Project Time Tracking in Excel: Free Template 2026

To give our clients and partners a free template that holds up in daily use, we put more than ten years of project experience into this Excel template.

The template records project hours, breaks and billable time, and evaluates them. Working time and totals are calculated automatically and laid out so you can read them at a glance.

So you can hand your timesheets straight to a client, the evaluation sheet prints as a signed record of work performed.

Download the free Excel template for project time tracking

The template suits freelancers and small teams in consulting and professional services above all. It stays quick to fill in and easy to maintain.

The file already contains example employees and time entries so you can start without setting anything up. Note that some fields are picked from a dropdown, the employee for instance, because those values are maintained centrally on the Einstellungen sheet.

What the Excel template does

You start by entering the basic project data: project name, client and project period. After that you record project hours for several employees and assign them to activities.

Every entry takes an activity, a description, a start time, an end time and a break. The resulting working time is calculated automatically and shown in its own column. You also mark whether the hours are billable or not, which keeps project budgets honest. Billable project time is totalled separately.

The evaluation shows total hours and the number of entries at a glance. Beyond that, project hours can be broken down by employee.

For handover to your client, the evaluation prints as a record of work performed and can then be signed.

How project time tracking in Excel works

Before you start recording, enter the project name, the client and the project period. The employees you want to record time for are maintained centrally on the Einstellungen sheet.

Each activity then takes a new row. Pick the date, the employee and the activity, and enter start time, end time and the break. The template calculates the resulting working time on its own.

On client projects you additionally set whether the recorded time is billable. The evaluation is built from all entries and updates as you go.

What belongs in a project time record?

For a project time record to satisfy working-time documentation and stand up to client scrutiny, it needs these elements:

• -date the work was performed
• -name of the employee
• -activity from a defined category list
• -short description of the work
• -start time
• -end time
• -break in minutes
• -actual working time in decimal hours
• -whether the time is billable
• -billable project time
• -hourly rate and resulting amount
• -project name, client and service period

The break is usually optional, since many service providers record working time only. Some clients do want breaks recorded, particularly around travel time that has to be documented as non-billable.

Calculating project hours automatically in Excel

Working time comes from end time minus start time, with the break in minutes deducted. A yes/no control marks an activity as billable towards the client. Because you maintain the employees' hourly rates in the background, revenue and invoice amount are calculated as you go.

Project leads get a figures panel covering total hours, billable share and revenue.

Preset master data instead of typos

Like a real ERP system, the template keeps a master data table for central objects such as employees and hourly rates. It lives on the Einstellungen sheet. If a rate has not been maintained, a default hourly rate serves as the fallback, and it is maintained there as well.

Evaluating project hours by employee

The evaluation also breaks project hours down per employee. Project leads see at a glance how many hours each person put into the project and what share of that is billable to the client.

The billable share is shown as a bar as well. That makes it quick to see where a high proportion of the time recorded is actually invoiceable, and where a larger share went into internal or non-billable work.

Based on the stored hourly rates, the amount per employee is reported as well. That makes the distribution of effort within the project easier to follow and, in larger teams especially, shows how hours and revenue spread across the individual team members.

The per-employee view therefore serves both the running control of client projects and the later post-calculation. Project leads can check who was deployed how heavily and whether the effort actually incurred matches the original plan.

Evaluating project hours by activity

Besides the per-employee view, project hours can be examined by activity type. That shows how much effort went into onboarding, design work, hypercare or travel, for example.

Non-billable activities in particular become visible and stay separate from the invoiceable work. Travel time and internal alignment can be reported on their own, and their share of the total effort becomes easier to judge.

The view helps project leads and managing directors evaluate the real effort by activity and compare it against the original plan. It also builds a better basis for future quotes, because it becomes visible which activities eat the most time in comparable projects.

Printing and signing the project time record

For handover to the client, the template carries a dedicated Leistungsnachweis sheet. Project name, client and service period are pulled automatically from the project data you entered earlier.

The recorded activities are laid out as a record of work performed, often called a timesheet. Alongside the individual entries, total hours and billable hours are reported. Optionally, the resulting net amount can be shown as well.

So the evaluation can serve directly as a record of work performed, it provides an area for place and date and for the client's signature.

The print area is already set to portrait, so the evaluation prints without further adjustment. Alternatively, save the record as a PDF straight from Excel and send it digitally.

An example of project time tracking in Excel

So you can follow how the template works, the file comes with four example time entries. They show how a completed entry is built and which fields project time tracking needs.

A typical entry consists of date, employee, activity, description, start time, end time and break. From those the template calculates the working time actually performed, in decimal hours. If an hourly rate is stored for the employee, the corresponding invoice amount is calculated from it too.

Alongside billable activities, the template includes an example of a non-billable entry. That shows directly how internal work, travel time and other non-invoiceable effort is recorded and kept separate from billable project hours.

You can follow the existing structure using the example data and then simply replace it with your own project hours.

Who is project time tracking in Excel for?

Project time tracking in Excel suits freelancers, sole traders and very small companies and start-ups above all, wherever project hours need recording without introducing another piece of software.

For agencies, consultancies, IT service providers and smaller project teams, an Excel-based solution can be enough to start with. Hours are recorded centrally, evaluated, and prepared as a record of work performed for the client where needed.

The template makes particular sense for companies that regularly have to evidence project hours or delivered work to their clients. Time recording, evaluation and a printable record all sit inside one file.

As soon as several employees work on projects regularly, several client projects run in parallel, or approvals, billing and project controlling enter the picture, even smaller project teams should move to a dedicated project ERP such as QUANTICAL.ERP.

That makes project hours, budgets, utilization and billing far more structured and scalable than a single Excel file can be.

Advantages of project time tracking in Excel

The biggest advantage is that it costs nothing and works immediately, without additional software. For freelancers, sole traders and small teams there is no rollout effort at all.

The template is also easy to adapt. Employees, hourly rates and activities are maintained centrally and then used in time recording. Working time and the resulting amounts are calculated automatically.

The built-in evaluations analyse project hours both by employee and by activity. Project leads get a quick overview of the effort incurred, the billable hours and how the work is distributed within the project.

The evaluation can also be saved as a PDF or printed. That lets the project time record double as a record of work performed for the client, ready to be signed.

Our template is designed for up to 200 individual entries per project, enough capacity for smaller, manageable client projects.

Where project time tracking in Excel reaches its limits

For single projects, freelancers and very small teams, project time tracking in Excel is often entirely sufficient. As the number of employees, clients and parallel projects grows, the administrative effort rises sharply.

A key drawback lies in aggregating the sheets. If someone deletes columns or ignores the layout, the aggregation collapses. Across several projects a growing number of individual files appears, each needing maintenance, versioning and a central place to live. Budget monitoring across projects, or a central approval of recorded time, is only possible with extra manual work. Our article 5 reasons Excel time tracking is costing you money puts numbers on it.

The downstream processes are separate in Excel too. Recorded hours are not automatically connected to invoices, project budgets or controlling.

As soon as several employees work on different projects regularly, or project hours are meant to feed billing and controlling directly, a dedicated project ERP such as QUANTICAL.ERP is the better fit. Time recording, approvals, budgets, billing and project controlling then live in one system.

Excel or digital project time tracking, which is better?

Whether Excel or digital project time tracking, often called Professional Services Automation, fits better depends above all on the number of employees and projects and on what you need from evaluation and controlling.

For freelancers, sole traders and very small teams, Excel is often a sensible start. It is available immediately, adapts flexibly and costs nothing in software. Once several employees work on different projects regularly, the effort for maintenance, alignment and evaluation rises noticeably. The same holds when invoices are meant to come straight out of the recorded hours.

For single projects and manageable teams an Excel solution is therefore often entirely sufficient. Digital systems show their strengths where several projects run in parallel, where recorded time needs central approval, or where controlling and billing build directly on the hours recorded.

With QUANTICAL.ERP, project hours, budgets, utilization, approvals and billing all live in one project ERP.