It’s 2025... Excel and manually reviewing spreadsheets doesn’t cut it anymore

Eliminating time-consuming tasks and reducing errors with automation

It’s 2025. If you’re still grappling with tedious manual timesheet processes, then it’s high time you take a step back and rethink what those contractor management tasks look like. 

To put it bluntly, manual timesheet processes are wasting valuable time, increasing the likelihood of errors, and saddling your team with further administrative burdens. 

Each hour spent poring over Excel spreadsheets and contractor timesheets is an hour away from value-adding activities or other strategic tasks. 

Worse, the sheer volume of information you need to deal with is a recipe for eyes glazing over, making it far more likely an error will slip by unnoticed. The true cost of these issues will be felt later on, long after the issue has occurred—making it impossible to correct them in any timely manner, contributing to greater costs and overbilling.

Good news, though: by automating contractor timesheet processes, businesses like yours can access greater efficiency, unlock additional cost savings, and reduce administrative burdens. 

Let’s dig in.

Why it’s time to ditch manual timesheet processes

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, manual timesheet processes are wasting valuable time. Every moment spent on reviewing contract compliance is a moment that you could be using to strengthen your existing processes, contractor relationships, and overall procurement performance.

Really, though, there’s a whole laundry list of reasons why you should rethink a manual approach:

• Increased administrative burden
• Increased error rate
• Increased costs 
• Slow approval processes and constant back-and-forth communication

The longer you stick with manual processes, the more time, money, and momentum you lose.

Increased administrative burden

First and foremost is the burden manual processes place on procurement teams everywhere. Manual contractor compliance tasks have been charitably described as “soul-crushing” by people who’ve had to deal with them. 

In theory, these processes seem straightforward enough: you review timesheet submissions and compare them to contract terms to ensure compliance. Basically, you’re looking to check every box to make sure everything lines up properly. 

But in practice, this means you’re assigning team members (if you’re not doing it yourself) to stare at screens for hours if not days at a time, poring over Excel spreadsheets. It’s hard to accurately state just how much time this takes, but we’ve crunched some of the numbers to help put it all in perspective. 

Say you’re operating a $100 million facility and, on average, you receive 13,726 timesheets a year. On average, it takes around 30 minutes to review each timesheet manually, which adds up to 411,780 minutes on timesheet review alone—that’s 411,780 minutes spent reviewing timesheets, or 6,863 hours over the course of the year.

That’s a lot of time and effort that could be put to better use elsewhere.

Increased error rate 

Manual processes aren’t just time-consuming, they’re also error-prone thanks to the sheer volume of data that you need to work through. Each timesheet you or a team member reviews with these old-school processes could be hiding any number of additional costs, mistakes, or duplicate entries. 

When you start reviewing a batch of timesheets, it’s fairly easy to spot these discrepancies… but by the tenth, let alone the twentieth, chances are your eyes are glazing over. 

This isn’t anyone’s fault; it’s notoriously difficult to parse this volume of data at the scale needed for most capital projects, let alone smaller. Human error is unavoidable at scale. This challenge is quite similar to the concept of alarm fatigue, where staff on job sites either tune out or disable things like proximity alarms or back-up alerts due to how prevalent they become. 

While alarm fatigue contributes to very real safety risks on job sites, errors hiding in timesheets represent significant financial risk. Even the smallest error can add up over time to serious overspend and overbilling. 

Increased costs

The greater likelihood of an error slipping by unnoticed, coupled with the sheer volume of work hours needed for manual timesheet processes, add up to one thing: greater financial costs. 

Let’s jump back to the figures we used above to illustrate this point. Remember, we had 6,863 hours spent on revision. If we apply a labor rate of $100 an hour, then you’re spending over $600,000 on these tasks alone, all without a guarantee of accuracy. 

Considering how those inaccuracies contribute to serious, persistent cost leakage, it simply doesn't make sense to stick with a manual approach. It all adds up:

• Incorrect labor rates
• Non-compliant labor hours
• Travel expense discrepancies
• Non-compliant equipment expenses
• Unapproved material costs

Without a means of catching these issues early on, your budget pays the price.

Slow approvals and communication

By now, one theme should be apparent with manual processes: it slows everything down. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the delays and difficulties the manual approach adds to the approval process. 

Consider how timesheet submissions are intended to work. The usual workflow has contractors performing their work, recording their hours, applying appropriate rates, and then submitting the timesheet to the employer. From there, it needs to be reviewed. Any identified discrepancies are flagged to the contractor, the sheet is sent back, and then they’re able to resubmit with appropriate rates and hours. 

But as we’ve seen, a manual workflow makes this an absolute slog to get through, which leads to even slower progress on the job site—contractors aren’t getting paid, which means they’re not going to continue to work. Now, you’re not just dealing with slow approvals and communication, you’ve got to repair a damaged contractor relationship, too.

And because of the disparate set of tools used to manage contractor work, a lot of this information winds up fragmented between different dashboards and documents. There’s no centralized source of information, let alone a single hub to track all communication and approvals. 

Things change quickly on job sites, so contractors and the businesses that rely on them need to be able to move quickly to hit specific milestones and goals in a timely manner. 

The benefits of automated timesheet processes

If it isn’t clear by now, no one’s really chomping at the bit to stick with manual timesheet processes. They’re slow, cumbersome, and risk-prone. 

Plus, does anyone actually like staring at spreadsheets all day?

The good news is automating your existing timesheet processes solves these problems while providing a host of benefits for your wider business. Automating your timesheet processes helps prevent inaccurate submissions and removes the need for constant human intervention. 

That’s not all. Automation also offers: 

• Greater accuracy: As we’ve discussed, manual time tracking is prone to human error. An automated system doesn’t make these mistakes, capturing data in real-time based on preset rules to ensure accuracy. 
• Time savings: Automation puts time back in procurement’s calendar, letting them focus more on strategic tasks and other concerns.
• Real-time visibility: You can monitor workforce hours, overtime trends, project labor costs, and more with real-time dashboards and reporting. 
• Improved contractor relationships: Real-time visibility also helps build stronger relationships with your contractors. If a contractor submits a timesheet beyond approved terms, they’re able to include additional context to explain additional hours or costs without needing to chase down a busy contact. Fewer errors means faster payroll processing, ensuring contractors get paid fairly and on time.
• Scalability: This is a big one—as your business grows, tracking hours manually becomes unsustainable. Automated systems scale easily, whether you're adding new employees, contractors, or entire job sites.
• Remote access: Modern systems often include mobile apps or cloud-based access, allowing employees in the field or working remotely to clock in and out wherever they are—no need to be tied to a physical time clock or office.
• Streamlined integrations: Automated timesheet software often integrates with payroll, HRIS, ERP, and project management tools, creating a smoother flow of data across the organization.
• Enhanced accountability: Every submission or action taken is recorded and timestamped, helping minimize the chance of a dispute while ensuring faster resolution of the conflicts that do arise. It’s also a clean record for any auditing purposes.
• Cost savings: By cutting down on administrative work, reducing errors, avoiding overpayments, and improving project cost tracking, automating timesheet processes gives businesses a way to access greater savings and cost reductions.

In short, automation doesn’t just fix timesheets—it makes your entire operation run smoother, faster, and smarter.

Getting started with automation

2025 is sure to be full of fresh challenges for businesses everywhere. Relying on outdated methods of tracking something as foundational as timesheet submissions simply won’t pass muster in this day and age. 

Automation gives businesses a way to transform these critical processes to unlock greater efficiency and cost savings. Of course, if you’re not sure where to start, it’s easier said than done.

If you’re looking to learn more about the benefits of automation, whether for timesheet tracking, contractor compliance, or project management, reach out to PayShepherd today.

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