Monday morning in the back office
Payroll cut-off is Tuesday. On Monday morning the back office opens a spreadsheet of placed contractors and starts chasing: who has not sent a timesheet, whose timesheet is a photo of a paper form, whose client manager has not approved. Some timesheets arrive as Excel files with hours in the wrong columns. One client approver is on holiday and nobody knows who covers.
By Tuesday afternoon most are in. The rest get paid late or estimated, and invoicing the clients slips for another week.
Then there are the corrections. A contractor claims overtime the client did not agree. A timesheet covers the wrong week. Someone divides by the wrong rate in the spreadsheet. Each one is small, but each one costs another round of emails, and they all land at the same moment as the chasing.
Why timesheets are always late
- Timesheets come in several formats: paper, spreadsheet, email, client portals.
- Contractors are not reminded until someone in the office notices they are missing.
- Client approvers get an email attachment, which sits in their inbox.
- Nobody knows who the backup approver is when the usual one is away.
- Approved hours are retyped into payroll and invoicing, so errors creep in at the end.
The chasing is a symptom. The cause is a process where every step depends on a person noticing and prompting another person.
What the chase costs
Late timesheets mean late pay, and contractors who are paid late look for other agencies. Late approvals mean late invoices and slower cash in, which matters when you are funding payroll before clients pay. Retyping hours causes pay errors that then take more time to fix. And the back office spends the start of every week chasing instead of doing anything else.
| Step | Manual process | Automated process |
|---|---|---|
| Submit | Paper, spreadsheet or email | Mobile form against the placement |
| Reminder | Office notices and emails | Automatic, before and after the deadline |
| Approve | Attachment in client's inbox | One-click approve or query link |
| Escalate | Office works out who to ask | Backup approver after a set time |
| Pay and invoice | Retyped from timesheets | Approved hours pushed to payroll and invoicing |
How we build the timesheet flow
- Placements are pulled from your recruitment CRM, such as Bullhorn, Vincere or JobAdder, so each contractor's rate, client and approver are known.
- Contractors submit hours on a simple mobile form, with breaks, overtime and expenses where they apply, and photos of receipts if needed.
- Reminders go out before the deadline and again after it, only to those who have not submitted.
- Clients' approvers get an email or text with the hours and a one-click approve or query link, no login required.
- If the approver does not respond within a period you set, a backup approver is asked, and the office is told.
- Queries go to a shared queue with the timesheet and the approver's comment, for the office to resolve.
- Approved hours flow to your payroll or umbrella company export and to invoicing in Xero, Sage or QuickBooks, using the rates on the placement.
If you already use a timesheet product and the problem is just chasing and data entry, we connect to it instead of replacing it.
What Monday looks like afterwards
By the time the office opens, most timesheets are in and approved, because contractors were reminded and approvers only had to click. The back office sees a short list of exceptions: missing timesheets, queries and approvals past their deadline. Payroll and invoicing run from approved data, so the retyping step and its errors disappear.
Contractors notice the difference too. They submit from their phone in a minute, get a confirmation when the client approves, and are paid on time more often, which matters in a market where good contractors have a choice of agency. Your consultants stop being asked 'have you got my timesheet?' by people they would rather be talking to about their next contract.
There is also a record for every week: who submitted when, who approved, what was queried and how it was resolved. When a client disputes an invoice months later, that history is there.
Is this your back office?
- Chasing timesheets takes most of Monday.
- Timesheets arrive in several formats.
- Client approvals are chased by email and phone.
- Contractors are sometimes paid late because approvals are missing.
- Approved hours are retyped into payroll and invoicing.