Timesheets and Time Cards

What Timesheets Are

Everyone who works in the field records their own time: travel and time on site against a visit, and time that is not on a job, such as a van stock run, training, office work, holiday or sickness. Each UK day is a time card that its person submits; the office then approves it, or sends it back with what to correct. An approved day is locked, and a payroll file lists every approved entry.

• Engineers and anyone else who does field work (an owner or office user who also goes out) record time on the Time card, in the app or in the browser at /my-checks. Owners and office users approve it from Timesheets, under Diary in the menu. A one-person business has nobody to approve, so Timesheets is not shown to a sole trader.
• The day is the UK day (midnight to midnight, UK time), the day the time started on. A night call-out that runs past midnight stays on the day it began; to write one by hand, give its finish as the clock time (00:30) and a finish earlier than the start is read as the next morning. When that makes the entry more than 12 hours long (10:00 to 09:00 reads as 23 hours, ending the next morning), Manifold asks Is that right? before it saves, with Change the times selected; an ordinary night shift such as 22:00 to 06:00 saves without a question, and so does changing only the note on an entry whose times you have not touched.
• Engineers see and change only their own time, and only until the day is submitted. Client viewers cannot record time.
• The same words and rules are used in the app and in the browser. A timer started on one is picked up by the other once it has been sent: opened with no timer of its own running (or signed in again), the other shows it at the top of the screen with Stop, and does not offer to start another over it. A timer stopped or deleted on one device is over on the other too: the one still running there lets go of it the next time it is opened, and a late send from it never changes time that has already ended or been deleted, and only ends an entry that is still running: what you corrected on the other device (its start, kind, job or note) stays as you left it. Time kept on a device is kept for the person it was recorded for: it is never shown to, or sent as, anyone else who signs in on that device, and two people who share a browser each have their own timer.

Recording Time As An Engineer

Time is one tap from the visit you are on.

• One timer runs at a time. Starting another ends the first at the same moment, so there is no gap and no overlap. Time you record can never overlap other time of yours.
• A strip under the header shows what is being timed and for how long, on every page, with Stop (and Arrived, on site while travelling). A timer left running for over 12 hours is pointed out, so a forgotten one is stopped and its finish time corrected on the time card. A timer that has run for more than 24 hours is stopped at 24 hours however it ends (Stop, starting something else, arriving on site, finishing the visit), and the strip tells you to correct its finish time.
• With no signal everything still works: the timer runs on the device, and each start, stop and correction is sent when there is a signal, earliest start first. A timer started and stopped offline arrives as one entry with both times. Time that the server cannot take (it overlaps other time, or its day was already submitted) is kept on a notice on the strip until you dismiss it, so you are told rather than left believing it was filed, and a timer that cannot be filed stops. Signing out of the browser sends the time you left waiting (only yours) and then clears it; anything that could not be sent (no signal), and a timer still running, stays for you on that device and is never shown to or sent as anyone else, and the phone asks before it signs you out with time unsent.
• An entry cannot be longer than 24 hours, cannot start in the future and cannot be more than 62 days (two months) old; older time has to go through the office. An entry that is already there keeps the start it has, so a day the office reopens can still be put right.

1. 1On the card for a visit (the Next up card on My day, a booked job on My day or My week, or the check itself), tap Start travel when you set off, then Arrived, on site when you get there (that button is on the timer strip at the top of the screen, not on the card); or tap I’m on site if you did not time the journey. If the visit is booked for a later day, Start travel and I’m on site ask first (This visit is not today: the timer would record today’s time against it), and Not yet leaves nothing running. The question opens with Not yet selected, so a stray Enter does not start the timer on the wrong day. The Next up card’s Start job asks the same question first, in the same words, and Not yet keeps you on the card instead of opening the check.
2. 2On the Next up gas safety check, Start job opens the check as it always did and also starts your on-site time for that visit, so a visit started has its on-site entry by default.
3. 3Finishing the visit stops its on-site time by itself: submitting the check, filing the job report, Mark done, Visit done, or Can’t finish this job (return visit needed, or no access). Or tap Stop on the strip at the top of the screen that shows while a timer runs; once a visit’s timer is running, its card has no Stop of its own.
4. 4For time that is not on a job, open Time on My day and tap Van stock run, Training, Office or Other to start a timer, or use Add time to enter it by hand, which is also how holiday and sickness are recorded.

Your Time Card And Submitting The Day

Open Time to see one day: the entries oldest first, the total, the total by kind of time, and where the day stands.

• Use the arrows to move between days; the next-day arrow stops at today, and a day that has not happened yet (from an edited or old link) opens today with That day has not happened yet, so this shows today. Recent days lists the last two weeks with the total and the state of each: Not submitted, Waiting for approval, Approved or Returned.
• While a day is open you can Edit an entry (the kind of time, which visit, the start and finish as UK clock times, a note of up to 300 characters), Delete it (it asks first, and needs a signal) or Add time. Time against a visit offers the visits you had that day (a cancelled check is not offered, and two visits that read the same are told apart by their start time, or by 1 of 2), and an entry already against a job keeps its job. A timer running on this device is stopped with Stop on the strip at the top of the screen, and the card says so rather than showing a second Stop; a timer started on the other device (the phone, or the browser) has its own Stop on the card. A start or finish you leave alone stays exactly as it was recorded. A deleted entry stays deleted: a phone that was offline cannot bring it back. Once it has gone from the list, the card says Time entry deleted.
• Submit day sends the day to the office. It needs some time on the day and no timer still running (stop it, or give it a finish time first), and a day can be submitted once it has begun. It asks first, naming the day (Submit 15 Oct 2026?) and saying what it does: the day goes to the office to approve, and you cannot add, change or delete time on it unless the office sends it back. Not yet is selected, so one tap never closes a day; choose Yes, submit day to send it. Anything recorded with no signal is sent first.
• After you submit, the day is closed to you: nothing on it can be added, changed or deleted. The card says Waiting for approval.
• If the office sends the day back, you are told: My day (Today in the app) says The office sent back your time for that day, with Open the day, and the card says Returned with what they asked for. The day is open again: correct it and choose Submit day again. What you change or delete on a returned day is noted in the audit log (Time on a returned day changed or deleted), so the office can see what was done between its asking and your sending it back.
• An approved day is locked. Only the owner can reopen it, with a reason, which sends it back to you.

Approving Time (Owners And Office)

Timesheets, under Diary in the menu, lists the days people have submitted.

• Waiting for approval shows every submitted day in the workspace, oldest first, grouped by person and then by week, however old it is, so nothing waiting is hidden behind a date. By week shows everyone’s days in a chosen week whatever their state, with time not yet submitted marked Not submitted, so you can see who has not handed their days in. Returned shows the days with an engineer to correct.
• Show the entries under a day to see each stretch of time with where it was and any note. Approve locks the day. Send back asks what needs correcting and returns the day to its person, who is notified. Send back, and Reopen day on an approved day, are never greyed out: pressed with the note empty, they say what is missing under the note box (what needs correcting, or why you are reopening) and put the cursor in it.
• Approve all on a person’s week (or on one person’s waiting days) approves the days still waiting in one go. Days already dealt with are skipped.
• You cannot approve your own time as an office user; ask the owner. The owner can approve their own.
• Only the owner can reopen an approved day, with a reason, which returns it to its person. Approving, sending back and reopening are all recorded in the audit log (Day of time approved, returned, reopened), and so is a person submitting their day. The reason you give when sending a day back is kept on the day, not in the audit log.
• Choose one person from the list at the top to see only their days. The list holds your active people, plus anyone no longer active who has days in the list, marked (not active); people no longer active with nothing recorded are left out. Someone invited who has not joined yet is listed, marked (invited), as the Engineers list marks them.

The Payroll Export

Payroll export, at the bottom of Timesheets, downloads a CSV of every entry on an approved day in the dates you choose, for everyone or one person. The Who list holds the active people and, marked (not active), anyone no longer active who has approved time in the dates chosen; someone no longer active with none in those dates is not listed. Someone invited who has not joined yet is marked (invited), as in Show one person.

• One row per entry with these columns: Engineer, Date, Type, Job reference, Start, End, Minutes and Approved by. Dates are year-month-day and times are the UK 24-hour clock, so a spreadsheet sorts them as written. Minutes are rounded to the nearest minute for each entry.
• Only approved days are in it. A day still waiting, or with an engineer to correct, is not final, so it is left out until it is approved.
• Notes are not in it, and neither are the hourly cost rates.
• Up to 92 days at a time and 20,000 rows. A period with more entries than that is refused, with a message on the page telling you to split it, rather than exported with rows missing. The export is recorded in the audit log.

Hourly Cost Rates (Owner Only)

Cost rates, reached from Timesheets, is where the owner records what an hour of each person’s time costs the business.

• A rate is a figure in pounds per hour from a start date. Add a new rate when it changes; it applies from its date until a later one begins, so a pay rise never changes the cost of work already done. Setting a rate for a date that already has one replaces it, and a rate set by mistake can be removed. The Who picker lists active people only, because a rate cannot be set for anyone else; a person who is no longer active stays further down, marked (not active), only while they still hold a rate, so it can be read and removed. A missing or wrong box is marked and takes focus.
• Only the owner can see or set them. They are never shown to the office, to engineers or to clients, they are not in the payroll export, and the audit log records that a rate was set, never the amount.
• They are what a job’s labour is costed with. Job profit (Reports, Job profit, and the Profit card on a job) prices the finished travel and on-site time recorded on each job at the person’s rate in force on the day it was worked, and shows you the labour that comes of it, never the rate. Time with no rate in force is counted as nothing and the page says how many minutes it was. See Purchasing.

When A Person Is Deleted

Recorded time is a business record, because the hours were worked. If Manifold support deletes a team member at the customer’s request, the notes on their time and the reasons the office gave for sending their days back are cleared first, and the entries, times and cards stay as anonymous records.

Troubleshooting