ask for the daily and weekly hours and the pay computed from them to be kept for years, so keep them filed by employee and pay period rather than in a loose stack.