Before each payday, you’ll need to calculate the correct amounts to pay for each of your employees.

To do this, you’ll need recording tools such as timesheets, roster sheets, and time and/or wage books.

You can ask each of your employees to complete the hours they worked on a form before each payday. Based on the information you agree, you’ll calculate the final payment amount for each employee.

How do you record employee work hours and calculate payment amounts?

You can choose any method you find easy to manage your records related to payments. If you prefer and have time to keep manual paper record books, that’s great.

However, it’s likely that small businesses won’t have enough time (or storage space) to keep paper records. In general, it ends up being more time-consuming and probably more costly. You’ll need to keep buying the forms or books, calculate and balance figures yourself each pay period, and there’s the risk of losing the records if you don’t have a back-up copy.

Many payroll or accounting products, as well as paying your employees, provide templates like timesheet, roster sheet and pay slip, and they automatically calculate amounts for you.