How to Get Employees to Submit Timesheets on Time (10 Proven Methods)
Struggling to get staff to fill in their timesheets? These 10 practical strategies — from better tools to reward systems — will transform your submission rates.
If you manage people in the UK, you already know the frustration. Friday comes and goes, payroll is due Monday, and half the team still hasn't logged their hours. You send a reminder. Then another. Then you start chasing people individually. It's exhausting — and it happens every single week.
You're not alone. Getting employees to submit timesheets on time is one of the most common operational headaches for UK managers and business owners. Surveys consistently show that around 40% of employees admit to submitting timesheets late at least once a month, and many HR professionals spend several hours each week chasing missing entries.
But here's the good news: most timesheet problems are process problems, not people problems. Your staff aren't being deliberately difficult. They're busy, they forget, or the system you've given them is genuinely painful to use. Fix the process, and compliance follows.
Below are 10 proven methods to encourage timesheet submission, improve your timesheet compliance rate, and — most importantly — stop the weekly chase for good.
10 Proven Methods to Get Timesheets Submitted on Time
1. Choose the Right Tool
This is the single biggest lever you have. If employees are filling in a clunky spreadsheet, emailing it to their manager, and waiting for a reply — of course compliance is low. The tool is the problem.
A modern employee time tracking tool should be mobile-first, take seconds to open, and require as few taps as possible. It should work on any phone without installing an app. It should save progress automatically and never lose data.
Switching from spreadsheets to proper timesheet software often solves 50% or more of the problem overnight. That's not an exaggeration — it's what we hear from businesses making the switch every week.
- Mobile-first — Staff can submit from the van, the train, or the sofa
- Simple UI — If it needs a training session, it's too complicated
- Cloud-based — No downloading files, no version confusion
- Automatic saving — Half-completed timesheets shouldn't disappear
2. Set a Non-Negotiable Weekly Deadline
Ambiguity breeds procrastination. If your team doesn't know exactly when timesheets are due, they'll always find something more pressing to do first.
Pick a consistent day and time — Friday at 5pm is the most common — and communicate it clearly. Put it in the employee handbook. Mention it during onboarding. Display it in the timesheet tool itself if you can.
The key word is consistent. A deadline that moves around ("this week it's Thursday because of the bank holiday") creates confusion. Choose one time and stick to it. Exceptions should be rare and communicated well in advance.
3. Explain Why Timesheets Matter
Most employees see timesheets as pointless admin. They don't understand the connection between their Friday timesheet and their Monday payslip. Make it explicit.
"When I started telling the team 'If your timesheet isn't in by Friday, payroll can't run on Monday and your pay may be delayed,' the submission rate jumped from 60% to over 90% in two weeks. People comply when they understand the direct impact on their own lives."
Beyond pay, explain how timesheets feed into project costing, client billing, and workforce planning. People are more willing to do something when they understand why it matters — not just that management demands it. For more on addressing employee resistance to timesheets, check our detailed guide.
4. Make It Take Under 2 Minutes
Time yourself filling in your own timesheet. If it takes more than two minutes, you have a design problem. Every extra field, every unnecessary dropdown, every bit of friction is a reason for someone to put it off until later — and "later" often means "never."
- Reduce fields — Do you really need a description for every entry?
- Pre-fill where possible — If someone works the same hours every week, let them copy last week's entries
- Use smart defaults — Pre-select the most common project or location
- Remove unnecessary approvals — A timesheet with 3 approval stages won't get submitted
If your current timesheet takes 10+ minutes, that's not your employees' fault. It's a design problem that you can fix.
5. Send Automated Reminders
Don't rely on managers to chase timesheets manually. That's a waste of their time and turns them into the "timesheet police" — a role nobody enjoys.
Set up automated reminders instead. A sensible schedule looks like this:
- Thursday afternoon — Friendly nudge: "Don't forget to submit your timesheet by tomorrow"
- Friday morning — Follow-up for anyone who hasn't submitted yet
- Friday 4pm — Final reminder: "Your timesheet is due in 1 hour"
- Monday morning — Escalation to manager if still missing
The beauty of automated reminders is that they're consistent, impersonal, and impossible to forget. Nobody feels singled out because everyone gets the same nudge.
6. Reward On-Time Submission
This is the game-changer. Instead of punishing late timesheets (which creates resentment), reward the behaviour you want to see.
The idea is simple: every time an employee submits their timesheet on time, they earn points. Those points accumulate and can be redeemed for meaningful rewards — most commonly, bonus holiday days. It taps into something fundamental about human motivation: people are far more likely to do something when there's a positive incentive attached.
TimeTally's built-in reward system works exactly this way. Employees earn points automatically for every on-time submission. Managers can set the point thresholds and choose the rewards. No manual tracking, no spreadsheets — it just works in the background.
The results speak for themselves. Businesses using reward-based systems typically see their timesheet submission rate climb above 95% within the first month. It transforms timesheets from a chore into something employees actively want to complete. Learn more about this strategy in our guide to stopping the timesheet chase.
How Timesheet Rewards Work
- Employee submits timesheet before the deadline
- Points are awarded automatically — no manual tracking
- Points accumulate over weeks and months
- Employees redeem points for bonus holiday days or other perks
- Managers see a live leaderboard and submission stats
Transform Timesheet Compliance Today
Automated rewards, instant mobile submission, and smart reminders. Your team will actually want to submit on time.
7. Make It Visible
People respond to social accountability. When timesheet submission is invisible — just between the employee and their manager — it's easy to let it slide. When it's visible to the whole team, behaviour changes.
Leaderboards, team dashboards, and weekly completion stats create friendly competition. Nobody wants to be the only person on the team who hasn't submitted their timesheet. It's the same psychology that makes fitness apps work — seeing others complete their goals motivates you to complete yours.
Keep it light and positive. This is about friendly encouragement, not public shaming.
8. Get Manager Buy-In
If managers don't submit their own timesheets on time, why would anyone else bother? Staff follow what leadership does, not what leadership says.
Managers should be the first to submit each week. They should follow up with their team — not as punishment, but as part of normal team management. "Have you got your timesheet in?" should be as routine as "Have you got the report ready?"
If a manager tells you they're "too busy" for timesheets, that's a red flag. It signals to their team that timesheets are optional and unimportant.
9. Address Repeat Offenders Privately
There's always one or two people who consistently miss the deadline, no matter how many reminders you send. Don't call them out in a group setting. Instead, have a quiet 1-to-1 conversation.
Ask what's blocking them. You'll often find there's a fixable reason:
- "I don't have a work phone and the system doesn't work on my personal one"
- "I can never remember my login"
- "I don't know which project code to use for half my tasks"
- "I work split shifts and I'm never sure how to log them"
These are all solvable problems. But you won't discover them by sending another group email.
10. Review and Iterate
Improving your timesheet submission rate isn't a one-and-done exercise. Check your numbers monthly. Which teams have high compliance? Which are struggling? What changed?
Talk to your team regularly. Ask what's working and what isn't. Be willing to adjust your approach. Maybe the Friday 5pm deadline doesn't work because half the team finishes at 3pm — so you move it to Friday lunchtime. Maybe the automated reminder is going to spam — so you switch to SMS.
The businesses with the best submission rates are the ones that treat this as an ongoing process, not a problem to solve once and forget about. For more on streamlining your approval workflows, see our comprehensive guide.
Quick Wins vs Long-Term Fixes
Not all strategies deliver results on the same timeline. Here's how they break down:
Quick Wins (This Week)
- 1. Send automated reminders
- 2. Set a firm weekly deadline
- 3. Explain the payroll connection
- 4. Reduce timesheet fields
- 5. Talk to repeat offenders
Long-Term Fixes (This Quarter)
- 1. Switch to proper timesheet software
- 2. Introduce a reward system
- 3. Build team dashboards and leaderboards
- 4. Get full manager buy-in
- 5. Monthly review and iteration
Start with the quick wins for immediate improvement, then layer in the long-term fixes for lasting change.
What Not to Do When Chasing Timesheets
Some approaches feel satisfying in the moment but actually make the problem worse. Avoid these common mistakes:
Counterproductive Approaches
Don't threaten or punish
Docking pay or issuing formal warnings over late timesheets creates resentment and damages trust. You'll get grudging compliance at best — and grievances at worst.
Don't send angry group emails
"SOME of you still haven't submitted your timesheets..." — everyone knows these emails. They embarrass the offenders, annoy the people who already submitted, and achieve nothing.
Don't make the form longer
Adding more fields to "capture better data" is the fastest way to kill compliance. Every extra field is another reason not to bother. Simplify, don't expand.
Don't ignore the problem
Hoping it resolves itself is not a strategy. Low submission rates compound over time — they affect payroll accuracy, project costing, and HMRC compliance. The longer you leave it, the harder it is to fix.
Measuring Success: What Good Looks Like
How do you know if your efforts to improve timesheet compliance are actually working? Track these numbers:
- On-time submission rate — This is your headline metric. A well-run business should aim for 95% or higher. Below 80% means you have a systemic problem.
- Average time to submit — How long after the deadline do late submissions come in? If most arrive within an hour, your deadline is working but needs a nudge. If they trickle in over days, the process is broken.
- Repeat offenders — Track who is consistently late. If the same 3 people miss every week, you have a targeted problem to solve.
- Manager follow-up time — How many hours per week do managers spend chasing timesheets? This should trend towards zero.
Review these monthly. Celebrate when numbers improve — share the stats with the team. If a department hits 100% for a month, recognise it publicly. Positive reinforcement works at the team level too.
Make Timesheet Submission Effortless with TimeTally
TimeTally is built specifically for UK businesses that want to stop chasing timesheets and start getting them in on time, every week. Mobile-first timesheets, automated reminders, built-in rewards, and a manager dashboard that shows you exactly where things stand — all in one place.
No spreadsheets. No email chains. No more Friday afternoon frustration.