Are these templates really free?

Yes. Every file downloads directly with no signup, no email address and no follow-up sequence. Use them, edit them, share them with your managers.

What is the difference between an attendance register and a timesheet?

An attendance register records whether someone was there — present, absent, sick, on annual leave — usually as a single code per day. A timesheet records how long they worked, with start and finish times and breaks deducted. You need the register for absence management and the timesheet for pay. Most teams end up keeping both.

Do they work in Google Sheets?

Yes. Upload the .xlsx to Google Drive and open it with Google Sheets — the layout, the drop-down codes and the formulas all carry over. They work in LibreOffice Calc too.

Can I edit and rebrand them?

Yes. Nothing is locked. Change the colours, add your logo, add or remove columns — they are ordinary Excel files.

How long do I have to keep timesheets in the UK?

National Minimum Wage records must be kept for six years, and annual leave and holiday pay records for six years since 6 April 2026. PAYE records must be kept for three years from the end of the tax year they relate to. Working time records under the Working Time Regulations have no fixed period beyond being adequate — but the six-year minimum wage rule effectively sets the floor. See our employee records guide.

What counts as working time that has to be recorded?

More than the shift. Handovers, opening and closing, security checks, mandatory training, and travel between work sites are normally working time. Ordinary commuting to a single fixed workplace is not. Unrecorded working time is the most common cause of an accidental minimum wage underpayment — our timesheets guide works through the usual cases.

Is a spreadsheet timesheet acceptable to HMRC?

There is no prescribed format, so yes in principle. The practical difficulty is that a spreadsheet carries no evidence of when it was completed, so a sheet filled in at the end of the week is a reconstruction. It is still far better than no record — but it is weaker evidence than a timestamped clock-in.

What is the 17-week reference period?

The 48-hour weekly limit is not a cap on any single week — it is an average, normally measured across a rolling 17-week period. Someone can work 60 hours one week without breaching it, provided the average holds. The staff hours tracker above is built around that 17-week window for exactly this reason.

Do I have to pay overtime at a higher rate in the UK?

There is no statutory overtime premium. Time-and-a-half and double time are contractual, not legal, requirements. The one hard rule is that total pay divided by total hours worked must not fall below the minimum wage for the worker’s age — currently £12.71 for 21 and over, £10.85 for 18 to 20, and £8.00 for under-18s and eligible apprentices from 1 April 2026. See our overtime guide.

Does overtime count towards holiday pay?

Regularly worked overtime normally has to be included in the calculation of holiday pay for the first four weeks of statutory leave. That is why the overtime tracker keeps a running total per person rather than only a weekly figure — you need the pattern, not just the last week. Our holiday pay guide covers the calculation.

Can unpaid breaks be deducted from recorded hours?

Yes, provided the break is genuinely uninterrupted and the worker is free to leave their post. A worker who has to stay on the shop floor or answer the phone through their break is still working, and that time is both working time and payable. Every timesheet in this set keeps the break in its own column so the deduction is visible rather than buried.

FREE DOWNLOADS

Free attendance register and timesheet templates

Seven Excel templates for recording who was in and how long they worked — an attendance register, weekly and fortnightly timesheets, an overtime tracker, a daily time clock sheet, a sign-in sheet and a running hours tracker.

Browse the templates

7 Excel templates No signup or email Retention periods included

Updated September 2026. Record-keeping periods and minimum wage rates checked against GOV.UK.

These templates are record-keeping tools, not legal or payroll advice. They do not calculate minimum wage, holiday pay or statutory sick pay for you, and they do not check working time limits. Check GOV.UK, or take advice, before relying on a spreadsheet for compliance. It does not constitute legal, HR, or professional advice and should not be relied on as a substitute for advice specific to your business, workforce, or circumstances.

References HR Hub disclaimer UK employment guides GOV.UK Acas

No regulation tells a UK employer to keep a timesheet. Several tell you things you cannot prove without one.

The Working Time Regulations 1998 require adequate records showing the 48-hour weekly average is being complied with, and records of anyone who has opted out. The National Minimum Wage rules require records sufficient to establish that each worker was paid at least the minimum for the time they actually worked — and in an HMRC enquiry, the burden of proof sits with the employer, not the worker. Get that wrong and arrears are settled at the current rate, for every affected worker, not just the one who complained.

That is what these templates are built around. An attendance register answers who was here. A timesheet answers for how long. Both are worth keeping, and they are not the same document.

Key takeaways

Seven Excel templates covering attendance, timesheets, overtime and clock-in records
National Minimum Wage records must be kept for six years; holiday and annual leave records also six years since 6 April 2026; PAYE records three years from the end of the tax year
The Working Time Regulations require adequate records of the 48-hour average and of any signed opt-outs
Every file uses a Monday-start week and the same absence-code legend, so the set reads consistently
A spreadsheet can be completed after the fact — which is exactly the objection HMRC raises to one

The templates

Start with the register if you need attendance; start with a timesheet if you need hours

AttendanceMonthlyExcel

Employee attendance register

One row per person, a month across the top. Mark P, A, S, AL or BH and the COUNTIF totals add themselves up. The one most people are looking for.

WeeklyPayrollExcel

Weekly timesheet

Monday to Sunday, start and finish times, unpaid break deducted, paid hours calculated. Built for weekly payroll.

FortnightlyPayrollExcel

Fortnightly timesheet

Two Monday-start weeks on one sheet with separate week totals, so a two-weekly pay run does not need two files.

OvertimeExcel

Overtime tracker

Separates contracted hours from hours beyond them, with a premium multiplier column and a running total per person.

DailyPrintableExcel

Daily time clock sheet

One day per sheet, in and out against each name, for a clipboard on the wall by the door.

PrintableSign-inExcel

Shift sign-in sheet

A printable sign-in and sign-out sheet with a signature column, for sites that need a physical record.

48-hour limitExcel

Staff hours tracker

A rolling 17-week view of hours per person with a live weekly average — the reference period the 48-hour limit is measured over.

What every template includes

The same conventions across all seven

Monday-start weeks

Every sheet runs Monday to Sunday, which is how weekly rest and the 48-hour average are normally counted in the UK.

A shared absence-code legend

P, A, S, AL, BH, TOIL and UNP mean the same thing in all seven files, so a manager moving between them is not relearning the codes.

Retention periods on the Instructions tab

Six years for minimum wage and holiday records, three years from the end of the tax year for PAYE — printed in the file, not just on this page.

Real formulas, not typed totals

Paid hours, break deductions and weekly averages are live formulas. Insert a row and the totals still work.

Unpaid breaks handled explicitly

A separate break column that is deducted from paid hours — because a 20-minute break over six hours is a right, and whether it is paid is a contract question.

No signup

Every file downloads directly. No email address, no gated form, no follow-up sequence.

Who these are for

UK teams that need a defensible record of hours worked

Hospitality

Retail

Care and healthcare

Security and facilities

More free UK resources

Tools, templates and guides that sit alongside the timesheet

Free rota templates

Weekly, monthly, rolling and blank staff rotas in Excel — the planning side of the same job.

Browse the rotas

Minimum wage compliance checker

Work out what your staff are effectively paid once unpaid time and deductions are counted.

Open the checker

UK employment guides

Working time records, overtime, holiday entitlement, sick pay and rota law — written for employers.

Browse the guides

The rules behind the record

What you have to keep, for how long, and what it has to show

Working time

Pay and minimum wage

Records and absence

Definitions

Sources

The record-keeping and pay figures referenced in these templates

GOV.UK — Maximum weekly working hours GOV.UK — Rest breaks at work GOV.UK — National Minimum Wage rates GOV.UK — Running payroll: keeping records

Where a spreadsheet record falls down

The weakness of a spreadsheet timesheet is not the maths. It is that nothing in the file records when it was filled in.

A timesheet completed on Friday for the whole week is a reconstruction, and everyone involved knows it. That is fine until it is the only evidence you have. In a minimum wage enquiry the employer has to show what was actually worked, and a sheet that could have been typed the same morning carries much less weight than a record created at the moment somebody started and stopped. The same is true of the 48-hour average: reconstructed hours are exactly the hours that quietly leave out the twenty minutes before opening.

The second problem is the time nobody writes down. Handovers, security checks, cashing up, travel between sites, waiting to be let in — all of it is usually working time, and none of it appears on a sheet that copies the rota. That is the single most common route to an accidental underpayment, and it is why our timesheets and working time records guide spends more space on unrecorded time than on the form itself.

Use these templates. They are a real improvement on nothing, and for a small stable team they are enough. Just be clear about what they prove — and see clock-in records when they stop being enough.

Or record the hours as they happen

RosterElf timestamps every clock-in and clock-out, flags anyone approaching the 48-hour average, and exports approved hours straight to payroll — so the record is made at the time, not reconstructed on Friday.

Start free trial See time and attendance software

FAQ

Attendance and timesheet questions

Yes. Every file downloads directly with no signup, no email address and no follow-up sequence. Use them, edit them, share them with your managers.
An attendance register records whether someone was there — present, absent, sick, on annual leave — usually as a single code per day. A timesheet records how long they worked, with start and finish times and breaks deducted. You need the register for absence management and the timesheet for pay. Most teams end up keeping both.
Yes. Upload the .xlsx to Google Drive and open it with Google Sheets — the layout, the drop-down codes and the formulas all carry over. They work in LibreOffice Calc too.
Yes. Nothing is locked. Change the colours, add your logo, add or remove columns — they are ordinary Excel files.

National Minimum Wage records must be kept for six years, and annual leave and holiday pay records for six years since 6 April 2026. PAYE records must be kept for three years from the end of the tax year they relate to. Working time records under the Working Time Regulations have no fixed period beyond being adequate — but the six-year minimum wage rule effectively sets the floor. See our employee records guide.
Not in those words. The Working Time Regulations 1998 require adequate records showing the 48-hour weekly average is complied with, and the National Minimum Wage rules require records sufficient to establish that the minimum was paid for the hours actually worked. Nothing names a timesheet — but there is no realistic way to satisfy either without one.
More than the shift. Handovers, opening and closing, security checks, mandatory training, and travel between work sites are normally working time. Ordinary commuting to a single fixed workplace is not. Unrecorded working time is the most common cause of an accidental minimum wage underpayment — our timesheets guide works through the usual cases.
There is no prescribed format, so yes in principle. The practical difficulty is that a spreadsheet carries no evidence of when it was completed, so a sheet filled in at the end of the week is a reconstruction. It is still far better than no record — but it is weaker evidence than a timestamped clock-in.
The 48-hour weekly limit is not a cap on any single week — it is an average, normally measured across a rolling 17-week period. Someone can work 60 hours one week without breaching it, provided the average holds. The staff hours tracker above is built around that 17-week window for exactly this reason.

Free attendance register and timesheet templates

Key takeaways