The Development of the Time Sheet

The time sheet was first constructed so long ago, no one knows its exact origin. Centuries ago before this document was used, people were paid by the day. This meant they worked until the boss said the day was over.

What is known is the original purpose of the time sheet. This was so an employer would know when an employee showed up for work and how long they stayed. This way, they could get paid the appropriate amount for the time they spent at work. It also helps to regulate the length of the workday. No longer did an employee have to stay until the boss ended the day, for the same pay each day. The longer they stay, the more they got paid.

At first, the time sheet was more of a time card. This was used by inserting the card in a clock and the time would be punched on it. The time that is punched is then the determining number by which the employee is paid by the account department of the company. This type of time keeping of employees is still done in manufacturing settings, along with retail stores.

Because of the complex nature of business today, there also needs to be a system that provides more details about the time employees spend at work. At first, there were hand-written time sheets that were used to identify what an employee was specifically spending their time on.

Then, the age of computers came into being and everything in the business world was digitized. This included the time sheet. Today, there are time tracking software programs that are used to give detailed accounts of a person’s work activities. These programs can be found in many of the project management software programs that are out on the market.

With these programs, a time sheet is used to report the exact details of what each employee does every day for the week. There are many categories that this can be broken down into, but the most useful is the time spent on projects for different clients. This allows the accounting department to know exactly what billable hours have been obtained so the revenue can be recovered by sending out the appropriate bill each month.