Approving and correcting timesheets before payroll: who can change a timesheet?

What the law asks of the record

Section 130 of the Employment Relations Act 2000 requires every employer to keep a wages and time record. For each employee it shows "the number of hours worked each day in a pay period and the pay for those hours", and the wages paid each pay period with how they were worked out. It can be on paper or electronic, as long as it can easily be turned into writing. Where someone works agreed, usual hours, stating them in the agreement or a roster is enough. When hours vary, the record needs the hours worked, day by day.

Section 4B adds a wider duty: keep records in enough detail to show you have met minimum entitlements, such as the minimum wage. Our article on wage and time records covers the full list and the penalties. Three points shape how you approve and correct timesheets:

• The duty is yours. The Act puts the record on the employer. A timesheet is how most employers fill it, but once you pay from it, it is your record.
• A late or wrong timesheet still gets paid. Employment New Zealand says that if an employee forgets a timesheet, or it is not correct, they must still be paid, and you need to talk with them and agree what to do. If an agreement or workplace policy requires timesheets, that cannot change unless you both agree.
• Gaps count against you. Under section 132, if you failed to keep or produce the record and that hurt an employee's ability to make an accurate claim for wages, the Employment Relations Authority may accept their account of the hours they worked and the wages they were paid, unless you prove it wrong.

Employees can also see it. On request, you must give an employee, or their representative, immediate access to their wages and time record, or a copy or extract, for any time in the preceding six years.

A weekly routine before payroll

Checking timesheets works best as a short routine at the same point in every pay period, not a scramble on pay day. This one suits most small teams:

1. Set a cut-off. Ask for hours by a set time, such as Monday at 10 am for the week before, early enough to sort out questions before the pay run. Say what happens if someone misses it: they are still paid, and you will follow up.
2. Check each week against the roster. The roster is the plan; the timesheet is what happened. Look for the differences: a late finish, a swapped day, a short shift, a shift worked but not logged. A difference is not an error, but each one deserves a look.
3. Look for gaps. A rostered day with no hours, a long shift with no break recorded, a timer that ran overnight, an entry on a day off.
4. Ask, do not assume. Send the person the date and the figure: "Tuesday shows 9 am to 7 pm with no meal break. Is that right?" Most answers come quickly, and many timesheets turn out to be right.
5. Correct with their knowledge. Agree the change, make it, and note the reason (more on this below).
6. Export and keep. Send the agreed hours to your payroll software, and keep the timesheets, every correction and the export together with the pay period.

Two traps sit inside the roster check. The first is paying the roster instead of the timesheet: if someone stayed 40 minutes to close up, the record and the pay should both show it. The second is rounding. Our article on whether an employer can round hours explains why rounding that only ever goes against staff leaves time unpaid. If your payroll wants decimal hours, Calculate.co.nz has an hours to decimal calculator.

Correcting hours with the worker's knowledge

The law does not say who may type the change. It says the record must show the hours worked, and that you and your employees must deal with each other in good faith. Section 4 of the Act says neither side may do anything to mislead or deceive the other, or anything likely to. Changing someone's hours without telling them, so that their pay drops, is hard to square with that.

• A worker can fix their own mistakes before the cut-off: a wrong date, a forgotten break, a timer left running. Encourage it. It is the cheapest correction there is.
• A manager can propose a change with the reason, and make it once the worker agrees. If your system lets managers edit hours directly, make telling the person part of the edit, not an afterthought.
• Nobody changes hours silently. Not to fit a budget, not to match the roster, and not to round down.

If you cannot agree, a fair way through is to pay the hours you both accept on the usual pay day, write down what is in dispute and why, and keep talking. Employment New Zealand (0800 20 90 20) can explain your options, including mediation, and a union or a lawyer can advise on a particular case.

Keeping both versions

A correction should add to the record, not wipe it. Keep the original entry and the corrected one, who changed it and when, and why. If the worker agreed, note how: a written reply beats a memory of a conversation.

Both versions protect everyone. If a pay claim comes up years later, a record that shows what was entered, what changed and why is far stronger than a tidy sheet with no history, and section 132 makes a weak record your problem. Staff often keep their own notes too, and our guide to keeping your own timesheet shows what they are told to write down, so you know what your record may be compared with. Employment New Zealand adds that if payroll software does the sums, you still need to check it accurately records any changes to hours and pay.

Team timesheets from jobtracker.co.nz is built around keeping both versions, but it has no approval button or sign-off step in this version. Each person logs hours in their own Your Timesheets and marks a week sent when it is done. A manager cannot edit anyone's hours, so the worker makes any correction in their own timesheet, and that person's week in Team timesheets marks the entry "Changed after sending" with the earlier figures and when they changed, such as "Was 7.5 hours (9:00am to 5:00pm); changed 28 Sept, 4:15 pm". For the people who choose to share their hours with you, the Team page shows each person's hours and who has not logged anything this week, and a CSV of the period is ready for your payroll software.

Disputes and deductions

Corrections run both ways, and the law treats the two directions differently.

When you paid too little, pay the difference. It is wages owed, and section 131 lets an employee recover unpaid wages through the Employment Relations Authority, even if they accepted the lower payment at the time. Putting it right in the next pay run, or sooner, ends the matter.

When you paid too much, the Wages Protection Act 1983 applies. Section 4 says wages are paid in full, without deduction, except as the Act allows. Under section 5, a deduction for a lawful purpose needs the worker's written consent or written request. A general deductions clause in an employment agreement counts as consent, but you must consult the worker before making a specific deduction under it, and section 5A forbids any deduction that is unreasonable.

Employment New Zealand is direct about overpayments from a one-off miscalculation or error, such as a wrong figure keyed into payroll: do not deduct them automatically. Get the worker's written consent, and if you cannot, or they have left, consider mediation. The narrow exception in section 6, which lets you recover an overpayment after giving notice, applies only to time when someone was absent without authority, on strike, locked out or suspended.

Deductions must also relate to a real, measurable loss, and Employment New Zealand says you must not deduct wages for time lost through poor performance. A timesheet that claimed too much is a conversation first. If you think it was more than a mistake, raise it with the person fairly, as its own matter, rather than settling it by trimming their pay.

Corrections everyone can see