How to make a timesheet for your employer or client

A timesheet is the document that turns your hours into a payment, and the person approving it decides fast: a clear one gets paid, a confusing one gets questioned. Whether you send it to a payroll department, a client, or a family you work for, every good timesheet answers the same four questions — when did you work, at what rate, for what total, and says who.

What a professional timesheet includes

• The period it covers — matched to how you’re paid (weekly, biweekly, twice a month, monthly), not an arbitrary date range.
• Each day’s entry: date, start and end times, and hours worked, with breaks accounted for.
• The rate applied to each class of hours. If some hours were overtime or a holiday, they should be their own line at their own rate — a single blended number is what triggers “can you walk me through this?” emails.
• Subtotals and a grand total, in hours and in money.
• Your name and contact details. A timesheet is an invoice-adjacent document; it should say who it’s from without opening the email around it.
• Notes where they earn their place — a gate code changed, materials bought, a tip received — the context that stops a line item from being disputed later.

PDF or spreadsheet?

Send PDF when a human approves it: it looks the same everywhere and can’t be edited in transit. Send CSV when a system ingests it — payroll software, a bookkeeper’s spreadsheet, accounting tools. The right answer is often “whichever the person paying you asks for,” so a tracker should produce both from the same records.

Exporting a timesheet from Valio

Valio builds the timesheet from the shifts you already recorded — no re-typing hours into a template on payday.

• Export as PDF or CSV for any job and pay period. The file is generated on your device and handed to the iOS share sheet — send it through Messages, email, AirDrop, or into any app.
• Your name or business name and contact details on it, so the document stands on its own.
• Every rate named and subtotaled, including your own custom ones — regular, overtime, holiday, night differential — each on its own line.
• You choose what to show: day-level notes, rates and amounts, the pay-class breakdown — include them for a client who wants detail, hide them for one who just wants the total.
• Pay periods that match your paycheck, so the export covers exactly the window you’re being paid for.

Because the exact clock-in and clock-out times sit underneath every entry — even when you round to your employer’s rule — the timesheet you send is backed by a record you can defend line by line.