Guidance for department heads and timekeepers on updates to hourly time sheet processing
Beginning April 16, 2021, Payroll will start collecting hourly time sheets for better compliance with audit requirements and to ensure accuracy of pay for hourly employees. Please direct any questions to payroll@niu.edu.
Hourly Time Sheet Processing Workflow Graphic (PDF)
The Employee downloads the Salaried Non-Exempt/Hourly Time Sheet and Benefit Usage Report from the HRS website.
Next, the Employee completes their time sheet and ink signs and scans the document. If they are unable to ink sign, they should type their name in the associated field.
Then, the Employee emails their signed time sheet from their NIU email account to their Supervisor for approval.
The Supervisor either ink signs and scans or types their name as approver and forwards to the Timekeeper for processing.
The Timekeeper sends one email with all the hourly time sheets for their department attached to payroll@niu.edu by 4:30 p.m. on the date the hourly summaries are due.
Payroll will be collecting hourly timesheets on any hourly employees that timekeepers used to submit timesheets for prior to COVID-19. If your department had previously established a time recording process for student employees that process can continue. Timekeepers should email hourly timesheets for the April 1 to April 15 payroll to payroll@niu.edu by 4:30 p.m. on Friday, April 16, 2021.
No. The current time entry and benefit usage summary process on OneDrive is not changing. We will begin collecting hourly timesheets from timekeepers via email the day the summaries are due beginning on April 16, 2021.
Employees should use the Salaried Non-Exempt/Hourly Time Sheet and Benefit Usage Report from the Human Resource Services website to report their time. If they can ink sign and scan the document to their supervisor for approval, this is the preferred method, and they should continue to do that. If they are unable to ink sign, they should type their name in the associated field. They should then email, from their NIU email account, their time sheet to their supervisor for approval.
The supervisor should then either ink sign and scan or type their name as approver and forward to the timekeeper for processing. It is acceptable if the supervisors and timekeepers want to develop a process of email approval and the timekeeper adds the supervisor’s name. However, this process needs to be documented and maintained for audit purposes.
Timekeepers should create an hourly timesheet for employees who do not report their time using the Salaried Non-Exempt/Hourly Time Sheet and Benefit Usage Report based on the information the employee sends to the timekeeper via email or text message. Type the employee’s name in the associated field on the form and maintain the email or text for audit purposes. This process should also be documented and maintained at the department level for audit purposes.
Timekeepers should email the hourly timesheets for their department to payroll@niu.edu by 4:30 p.m. on the date the hourly summaries are due. All timesheets should be attached to one email. We will accept paper copies in the HR drop box outside the main HR building.
Timekeepers should continue to maintain the email correspondence between employees and supervisors as well as any documentation on internal approval processes at the department level for audit purposes. It may be necessary to provide this documentation in future audits. Only the actual hourly timesheets should be emailed to payroll@niu.edu for review and processing.
In all our communications, we have indicated the need for departments to continue to track time reporting and sick and vacation usage. We also communicated that we would collect this information when we return to operations on campus for recordkeeping purposes. Since it will likely be fall before we see a greater return to campus, we are going to start looking at collecting these records from departments. However, given the volume of records to collect, we will not be able to do all departments at the same time. We will be sharing more information on this process in the coming weeks. However, if a department has all past records ready to deliver to payroll, please email payroll@niu.edu and we will be sure to prioritize your unit.