Free employee time clock: review hours before payroll

What the free employee time clock includes

The path has four parts: clocked hours, employer review, employer approval and the payroll handoff. Each part answers a different question. What was recorded? Does it reflect the work? Has the employer approved it? Are those the hours being used for payroll?

Keeping those questions separate makes a missing punch easier to investigate. You can review the time record before relying on its total. An approval should follow that review, with questions resolved or clearly passed to the person responsible.

Start by deciding who in your business will review timesheets. Make sure employees know whom to contact when a recorded punch needs attention.

Check the record before the total

Review the recorded hours against the information available to you. Confirm the employee and the period you are looking at. Look for missing punches or entries that need an explanation. A plausible total can still contain an entry that needs correction.

If an employee reports a missing clock-out, ask what happened and gather the information needed to review it. Avoid replacing the record with a guess that simply produces the usual number of hours.

The product lets employees clock in from a phone or tablet. That describes how the record begins. Employer review is the next part of the workflow, so leave room for questions before approving the timesheet.

Give corrections a clear reason

Corrections in WagePress™ keep an audit trail. Use that trail alongside your own supporting information so the reason for a change can be understood later.

For a missing punch, confirm the work information with the employee. For an unexpected entry, check the source before changing it. The aim is a record you can explain, rather than a total that merely looks tidier.

Keep the supporting explanation in your own business records. Choose a way to keep the explanation with the payroll records you use.

A reviewer should be able to understand what needed attention and why the corrected hours were accepted. Clear evidence helps the next person review the work without reconstructing it from memory.

Approve the timesheet after review

Employers review and approve timesheets in WagePress™. Treat that approval as a decision about the hours you have checked.

Before approving, confirm that the record belongs to the right employee and period. Resolve open questions about the recorded work. If someone else helped investigate a correction, make sure the person approving the timesheet understands the result.

For an accounting firm helping an employer, agree who owns that decision in the client's process. Product access and business responsibility are different questions. Do not assume that whoever can see a record has been asked to approve it.

This is a useful place for a short handoff: what was reviewed, what changed and whether anything remains unresolved.

Compare approved hours with payroll

Approved hours flow into WagePress™ payroll. When you prepare payroll, compare the hours being used with the timesheet the employer approved.

Start with the employee and pay period, then check the hours. If they do not match the record you expected, find the reason before relying on the payroll result. The comparison should be specific enough that another reviewer can repeat it.

Hours are one part of payroll. Pay information and withholding information need review too. For federal income tax withholding, the IRS explains that Form W-4 provides employee information used to compute the amount withheld.

Keep that distinction clear in your process. Approving a timesheet confirms the hours you reviewed. It does not, by itself, confirm every other input to a paycheck calculation.

Review the paycheck as a separate step

WagePress™ calculates federal income tax, Social Security, Medicare and state withholding from each agency's published guides. It also makes paystubs and keeps year-to-date records.

After reviewing the hours, review the payroll result. Check the employee and period again. Compare the pay information with the information you intended to use. Investigate anything that differs from the supporting records.

Under Self-Pay, the employer pays employees, makes tax deposits and files returns. A reviewed timesheet therefore leads to more work after the hours are approved. Give that work a clear owner in your own process.

Keep the timesheet review and the payment review connected. The person making a payment should know which approved hours and payroll result it relates to.

Keep the supporting records together

A timesheet can explain hours, while payroll records explain wages and withholding. Payment and tax records show what happened after calculation. Keep those parts connected in your own filing process.

TWC's recordkeeping guidance explains why documentation of hours and wages matters when a wage dispute arises. The IRS also lists wage payment information, withholding certificates, tax deposit information and copies of returns among employment tax records.

Use those official resources to review the records your business needs. The clock's correction audit trail describes a product feature; it does not establish that every recordkeeping duty has been met.

For your own review, ask whether another person could follow the approved hours to the payroll result and then to the payment evidence. Keep unresolved questions visible until someone has checked them.

Choose the next step

The free time clock includes unlimited employees at $0 per month. You can begin your plan with the clock workflow and consider payroll alongside the employer's payment responsibilities.

When you compare the options, focus on the work: who reviews hours, who approves them and who handles the next payroll actions. That gives you a clear basis for deciding how the pieces fit your business.

Explore the free time clock.

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