What hours and timesheet records must employers keep?
A plain checklist of the time and wages records an employer keeps for hours worked, how they have to be kept, and who can ask to see them, with the official sources to check it against.
General information only, not legal advice. Rules differ between awards, agreements, contracts and states, and what applies depends on the employee. Check the official source, and ask a workplace relations professional when it matters.
The short answer
Employers must make and keep time and wages records for each employee, and keep them for seven years. The records have to be legible, in English and in a form an inspector can readily access, and they must not be false or misleading.
What has to be recorded about hours depends on the employee. The Fair Work Regulations set out the detail, including the hours worked each day by casual and irregular part-time employees, and records of overtime.
Employers must also give employees a pay slip within one working day of paying them.
| Record | What it covers |
|---|---|
| The employee | Who they are, when they started, and whether they are full-time, part-time or casual |
| Pay | Rate of pay, gross and net amounts, deductions, and any loadings, penalty rates or allowances |
| Hours | Hours worked each day by casual and irregular part-time employees, and overtime |
| Leave | Leave taken and balances, where leave accrues |
| Superannuation | Contributions made, and the fund they were paid to |
Official sources
Check the rule against these, in their current versions, before relying on it.
| Source | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Fair Work Act 2009 | Section 535 on keeping records, and section 536 on pay slips |
| Fair Work Regulations 2009 | What the records must contain, and how employees can see them |
Worked examples
General examples of where to look. They are not advice about any particular employee.
| Situation | What to check |
|---|---|
| A casual forgets to clock out and the time is fixed the next day | Keep the correction, when it was made and why, so the record is corrected openly rather than quietly changed |
| A part-time employee works two extra hours on a busy Saturday | Record the hours worked that day, and whether the award makes them overtime |
| A former employee asks to see their timesheets from three years ago | The records are inside the seven years, so they are still kept, and the regulations say how access is given |
Employer checklist
- Keep a record for every employee from their first day
- Record hours each day for casual and irregular part-time employees
- Record overtime, and any agreement to average hours
- Correct mistakes openly, with the reason, rather than overwriting them
- Give a pay slip within one working day of each pay
- Keep everything for seven years, somewhere you can produce it
What Roster Flow records, and what it does not decide
- Clock ins and outs, and breaks started and ended, as they happen
- Corrections to a time, with the reason and the manager who decided it
- The approved hours for each week, as they went to payroll or were exported
- Leave requests and the decision on each
- Whether your records, on their own, meet every legal requirement
- Pay slips, which come from your payroll software
- What anybody is paid, including penalty rates, loadings and overtime
Review log
13 September 2026: written by Roster Flow from the structure of the National Employment Standards and modern awards.
18 September 2026: every statement on this page checked against the official sources it names, by Roster Flow. It is general information, not advice from a workplace relations professional.
What that check covers, and what to confirm for your own situation:
- The records the regulations require, and which of them are about hours
- How, and how quickly, an employee or former employee can see their records
- How a correction to a record should be made and kept
- That every source link opens the current version of the source
Questions
What hours and timesheet records must employers keep?
Employers must make and keep time and wages records for each employee, and keep them for seven years. The records have to be legible, in English and in a form an inspector can readily access, and they must not be false or misleading.
Is there more to record-keeping than that?
What has to be recorded about hours depends on the employee. The Fair Work Regulations set out the detail, including the hours worked each day by casual and irregular part-time employees, and records of overtime.
Does Roster Flow decide record-keeping for me?
No. It does not interpret an award and it does not work out what anybody is paid. Whether your records, on their own, meet every legal requirement stays with the business and its own advisers, and this page is general information rather than advice about your situation.
Where do the rules on record-keeping come from?
Fair Work Act 2009, covering section 535 on keeping records, and section 536 on pay slips. Fair Work Regulations 2009, covering what the records must contain, and how employees can see them. Read them in their current versions before you rely on anything here, because they change.