What a timesheet is
A timesheet is the record of the hours an employee actually worked. It captures when a shift started and finished, any breaks, and the total hours that should be paid, often broken down by the role or rate that applies. For a shift-based operator, the timesheet is the bridge between the work that happened on the floor and the pay that results from it.
A timesheet is not the same as a roster. The roster is the plan of who is meant to work when. The timesheet is the record of what actually happened, which is rarely identical to the plan: shifts run long, someone covers a colleague, a break is skipped. Capturing the difference accurately is the point, because pay should reflect the hours worked, not the hours planned. The faster and more accurately timesheets are captured and approved, the smoother the pay run that follows.
Timesheets in the Cohiva platform
Cohiva Culture is an HRIS built for shift-based operators. It covers onboarding, rostering, leave, timesheets and payroll export. Because the roster and the timesheet live in the same system, the planned shift and the hours actually worked are part of one record, and approved hours feed payroll export rather than being re-keyed into a separate tool.
For multi-location and franchise operators with shift-based workforces, that connects the floor to pay without the gaps that re-entry creates. To see how it works, explore Culture.