TimeTally - Timesheet Management AppTimeTally
Charities & Non-Profits

Timesheet Software for UK Charities & Non-Profits

Charities carry the same employment law obligations as any UK employer, and often meet them with spreadsheets and paper forms. TimeTally gives paid staff a simple way to log hours by project from their phone. It gives you one record for payroll and for funder reporting. Charity staff scheduling is included as an optional rota, so next week's shifts and last week's actual hours sit in the same system. Approved timesheets export to Xero, QuickBooks, or CSV. From £3 per employee per month.

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Charity timesheet showing a week of staff hours, breaks and the project each day was worked on
TimeTally timesheet dashboard on mobile showing charity staff hours

“The app is simple to use, reliable, and makes managing staff records straightforward. The system has saved us a significant amount of administration time.”

CLI ManchesterJordan Ingoe, CLI Manchester

Simple Timesheets That Do Not Get in the Way

Charity staff are delivering services, not filling in forms. A TimeTally timesheet takes under 60 seconds a day. Enter start time, end time and breaks, assign the hours to a project, and submit. It works on any phone and on a shared office computer. It replaces the paper timesheet that comes back at the end of the month with three days missing.

TimeTally timesheet entry screen showing hours allocated to a project

  • Under a minute a day

    Enter a start time, an end time and any breaks. Total hours are calculated for you.

  • Hours assigned to a funding stream

    Pick the grant, programme or contract the hours belong to as you enter them.

  • Any phone, or the office computer

    TimeTally runs in a mobile browser. A sessional worker with no work phone can use the shared office computer instead.

Every charity time tracking scenario, handled

Tap any card for the detail.

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Approve Timesheets Before They Reach the Finance Lead

In most charities the person who approves the hours and the person who pays them are two different people, working on different days. Each period arrives already totalled: contracted hours separated from extra ones, and both split across the projects the days were worked on. Timesheet periods run weekly, fortnightly or four-weekly, so a charity on a monthly payroll run signs off in instalments rather than in one late scramble. Approved and exported are tracked as separate states, so a period a service manager signed cannot be paid twice when the bookkeeper runs payroll. See how the approval workflow fits together.

  • Extra hours are separated against that person's own threshold before anyone opens the period. The Saturday someone worked at an open day is already costed.
  • Every day is one line. Open it to see the unpaid break, the project the hours went to, and any note the worker added about why an evening ran long.
  • Pay rates are permission-based. A service lead can approve a team of eight without ever seeing what any of them are paid.
  • Send a reminder to anyone still outstanding in one tap. It arrives as a notification in their app, so chasing a sessional worker is not a round of texts on a Sunday night.
Weekly, fortnightly or four-weeklyPay is permission-based
Sign-off checklist Get Started
Approved charity timesheet showing contracted hours, extra hours, TOIL and pay for each day

Every Person's Submitted Hours in One List

The timesheet screen lists everyone for the current period with their department, whether they have submitted, and their total hours. A charity manager can see who still owes a timesheet without ringing round, and can work down the list from a phone. On a team where one coordinator covers several part-time and sessional posts, that list is the whole management job for the week.

  • One row per person, showing the department they sit in, whether they have submitted, and the hours they submitted for the period.
  • Move between periods with the arrows at the top. The list reloads for whichever week you are looking at.
  • Approve everyone at once, or open a single person and approve or reject one day on its own.
  • Rejections carry a written reason, so someone who booked hours to the wrong grant knows what to correct and resubmit.
  • Export the period to payroll from the same screen, and read the team overview calendar underneath it.
Phone, tablet or desktopReminders are sent by hand
Charity manager view on a phone listing each employee, their department, whether they have submitted, and their total hours for the week
Team overview

Charity Staff Scheduling and Rostering Sit Beside the Hours

Charities search for charity staff scheduling software and for charity staff rostering software. Both names describe the same job. They are usually solving two problems at once: publishing who is on next week, and proving what everyone actually worked when the funder asks. TimeTally keeps those two records apart on purpose. Rota & Shift Scheduling is an optional feature that an admin switches on. It schedules people into weekly shifts, runs more than one named rota where a charity runs more than one service, lets staff request a swap for a colleague to cover, and can tag a shift with the project it belongs to. The timesheet stays the record of what happened, because a rota is a plan and plans change. If the rota is the part you care about most, our rota planner covers it in full. This page is about the hours.

Optional — off by defaultMultiple named rotasShift swaps and coverShifts tagged to a projectIncluded in the £3
See the rota planner Free rota template
TimeTally rota showing a week of shifts assigned across a team

See Who Is Working and Who Is Off

The team calendar shows the whole team's status in one place: submitted timesheets, approved holidays and absences. Use it to plan project coverage, spot staffing gaps, and check cover before approving leave. Holiday entitlement, carryover and custom leave types are covered in full on our charity leave management page.

Team calendar showing charity staff availability and holiday coverage

  • One view of the whole team

    Submitted timesheets, approved holidays and absences appear on one calendar.

  • Check cover before approving

    See who else is off on those dates before you approve a request. On a two-person service that decides whether a session runs.

  • Requests arrive in the app

    Leave requests go to the manager inside TimeTally rather than by email. Approving is one tap.

Watch a Manager Approve a Month of Timesheets

A short loop of the manager's calendar. The month grid gives one row per person and one cell per day, filtered by department, with Timesheet Requests and Time-off Requests listed beside it. A manager approves a submitted timesheet, opens the export, and confirms a payroll run showing regular pay, overtime and total for each person.

All Departments
Jun 2026
M
T
W
T
F
S
S
M
T
W
T
F
S
S
M
T
W
T
F
S
S
M
T
W
T
F
S
S
M
T
AR1

Amelia Roberts

Kitchen

JK2

James Kelly

Front of house

PS3

Priya Shah

Kitchen

MP4

Maya Patel

Front of house

TW5

Tom Wilson

Bar

Timesheet Requests

3
AR

Amelia Roberts

37h 30m · Week of Jun 15

JK

James Kelly

38h 30m · Week of Jun 8

Time-off Requests

2
PS

Priya Shah

3d · Annual Leave

MP

Maya Patel

2d · Sick Leave

AR

Amelia Roberts

Monday 15 June · 09:00

AR

0h 00m

09:00 – 17:00

Break
End Done

Timesheet submitted

Week of Jun 15

AR

Amelia Roberts

Kitchen

Week of Jun 15, 2026

Mon15
09:00–17:00·30m

7h 30m

Tue16
09:00–17:00·30m

7h 30m

Wed17
09:00–17:00·30m

7h 30m

Thu18
09:00–17:00·30m

7h 30m

Fri19
09:00–17:00·30m

7h 30m

Submit Timesheet Submitted

Payroll Export

Week of Jun 15, 2026 · 5 employees

Employee
Reg. pay
Overtime
Total
AR

Amelia Roberts

37.5h

£281.25

—

£281.25

JK

James Kelly

40h

£300.00

£22.50

2h

£322.50

PS

Priya Shah

32h

£240.00

—

£240.00

MP

Maya Patel

38h

£285.00

—

£285.00

TW

Tom Wilson

40h

£300.00

£45.00

4h

£345.00

Total · 5 employees

£1,406.25

£67.50

£1,473.75

Confirm Export Exported!

Used Across UK Charity & Non-Profit Settings

TimeTally works for any charity or non-profit that needs to track paid staff hours and manage holiday requests. Nonprofit time tracking usually means a small team, several funders, and a finance lead who is in one day a week. See how it works in practice.

Community

Community Charities

Local charities, community groups, and neighbourhood organisations with paid coordinators

  • One coordinator and several part-time sessional workers on one system
  • Evening and weekend sessions priced at their own rate
  • Hours a trustee can read without asking for a spreadsheet
Enterprise

Social Enterprises

CICs, trading arms, and social enterprises with mixed revenue streams

  • Trading hours and charitable hours separated at the point of entry
  • Shop and cafe teams clock in. Office staff fill in a form
  • Cost per activity for the board pack, not only for a funder
Grant-funded

Grant-Funded Organisations

Charities running multiple grant-funded projects with reporting requirements

  • A project per grant, with programmes nested underneath it
  • A split post logged as a split day, not estimated at year end
  • Export by project and date range when the claim falls due
Housing

Housing Associations

Registered providers and housing charities with maintenance and support staff

  • Maintenance rounds and support hours costed to the right scheme
  • Out-of-hours callouts on a time-of-day overtime rule
  • Hours grouped by scheme, and pay figures hidden from whoever approves
Honest positioning

What TimeTally Does — and What It Does Not

TimeTally is a timesheet and holiday management tool. It does some things well and there are things it does not do. Here is an honest summary so you can decide whether it fits your charity. If you are comparing HR software for charities UK-wide, TimeTally covers hours, overtime, rotas and holiday. It does not cover recruitment, appraisals or personnel files.

What TimeTally Does

Records daily hours worked by paid staff: start time, end time and breaks.

Tracks hours by project, so staff time is allocated to a specific grant or funding stream. Projects nest up to three levels deep.

Calculates overtime from each employee's own rate and threshold, on a daily, weekly or time-of-day trigger.

Manages holiday requests and calculates statutory entitlement automatically, including pro-rata for part-time staff and mid-year starters.

Exports approved timesheets to Xero, QuickBooks or CSV, filtered by date range, person or department.

Runs a timesheet approval workflow for managers. Pay figures can be hidden from them.

Schedules staff into weekly shifts if you switch the rota on, including swaps, cover and more than one named rota.

Works in mobile browsers and on iOS. There is nothing to download.

What TimeTally Does Not Do

Does not generate grant reports or funder-specific documents. It holds the data and you compile the report.

Does not monitor Working Time Regulations compliance or send alerts for breaches. It records hours. Compliance decisions remain with you.

Does not separate volunteer scheduling from paid staff rotas. The optional rota schedules anyone you have added as an employee, so a volunteer rota means volunteer accounts.

Does not produce Charity Commission annual return documents.

Does not replace your payroll system. It feeds data into it.

Does not cover the rest of HR. There is no recruitment, appraisals, personnel records or policy library.

Why it matters

Why Charities Need Accurate Timesheets

Registered charities in England and Wales employ over 950,000 paid staff. Every one of those employees has the same statutory rights as workers in any other sector — and charities have the same legal obligations as any employer.

The Working Time Regulations 1998 apply to charity employees just as they do to any other sector. Paid staff cannot average more than 48 hours per week (over a 17-week reference period), must receive at least 11 consecutive hours of rest between working days, and are entitled to a 20-minute uninterrupted break for shifts over six hours. These are not guidelines — they are legal requirements, and HMRC can request records at any time.

Beyond employment law, the Charity Commission expects trustees to demonstrate proper financial stewardship. Staff costs are typically the largest single expense for any charity. Being able to show how staff time was allocated — which projects, which funding streams — is fundamental to the annual return and to satisfying independent examiners or auditors.

For grant-funded work, the picture is even clearer. Funders such as the National Lottery Community Fund, Arts Council England, and local authorities routinely require evidence of how grant money was spent on staff time. If your charity cannot produce accurate records of hours worked on a specific project, you may struggle to satisfy reporting requirements or secure future funding. Funded hours tracking is what a grant claim is built from.

Many small charities still manage this with spreadsheets or paper forms. That works until it does not — a funder audit, a payroll dispute, or a trustee asking how much the youth programme actually cost in staff time. TimeTally does not solve every problem charities face, but it does give you a reliable, accessible record of paid staff hours by project. For charities looking for alternatives to spreadsheets, see our comparison with Excel.

Funders and funding streams

What TimeTally Does for Charity Teams

TimeTally is a straightforward timesheet and holiday management tool. Here is what it does and how it helps charities and non-profits.

Staff Hour Tracking

Paid staff enter their start and end times each day. This works for any pattern — standard office hours, irregular project work, weekend events, or split days. Total hours and overtime are calculated automatically based on each employee's rate and threshold.

Project & Grant Allocation

Use TimeTally's project tracking to assign hours to specific grants, programmes, or funding streams. If a project worker splits their day between two grant-funded projects, they can allocate hours accordingly. Projects nest up to three levels, so a funder can sit above its programmes rather than beside them. This gives you the data you need when reporting to funders — though TimeTally does not generate funder reports itself.

Hourly Rates & Overtime

Set an hourly rate and overtime rate for each employee. When timesheets are submitted, TimeTally calculates standard pay and overtime pay automatically. You can set daily or weekly overtime thresholds to match your charity's policies.

Break Tracking

Track lunch breaks and rest breaks separately. Under UK law, workers are entitled to a 20-minute uninterrupted break for shifts over six hours — use our break time compliance calculator to check. TimeTally records breaks and deducts them from total hours so payroll figures are accurate.

Payroll Export

Export approved timesheets to Xero, QuickBooks, or CSV with one click. The export includes employee names, standard hours, overtime hours, pay amounts, and break deductions. No manual re-entry needed — a real time-saver for small finance teams.

Mobile Access — No App Download

TimeTally works in any mobile browser. Staff do not need to download an app or install anything on personal devices. They can bookmark the page or use a shared computer in the office. There is also a native iOS app for those who prefer it.

Employment law & governance

Employment Law Applies to Charities Too

Charity status does not exempt you from employment law. Every paid member of staff has the same statutory rights as workers in the private sector. Accurate timesheet records are the foundation of meeting those obligations.

Volunteers vs Employees: The Legal Distinction

The distinction between a volunteer and an employee matters enormously. Under the Employment Rights Act 1996, an employee has a contract of employment and is entitled to the National Minimum Wage, paid holiday, rest breaks, and protection from unfair dismissal. A genuine volunteer has no contract and receives no payment beyond reasonable expenses.

Problems arise when the line blurs. If a “volunteer” has set hours, receives regular payments beyond expenses, or faces consequences for not turning up, HMRC and employment tribunals may reclassify them as workers or employees. This can result in back-payments of National Minimum Wage, holiday pay, and potential penalties. The Charity Commission's guidance is clear: charities must not use volunteer arrangements to avoid employment obligations.

TimeTally is designed for tracking paid staff hours. If you also want to record volunteer hours for your own records or annual reports, you can add them as employees in the system — but TimeTally does not distinguish between volunteer and employee accounts, and you should seek professional advice on the employment status of anyone working for your charity.

Charity Commission Financial Record-Keeping

The Charity Commission requires all registered charities to keep proper accounting records under the Charities Act 2011. Charities with income over £250,000 must have their accounts audited or independently examined. Staff costs — including salaries, National Insurance, and pension contributions — must be reported accurately. Timesheets that record hours by project give your finance team and auditors a clear basis for allocating staff costs to restricted and unrestricted funds.

What TimeTally Records Support

An accurate hour record supports six things once it sits in one place rather than in a folder of spreadsheets.

Working Time Regulations

TimeTally records all hours worked, including overtime. This gives you the data you need to review the 48-hour weekly average and rest period requirements. Use our working hours calculator to check averages. You can export this data at any time if HMRC or the HSE request records. TimeTally does not actively monitor or alert for breaches — it provides the data, and compliance decisions remain with you.

Grant Reporting Data

When staff assign hours to specific projects in TimeTally, you build a record of how much paid time went into each grant-funded programme. You can export this data by project and date range. This is genuinely useful for compiling funder reports, even though TimeTally does not generate the reports themselves.

National Minimum Wage

Accurate hours tracking ensures your effective hourly rate does not fall below the National Minimum Wage (£12.21/hour for workers aged 21+ from April 2025). This matters where staff work unpaid overtime or where incorrect break deductions could push the rate below the legal minimum.

Holiday Entitlement

All UK employees get 5.6 weeks statutory holiday (28 days for full-time). TimeTally calculates entitlement automatically, including pro-rata for part-time staff and mid-year starters, and tracks remaining allowance in real time. Sickness is recorded on the same record as a separate leave type, so a small team's absence pattern and its statutory sick pay position can both be worked out from one place. Entitlement, carryover and custom leave types are covered in full by our leave tracking software. Many small charities still calculate this manually — getting it wrong risks underpaying holiday entitlement.

HMRC Record-Keeping

HMRC requires employers to keep records of hours worked for at least two years. TimeTally stores all timesheet data digitally with timestamps and approval records — a complete audit trail that you can export whenever needed.

Full-Cost Recovery

Many funders now expect charities to include a proportion of overhead costs in grant applications. Timesheets that track hours by project give you the data to calculate what proportion of a staff member's time (and therefore salary cost) should be charged to each funding stream.

Simple, Transparent Pricing

One price. Every feature. No surprises.

£3/employee/month

Billed monthly, incl. VAT. Cancel anytime.

Hours tracked by grant, programme, or funding stream
Split hours across multiple projects in a single day
Holiday entitlement calculated automatically (including pro-rata)
Timesheet approval workflow
Optional rota and shift scheduling
Export to Xero, QuickBooks, or CSV
Get Started
Book a Demo

In short

What is charity timesheet software?

Charity timesheet software records the hours paid staff actually worked, and which project, grant or funding stream those hours belong to. A charity uses that record to pay people correctly and to evidence staff time when a funder, an independent examiner or HMRC asks. TimeTally does this for UK charities and non-profits from £3 per employee a month. Staff log start time, end time and breaks from any phone browser or the iOS app, split a day across more than one project, and submit the period for approval. Managers approve from their phone. Overtime is calculated against the thresholds you set. Approved hours export to Xero, QuickBooks or CSV. An optional rota schedules who is on, kept separate from the record of who worked. TimeTally does not produce grant reports or Charity Commission returns. It produces the hour and cost data those documents are built from.

Price
£3 per employee a month
Logging
Any phone browser, or the iOS app
Costs to
A grant, programme or funding stream
Exports to
Xero, QuickBooks, CSV
Also includes
Holiday, TOIL and an optional rota

Frequently Asked Questions

Can TimeTally track hours against specific grants or funding streams?

Yes. TimeTally has project tracking where you can create a project for each grant, programme, or funding stream. Projects nest up to three levels, so a funder can sit above its programmes. Staff assign their hours to the relevant project when submitting their timesheet. You can then export hours and costs by project and date range. This gives you the raw data for funder reports, though TimeTally does not generate the reports themselves.

Do charity staff need to download an app?

No. TimeTally works in any mobile browser — no app download or installation needed. Staff can bookmark the page on their phone or use a shared computer. There is also a native iOS app on the App Store for those who prefer it.

Can I set different pay rates for different employees?

Yes. Each employee has their own hourly rate and overtime rate. When timesheets are submitted, TimeTally calculates standard pay and overtime pay based on these rates. You can update rates at any time from the employee settings.

Does TimeTally do charity staff scheduling and rostering as well as timesheets?

Yes, but they are separate features and only the timesheet is on by default. Rota and shift scheduling is an optional feature an admin switches on in Settings. Once it is on you can schedule staff into weekly shifts, run more than one named rota where a charity runs more than one service, let staff request a shift swap for a colleague to cover, and tag a shift with the project it belongs to. The timesheet stays the record of what was actually worked, because a rota is a plan. Both are included in the £3 per employee per month. Our rota planner page covers the scheduling side in full.

How does TimeTally handle holiday entitlement for part-time charity staff?

TimeTally calculates statutory holiday entitlement (5.6 weeks) automatically, including pro-rata for part-time staff. If someone works three days a week, their entitlement is calculated accordingly. Mid-year starters get a pro-rata calculation too. UK bank holidays are pre-loaded.

Can staff split their hours across multiple projects in one day?

Yes. If a project worker spends the morning on a Lottery-funded programme and the afternoon on a local authority contract, they can create separate timesheet entries for each project. Reports then show exactly how many hours and how much cost went to each funding stream.

What is the difference between a volunteer and an employee for timesheet purposes?

Legally, volunteers are not employees and are not entitled to the National Minimum Wage, paid holiday, or employment protections. The distinction matters because if HMRC decides someone classified as a volunteer is actually a worker, you could face back-payments and penalties. TimeTally is designed for tracking paid staff hours. You can add volunteers to the system for your own records, but the system does not distinguish between volunteer and employee accounts.

Does TimeTally help with Working Time Regulations compliance?

TimeTally records all hours worked, including overtime. This gives you accurate data to review the 48-hour weekly average, rest periods, and break entitlements. You can export records at any time for inspections. However, TimeTally does not actively monitor or alert for WTR breaches — it provides the data, and compliance decisions remain with you.

What payroll systems does TimeTally export to?

TimeTally exports to Xero, QuickBooks, and CSV/Excel. The export includes employee names, standard hours, overtime hours, pay amounts, and break deductions. Most payroll systems can import CSV files if a direct integration is not available.

Can TimeTally produce reports for the Charity Commission annual return?

Not directly. The Charity Commission annual return requires specific financial information that goes beyond timesheet data. However, TimeTally's timesheet records — particularly hours and costs by project — give your finance team and auditors clear data for allocating staff costs to restricted and unrestricted funds, which feeds into your annual accounts.

Is TimeTally full HR software for charities in the UK?

No, and it is worth being clear about that before you compare it with one. TimeTally covers time and attendance — timesheets, overtime, TOIL, holiday and absence, an optional rota, and payroll export. It does not do recruitment, appraisals, personnel records, document storage or a policy library. Small charities often run TimeTally for hours and holiday alongside a payroll provider, rather than buying a full HR platform they only use a corner of.

How does TimeTally keep our data safe?

TimeTally uses Supabase (built on PostgreSQL) with row-level security, encrypted connections, and secure authentication. All data is stored in the cloud and accessible only to authorised users within your organisation.

Still have a question? See all FAQs

Explore TimeTally

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Related Resources

Guides and tools for UK charities and non-profits

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