Payroll/Time Sheet Practices

Rockie

I need some help from some payroll gurus out there!

Is there any regulation that you know of that requires an employee or supervisor to sign off on time sheets for employees? We have electronic time clocks so time is based on punches, etc. Usually, the supervisors only sign off on their people's time sheets, but a manager stated that he thought the employee should sign off on them before the supervisor. This seems like it would be very cumbersome and tiresome to deal with unless it's a requirement. I could not find any type of regulation that requires this. Please help!

Mikki H

I don't know if it is "required by law" but we believe that it is a good practice. We require the employee to signs stating that the information is "true and correct" and then the supervisor also signs.

We make it the responsibility of the supervisors to verify time worked, calculations, reporting PTO etc. It has reduced errors and saved the PR department time. Before we had the supervisors doing those functions, it used to take payroll a full day to go through timesheets (40 employees), including hunting down employees, hunting down leave requests, verifying if PTO taken or not taken.

CuriousG

I agree that having employees sign their time sheets is an important practice. If you think about a time card, or time sheet, is no different than an independent contractor's bill for services. The employee is submitting that time as a claim for wages owned by the Company, and just like an independent contractor is is possible for an employee to "pad" the account.

I also agree it should be the Supervisor's responsibility to verify the time worked. If they don't know when and how long their employees are working, then they are not sufficiently in-touch with the workplace. The supervisor should be your first line of defense against any padded wage claims.

By having both the employee and supervisor sign the time sheet it lets them know they can be, and should be, held accountable for the accuracy of the information.