Introduction

Timesheets is where the hours your team clocks end up. You review them a department and a pay period at a time, correct anything that looks wrong, add time nobody clocked, and export the result.

There are two ways to look at the same hours. Check in/out shows the day: who was here, and for how long. Sessions shows the work: which order and stage the time went to.

Before you start. Your shops or departments need to be set up in Building Swell.

Step-by-Step Guide

1. Opening Timesheets

1. Go to the "Timesheets" tab located on the left of your home screen under "Insights"

2. Navigate to the top of the page and select the appropriate department from the tabs available.

   

3. Use the "Type" dropdown to switch between "Check In / Out" and "Sessions" views.

   

4. Check In / Out: Refers to the tracking of individual employee hours, showing when they clock in and out.

5. Sessions: Refers to scheduled blocks of time for specific activities or events, detailing when they occur.

2. Reviewing Hours

Reviewing Hours

1. Use the week navigation arrows or click "This week" to jump to the current week.

2. Use "Search people" to find a specific team member.

3. Click "Filters" to narrow by team, status, date range, stage, worker, task, or project.

Both the Check in/out and Sessions views support these controls, so start here regardless of which view you're in.

Hours can be rounded to the shift. When a department rounds, a check-in or check-out inside its grace period is recorded at the scheduled shift start or end, and that is the time Timesheets shows. Rounding runs a full day after the last session of that day ends, so the current week still shows the times people clocked. Set it per department under Departments.

3. Correcting Hours

In Check in/out, click any time entry in the grid to open the detail panel for that employee and day. From here you can:

• Review the total Check in hours

• Edit or add timestamps using the inline time fields

• Click "+ Add new entry" to log an additional check-in record

• Click "+ Add Work Session" to manually attach a session to that day

If your company uses pay types, this panel also carries a Pay Types tab, where you split the day across Regular, Overtime and your other payroll codes. See Pay Types for the full walkthrough. Entries flagged in red indicate a discrepancy, like a clock-in before shift start. Click "Approve all errors" in the detail panel to resolve them. Use the "Show errors only" toggle to focus on what needs attention.

In Sessions, click any row to open the edit panel. You can update the date, start and end times, duration, build order, stage, and cost code. Red entries here follow the same logic - use "Show errors only" to filter down.

4. Managing Sessions

1. Click New Session to create a session.

2. Select the person, choose the session type (Order Session or Overhead Session), and fill in the relevant details.

3. To edit an existing session, click any row to open the edit panel and make your changes.

5. Exporting Time

Check in/out and Sessions produce different files, so start from the view whose numbers you want.

From Check in/out:

1. Set the department tab, the week or date range, and any filters you want the file to reflect.

2. Click the ⋮ menu in the top right.

3. Choose Download as .csv or Download as .xlsx.

You get one row per person, and four columns for every day in the range: Check-in, Check-out, Hours and Notes, with a Total hours column at the end. If your company uses pay types, each day also gets one column per pay type, headed with the day and the payroll code, so payroll reads the split straight off the sheet. Check-in is that day’s earliest check-in and Check-out is its latest check-out, so somebody who clocked in and out three times still shows one pair of times next to their full hours for the day. The file is named timesheet-checks, followed by the first and last day of the range.

From Sessions:

1. Set the search and filters you want the file to reflect.

2. Click Export above the table.

3. The button reads Exporting while the file is built, then timesheet-sessions.xlsx downloads.

You get one row per session and eighteen columns: Name, Order name, Order ID, Task name, Task ID, Type, Path, Project, Project ID, Stage, Cost Code, Date, Start time, End time, Hours, Break hours, Shift hours and Status.

• Hours is decimal, and break time is already taken out.

• Type reads Order or Overhead. An overhead session carries the overhead’s own name and ID in Order name and Order ID, and shows a dash for Task name, Task ID, Project, Project ID and Stage.

• Status reads Edited when the session has been changed through the Sessions edit panel, and Default when it has not.

Both exports follow what is on screen. The department, the date range, the people search and every filter carry into the file. Narrow the view first rather than exporting everything and cutting it down in the spreadsheet.

Tips

• Narrow the view before you export. The department, the dates, the people search and every filter carry into the file. Setting them here beats trimming a spreadsheet afterwards.

• Red flags an entry to look at, not one that has been thrown out. When pay types are on, a day whose split does not match its paid hours shows Missing Type in red, and it cannot be approved until the split is rebalanced. Turn on Show errors only and clear them in one pass.

• The period follows your pay cycle. A weekly shop shows seven days and a fortnightly one shows fourteen, starting on the day that shop’s pay cycle starts.

• Missing hours get added by hand. Use + Add new entry or + Add Work Session in Check in/out, or New Session in Sessions.

For where hours come from in the first place, see Tracking Time. For splitting a day across your payroll categories, see Pay Types.

Conclusion

Timesheets gives you a clear picture of where your team's hours are going, and the tools to fix anything that looks off. If you've got questions, reach out and we'll help you get sorted.

Have additional questions? Contact Us