Timesheets and clocking in for cleaners

Cleaners work early mornings and evenings, often alone, across several sites. Paper signing-in sheets and WhatsApp messages make it hard to know who turned up, and harder to pay the right hours. This guide covers how to record hours for a cleaning team and what the law expects you to keep.

Why hours matter more than they used to

• Minimum wage. Most cleaners are paid at or near the minimum. From 1 April 2026 the National Living Wage is £12.71 an hour for workers aged 21 and over, £10.85 for 18 to 20, and £8.00 for under-18s and apprentices. If the hours on the timesheet are wrong, you can end up below the minimum without meaning to. HMRC doesn't treat that as a mistake it will let go.
• Holiday for casual staff. Casual cleaners who work irregular hours build up holiday at 12.07% of the hours they actually work, and you can pay it as rolled-up holiday pay with each payslip. Either way, the hours worked are the starting point. Since 6 April 2026 you also have to keep records of holiday taken and holiday pay for 6 years.
• Guaranteed hours. The Employment Rights Act 2025 will give zero-hours and low-hours workers the right to be offered guaranteed hours based on what they regularly work. Your timesheets are the record of what they worked. See guaranteed hours for zero-hours cleaners.
• Clients ask. A client who pays for 12.5 hours a week at their office wants to know the hours were worked. Clock-in records answer that straight away.

What counts as working time

For minimum wage purposes, paid time includes:

• The time on site, from when they start to when they finish, including any time spent waiting for keys or for the building to be opened.
• Travel between sites during the day. If a cleaner goes straight from one site to the next, that travel time counts as working time for minimum wage. Travel from home to the first site, and from the last site home, normally doesn't.
• Training you require them to do.

Rest breaks don't normally count as paid working time unless your contract says they do. Adults working more than 6 hours in a day are entitled to a 20-minute break.

Ways to record hours

Method	Good for	Watch out for
Paper sheet on site	Sites with a reception desk that checks it	Filled in afterwards from memory, lost sheets, no way to know on the day that someone didn't turn up
Text or WhatsApp to a supervisor	Very small teams	Hours have to be typed up for payroll, messages get missed
Clocking in from a phone	Several sites, early and late shifts, lone working	Choose one that works without an app download and doesn't track people outside their shifts
Fixed clock on site	One large site you control	Clients rarely let you fit one, and it doesn't cover mobile teams

Clocking in from a phone, done fairly

Phone clocking works well for cleaning because nearly every cleaner has a phone, and it shows you on the day whether a site has been covered. Keep it fair:

• Only record location at the moment they clock in and out, never in between, and tell them you do it. Location is personal data, so explain why you use it (checking they're at the right site) and how long you keep it.
• Let them clock in without location if their phone can't get a signal in a basement, and flag it for a supervisor rather than blocking them.
• Don't make them install an app or use their own data allowance heavily. A private link that opens in the browser is enough.
• Allow corrections, and record who changed a time, when, and why. People forget to clock out. A corrected time with a reason is fine; a silently edited one looks bad if it's ever questioned.

From clock-ins to payroll

1. Each week, look at the exceptions first: late starts, missed clock-outs, anyone who clocked in away from the site, and planned shifts with no clock-in.
2. Fix or confirm them, with a note for anything you change.
3. Approve the week, so everyone knows those hours are final.
4. Export the approved hours for payroll with each person's payroll number, rather than retyping them.

What to keep, and for how long

Keep records that show you paid at least the minimum wage for at least 6 years. Holiday records (leave taken, leave carried over and holiday pay) must also be kept for 6 years, and not keeping them is a criminal offence. Since 6 April 2026, Statutory Sick Pay is paid from the first day off sick, with no lower earnings limit, so short or low-hours shifts count too.

Keep the clock-in records, any corrections and the approved timesheets together. If a cleaner, HMRC or a tribunal asks about hours from two years ago, you want to answer with the record, not a guess.

How RotaProof helps

RotaProof is rota, clocking-in and timesheet software made for cleaning companies. Plan the week by site or by person, let cleaners clock in from a link on their phone, approve the hours and download them for payroll. On the Assured plan it also tracks guaranteed hours and logs every shift change with the notice given. It won't put anyone on a shift until their right-to-work check is in order, and you can try it free for 30 days.

Try the demo, no sign-up needed Start free trial

Sources

• GOV.UK: National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates
• GOV.UK: Calculating the minimum wage, working hours that must be paid
• GOV.UK: Employers and the minimum wage (records)
• GOV.UK: Holiday pay and entitlement reforms
• GOV.UK: Statutory Sick Pay, what you'll get
• GOV.UK: Rest breaks at work