Collage's Time Tracking module lets you easily track employee hours worked, have managers approve timesheets, and export timesheets and hours to be used in payroll.

This article will walk you through how to set up a time tracking policy, enrol employees, manage employee timesheet entries, and export employee hours.

The first time you go to Time Tracking, you will be prompted to create a new policy:

Step 1: Start by adding a policy name.

Step 2: Create a pay schedule by entering the start date of the pay schedule and selecting a frequency. The pay schedule in the time tracking policy should match the schedule that the employees in the policy are paid at.

Future timesheets will automatically be created to match your pay schedule.

Step 3: Define overtime rules.

Standard will match the overtime rules of the employee's province of residence, and is the recommended option if all of the employees in the policy are in Canada, and none are federally-regulated. For more information on overtime, please view our overtime support article.

Custom lets you specify your own overtime rules by setting the threshold for daily overtime, daily double overtime, and weekly overtime. Custom is recommended for policies containing federally-regulated employees, or employees not based in Canada who earn overtime, or employees who have any alternative overtime arrangements.

Exempt will not calculate any overtime at all. Exempt is recommended for policies with employees whose work is exempt from overtime per provincial employment standards, for contractors who do not earn overtime, and for any other staff who should not earn overtime on their hours worked.

Step 4: Add employees.

Select employees in the left-hand Available Employees column, and use the arrows in the middle to add them to the policy.

In the list of employees to be added to a policy, multiple employees can be selected by clicking and dragging, or by using Ctrl + Click on Windows or Cmd + Click on Mac.

Step 5: Select an Assignee.

The assignee will be responsible for approving the timesheets of any employee enrolled in the policy.

For most people, this will be their manager, but if you want a specific employee to approve timesheets instead of a manager, simply select them from the dropdown.

Step 6: Review your policy and specify notification settings.

On the final page, ensure all the details of the policy are correct. You can also specify if employees and assignees should receive notifications for if a pay period has ended and their timesheets are due, and if an approved timesheet has been edited.

Once you click Finish, your time tracking policy will be ready, and employees can submit timesheets.

Employees can now view their timesheets in the My Timesheets tab and add their time entries.

By default, the current timesheet will be visible, but employees can go back to previous timesheets using the Pay Period dropdown in the top left.

Employees can enter their time worked on each day of the pay period, and these amounts will be totalled at the top automatically.

If an employee has any approved time off during the pay period, that amount will be reflected in the timesheet, as well as in the totals at the top:

Employees don't need to manually submit their timesheets, as their entries will be automatically saved, and managers will be notified when a pay period is over and timesheets need to be reviewed.

Once timesheets are ready to be approved, managers can view employee timesheets in the Timesheets tab:

Managers will only see timesheets for approval in policies where they are the assignee. Admins can view all timesheets by switching from "Assigned to me" to "All" in the dropdown beside the employee search bar.

By default, timesheets will be visible for the current pay period. If a manager is an assignee in multiple time tracking policies, or they want to see previous pay periods, they can switch between policies and pay periods using the Pay Schedule and Pay Period dropdowns, respectively.

Timesheets can be approved using the "Approve" button in the top right. If an assignee is also enrolled in the time tracking policy for which they are the assignee, they will be able to approve/export their own hours directly from the My Timesheets tab.

Employees can edit timesheets after they have been approved, but this will notify their manager/the policy assignee.

The Time Tracking module offers 2 exports: timesheets and payroll hours.

Exporting Timesheets

Individual timesheets can be exported by managers and admins when viewing an employee's timesheet using the Export button in the top right:

The timesheet export will show an employee's hours for that current pay period, any notes added to timesheet entries, and whether or not that entry has been approved:

Exporting Payroll Hours

The payroll hours export is intended to export total hours for multiple employees, so that these hours can be entered into the payroll provider you use.

To view payroll hours, go to the Payroll Hours tab:

This page will give you an overview of all of the totals for the selected schedule and pay period. Hours can also be approved from this page:

The Payroll Hours export will show you a list of employees, their total hours for the selected pay period, and whether or not hours have been approved:

If you want employees to designate specific tasks/clients/projects etc they are spending their time on, the Collage Time Tracking module lets you set up projects.

First, go to the Manage tab, and scroll down to the Projects panel at the bottom:

Create a new project, give it a name, and select the employees that should be in it:

Once the project has been created, any employees added to it will be able to specify the project when they are submitting hours:

These hours will also appear in the Payroll Hours page and export, separated out by project. This is useful if, for example, 2 projects have 2 different pay rates, or are billed to 2 separate clients: