How to chase temps' timesheets before the payroll cut-off

A recruitment agency gets its temps' timesheets in before the payroll cut-off by chasing the right person for the right thing early in the week. That means knowing, for each live assignment, who worked, who at the hirer approves the hours and who covers when that person is away. Remind the temp before the week ends, remind the approver as soon as the hours are in, and give payroll one list at the cut-off of what is still unsigned. In Great Britain the temp is paid for the hours worked whether or not the hirer has signed, so a late approval delays your invoice, not their pay.

Everything counts back from the payroll cut-off

The terms you agree with a temp include the intervals at which they are paid, and on a temp desk that is often weekly. So every week has the same fixed point: the hour at which payroll must have the hours.

What do the regulations say about unsigned hours?

Regulation 12 of the Conduct Regulations, which apply in England, Wales and Scotland, says an employment business must not withhold a temp's pay because the temp has not produced evidence of hours authenticated by the hirer. It leaves the agency free to satisfy itself "by other means" that the work was done. It also bars withholding pay because the hirer has not paid you.

So an unsigned timesheet is your problem twice. You pay on hours you have had to verify another way, and you cannot comfortably invoice until the hirer agrees them. Regulation 29 requires records sufficient to show whether the regulations are being complied with to be kept for at least a year from the date they were created, and the particulars of a temp's or a hirer's application for at least a year after you last provided services to them. That is the rule as published, not advice.

The weekly run, and who does each step today

1. Publish the cut-off. The day and hour timesheets are due, told to every temp and every hirer at the start of an assignment. The payroll lead sets it.

2. List this week's live assignments. Who was booked, where, on what rate, and who approves. An administrator builds it from the ATS or the pay and bill system.

3. Remind the temps before their last shift of the week, so the hours are entered while they are fresh.

4. The hours are submitted, by the temp or, on some contracts, by the hirer for the whole site. Where they arrive on paper, someone at the agency may key them in.

5. Chase the approver. Approving timesheets is a small part of the hirer's manager's job. Today the administrator emails, then the consultant phones.

6. Check what came in. Hours against the shifts booked, the right rate, breaks, overtime the hirer has to authorise, a purchase order number where the client needs one.

7. At the cut-off, list what is missing. Not submitted, submitted and unsigned, signed and queried.

8. Decide on the unsigned hours. The payroll lead satisfies themselves another way, for instance from the hirer's rota or a supervisor's email, and decides what is paid.

9. Run payroll and raise the invoices.

Which steps can an AI worker take on?

An AI worker can take on part of this run, with a specification you approve and a named person who checks its work. In this job the steps that fit are 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7, which is the role of timesheet chasing.

• It can build each week's list of live assignments and hold the approver and the deputy for each hirer.

• It can remind each temp whose timesheet is missing, and only those, and stop when it arrives.

• It can email the hirer's approver as soon as the hours are in, in wording you have approved, and go to the deputy when the approver is away.

• It can check each submission against your rules and send a query back to whoever submitted it.

• At the cut-off it can give payroll one list: what is complete, what is unsigned and who has been asked, and what is in dispute.

What waits for a person, and why?

The hours themselves stay with people: they come from the temp or the hirer, and the hirer approves them. An AI worker never writes, changes or approves an entry. How unsigned hours are verified, and what is paid, is the payroll lead's decision, because it is a decision about someone's wages. A disputed timesheet goes to the consultant, who owns the relationship with the client. So does any phone call.

What to have ready before you start

• The cut-off calendar, bank holidays included.

• An approver and a deputy at every hirer, taken at the start of the assignment and not in week three.

• Your checking rules in a list: maximum shift, breaks, overtime, purchase orders.

• The reminder wording for temps and for hirers.

• What payroll accepts as other evidence of hours worked, decided once.

What you can change this week

Ask every hirer for a deputy approver. Move the first reminder to the day before the week ends. And at this week's cut-off, count three numbers: timesheets not in, timesheets in and unsigned, and how many unsigned ones belong to the same two or three hirers. That last number usually tells you where the calls should go.

Timesheets are one of the five loads set out in our article on scaling a recruitment agency without hiring. Once the hours are agreed, the invoice has to be paid, which is invoice and payment chasing; the rest of the desk's roles are on our recruitment page.

On a temp desk an AI worker would do the reminding, the checking and the list for payroll, and every decision about pay would remain with your people. Do your consultants spend the cut-off morning chasing signatures? Talk to our agent.