Timesheets for Workers Who Are Not on Your Payroll

Yes. Keep timesheets for workers who are not on your payroll. Record the hours and site facts, get a supervisor to approve them, then send the approved data to the labour hire provider or contractor that pays the worker.

The important bit is knowing where your job stops. As the host, you confirm what happened on site. The worker’s employer decides how those facts become ordinary hours, overtime, allowances, super and leave.

Why the host still needs a timesheet

A labour hire worker may be paid by an agency, but your supervisor usually knows when the worker arrived, took a break, changed tasks or left the site. The provider cannot see those details from its office.

A sound host timesheet gives both businesses a shared record. It helps you:

• approve hours before payroll is run
• check labour hire invoices against approved time
• identify overtime, night work and weekend work
• record work at different sites or cost codes
• answer questions about breaks or disputed finish times
• provide facts needed for award, enterprise agreement or regulated labour hire arrangement checks
• keep contractor hours separate from your direct employees’ payroll

You can read more about managing providers and site labour in our labour hire guide.

Who does what

Not every person wearing your site induction sticker has the same legal arrangement. Start by identifying who engaged them and who pays them.

Worker arrangement	Who normally pays the worker	What the host records	Who applies pay rules
Labour hire employee	Labour hire provider	Attendance, breaks, tasks, location and approval	Labour hire provider
Subcontractor’s employee	Subcontracting business	Hours or completed work required by the subcontract	Subcontracting business
Sole trader paid by time	Host or head contractor	Agreed billable hours, work and approval	Depends on the true legal arrangement
Direct employee	Host employer	Full time and attendance record	Host payroll team

A timesheet does not decide whether somebody is an employee or contractor. An ABN, invoice or contractor label does not settle that question either.

Be careful where an individual is engaged mainly for their labour. They may be treated as an employee for super purposes even if they call themselves a contractor. Check the contract and working arrangement rather than relying on the heading at the top of an invoice.

What to put on the timesheet

Keep the form short enough to use properly, but detailed enough to support payroll and invoicing. Capture:

• worker name and a unique worker ID
• labour hire provider or subcontractor name
• project, site and cost code
• date worked
• actual start and finish times
• unpaid meal break start and finish, or total duration
• paid breaks where they affect the applicable instrument
• task, classification or crew where relevant
• travel between sites during the day
• shift type, such as day, afternoon or night
• any call-out, leading hand, height, confined space or other allowance trigger
• absence, early departure or site shutdown reason
• supervisor name, approval time and comments
• the original entry and a record of any correction

Record actual times, not just a total of “8 hours”. A 6:30am-3:00pm shift with a 30-minute unpaid break tells the payroll team much more than a single number.

Do not ask a supervisor to choose the final pay category unless they genuinely understand the applicable award or enterprise agreement. It is usually safer for the supervisor to confirm the facts. The employer’s payroll team can then map those facts to ordinary time, overtime or allowances.

Numbers worth checking

Several national rules explain why accurate time data matters.

• The super guarantee rate is 12% of ordinary time earnings as at September 2026. That rate has applied since 1 July 2025. The party liable for super still needs correct ordinary time earnings data.
• Fair Work employment records must generally be retained for 7 years as at September 2026. That legal duty normally sits with the employer, but the host should retain its approvals for the period required by its contract, policies and any applicable law.
• The National Employment Standards set a maximum of 38 hours per week for a full-time employee, plus reasonable additional hours, as at September 2026. A timesheet helps the employer assess additional hours and fatigue risks.
• An employer must generally give an employee a pay slip within 1 working day of payment as at September 2026. Late host approvals make that harder for the labour hire provider.

Award rates and allowances can change through annual wage reviews or variations. Do not copy an old rate into a permanent timesheet rule. Check the instrument that applies for the pay period.

Set an approval cut-off that works

Agree on a weekly timetable with each provider. For example, workers submit by Monday morning, site supervisors approve by noon, and disputed entries go back to the provider before its payroll cut-off.

Do not simply reject a whole timesheet because one line is unclear. Approve the undisputed hours and flag the item that needs checking. Holding back all hours can lead to underpayment or late payment.

Workers should be able to see what was submitted in their name. They should also have a simple way to question a change. Never overwrite an original entry without leaving an audit record showing who changed it, when and why.

Match the invoice without running a second payroll

The host’s invoice check is not a substitute for the provider’s payroll process. Match the invoice to:

1. approved workers and dates
2. approved hours or units
3. agreed charge rates
4. separately agreed overtime or allowance charges
5. purchase order and cost code
6. GST treatment shown on the tax invoice

A charge rate is not necessarily the worker’s pay rate. It may include wages, super, payroll tax, workers compensation, leave costs and the provider’s margin. Ask for enough detail to test the invoice, but do not assume the whole charge rate belongs to the worker.

Where a Fair Work Commission regulated labour hire arrangement order applies, the provider may need host employment information to calculate the protected rate of pay. The order and its effective date matter. “Same job, same pay” is not an automatic instruction to copy one hourly rate across every labour hire worker.

Protect the record

Timesheets contain personal information. Limit access to people who need it for site management, payroll support, invoicing or compliance. Use individual logins. Avoid shared supervisor accounts and photos of paper timesheets sitting in group chats.

Check whether the worker was actually inducted and supplied by an approved provider before accepting time. In jurisdictions with labour hire licensing, confirm the provider’s licence status through the relevant regulator. Licensing rules differ by state and territory.

Run regular checks for duplicate workers, overlapping shifts, missing breaks, unapproved changes and invoices above approved hours. Project Payroll’s compliance audit tool can help you review the records and follow up exceptions.

A practical rule for site teams

Tell supervisors to approve facts, not guess payroll outcomes. They should confirm who worked, where they worked, the actual times, breaks and unusual conditions. The labour hire provider should then calculate pay under the correct employment rules.

That split keeps responsibility clear. It also gives both sides useful evidence when a worker, provider or regulator asks what happened on site.