What is the best timesheet app for employees in Australia?
For mining, engineering and heavy-industry businesses, SprintSuite is the best timesheet app in Australia because it captures hours against jobs, tasks, cost codes and assets, works offline on remote sites, gates clock-on by tickets and site inductions, and feeds approved time straight into job costing, invoicing and payroll. For shift-based rostering in retail, hospitality or healthcare, Deputy and Tanda are strong. If you want HR and payroll bundled, look at Employment Hero. Small teams already on Xero or MYOB can start with Xero Me or MYOB Team.
- Best for mining & heavy industry: SprintSuite
- Best for shift rostering: Deputy, Tanda
- Best all-in-one HR + payroll: Employment Hero
- Best budget starting point: Xero Me, MYOB Team, Connecteam
- Best for billable professional hours: Harvest, Toggl Track
Why timesheet apps are a bigger decision than they look
Most Australian businesses treat timesheets as a payroll input. Get the hours, run the pay, move on. For contractors in mining, engineering and heavy industry, that framing quietly costs a fortune. The same hours that determine what you pay also determine what you invoice, whether a job made margin, whether a shutdown ran to plan, and whether you can prove who was on site when something went wrong.
When time is captured as a weekly total on a spreadsheet, none of that is recoverable. Unbilled hours stay unbilled. Overruns are discovered after the job closes. Client disputes over dockets take weeks because nobody can produce a verified record. And every pay cycle, someone re-keys the same numbers into payroll, then again into an invoice.
So the real question is not "which app has the cheapest per-user price". It is "which app captures time once, in enough detail, in the conditions our crews actually work in — and then moves it everywhere it needs to go".
The best timesheet apps for Australian employees in 2026
SprintSuite
Our pick for heavy industryBest for mining, engineering and heavy industry
Pricing: Quoted per site/user — includes jobs, scheduling, costing and payroll export
- Time captured against jobs, tasks, cost codes and assets — not just a daily total
- Kiosk and mobile clock-on with offline capture for remote and underground sites
- Tickets, licences and site inductions gate who can be scheduled and clock on
- Shutdown, swing roster, FIFO/DIDO and 12-hour shift patterns handled natively
- Timesheet approval by supervisor, then straight into job costing, invoicing and payroll
- Australian award-aware rules, allowances, LAFHA/site allowances and overtime handling
Built for contracting businesses with site-based crews — overkill for a two-person office team.
Deputy
Strong retail, hospitality and healthcare rostering
Pricing: From around $6–$10 per user/month
- Mature Australian rostering and award interpretation library
- Good employee self-service, shift swaps and leave
- Clean kiosk app for fixed venues
Rosters shifts, not jobs. Limited job costing, plant, procurement or shutdown planning.
Employment Hero (incl. KeyPay/Swag)
Best if you want HR and payroll in one
Pricing: Bundled HR + payroll pricing per employee
- Payroll, HR, onboarding and timesheets in one subscription
- Strong award interpretation and STP reporting
- Employee app for leave, payslips and clock-on
Timesheets are payroll-first. Job-level cost visibility and field operations are thin.
Xero Me / Xero Payroll
Fine for small teams already on Xero
Pricing: Included with Xero Payroll plans
- No extra subscription if you already run Xero Payroll
- Simple submit-and-approve workflow
- Direct into pay runs and STP
No scheduling, no ticket compliance, no job costing depth, weak offline use.
MYOB Team
Basic capture for MYOB payroll users
Pricing: Included with eligible MYOB plans
- Manager approvals from a phone
- Feeds MYOB pay runs directly
- Low learning curve
Very limited job/task allocation. Growing contractors usually outgrow it fast.
Connecteam
Good communications-led app for dispersed staff
Pricing: Free tier, then per-user paid plans
- GPS clock-on, forms and checklists
- Chat and announcements built in
- Cheap to start
Not an Australian award engine and not a job costing system. Time data still has to go somewhere.
Tanda
Workforce compliance for shift-based employers
Pricing: Per-user monthly, modular
- Award interpretation and rostering
- Facial recognition time clocks
- Good compliance reporting
Shift-centric. Project, shutdown and equipment-heavy work needs more.
ClockShark
Construction and field-focused time tracking
Pricing: Per-user monthly plus base fee
- Job and task codes on clock-on
- GPS fencing and crew clock-in
- Simple for trades
US-built; Australian award, allowance and site-induction handling is limited.
Harvest / Toggl Track
Best for billable professional services hours
Pricing: Free tiers, then per-user monthly
- Fast, low-friction time entry
- Clean billable vs non-billable reporting
- Good integrations
No rostering, no compliance gating, no field workforce features.
Pricing is indicative as at September 2026 and changes regularly — confirm current plans directly with each vendor.
Why SprintSuite is our pick for mining and heavy industry
Every app above records hours. The difference is what happens either side of that. SprintSuite was built for Australian contractors whose crews work on client sites, under inductions, on swing rosters, against job numbers and cost codes, often with no phone signal — and whose invoicing depends on hours the client will actually verify.
- Clock on by kiosk, tablet, mobile or supervisor entry, with offline capture that syncs when coverage returns.
- Every hour lands against a job, task and cost code, with plant and equipment hours on the same record.
- Tickets, licences, HV authorisations, competencies and site inductions are checked before scheduling and before clock-on.
- Swing rosters, 12-hour shifts, FIFO/DIDO travel days, RDOs and site allowances are handled as configuration, not workarounds.
- Supervisor approval with exception flagging and a full audit trail on every edit.
- Approved hours flow into job costing, client invoicing and progress claims, and export to payroll for STP.
- Shutdown and campaign work rolls up by work package so you can see burn against plan while it is still fixable.
If your business is office-based or shift-based in a fixed venue, a lighter tool is the right answer. If your revenue depends on hours worked on someone else's site, the extra structure pays for itself in recovered billable time alone.
Eight questions to ask before you choose a timesheet app
Does it capture time against work, not just the clock?
A daily total tells payroll what to pay and tells your business nothing. Time needs a job, task, cost code and where relevant an asset, so you can see whether that shutdown, breakdown or contract actually made money.
Does it work with no signal?
Pits, underground workings, remote workshops and regional highways do not have reliable coverage. Offline capture that syncs on return is non-negotiable for heavy industry, and it is where most cheap apps quietly fail.
Can crews clock on the way they actually work?
A crew of twelve arriving at a gate at 5:30am should not be fumbling with twelve phones. Kiosk or tablet clock-on, supervisor bulk entry and mobile self-service should all be options in the same system.
Does it know who is allowed on site?
Tickets, high-risk work licences, HV authorisations, competencies and site inductions expire. The app should refuse to schedule or clock on an expired worker rather than discovering it at the gate or after an incident.
Does it handle Australian award and allowance reality?
Ordinary hours, overtime, penalties, RDOs, travel and site allowances, living-away arrangements and swing rosters. Getting this wrong is a wage underpayment risk, not an inconvenience.
Does approval have a real workflow?
Supervisor review, exception flagging, edits with an audit trail, and a locked state once payroll has processed. Editable spreadsheets are not a record-keeping strategy.
Does the data flow onward automatically?
One capture should feed job costing, client invoicing or progress claims, payroll and STP. Re-keying the same hours into three systems is where margin and accuracy disappear.
Will it survive an audit?
Seven years of time and wages records, immutable history, and the ability to show exactly who worked where and on what. Fair Work record-keeping obligations apply regardless of which app you chose.
What breaks generic timesheet apps in mining and heavy industry
Swing rosters and long shifts
2/1, 8/6, 14/7 and 12-hour shifts break apps designed around a Monday-to-Friday retail week. Rostered hours, actual hours and travel days all need to be distinguishable.
Shutdowns and campaign work
Hundreds of extra hours over a compressed window, multiple crews, subcontractors and cost codes per work package. Time capture has to roll up to the shutdown, not just the pay period.
Plant and equipment hours
Labour is only half the cost. Hours against the excavator, EWP, crane or test set belong on the same job record as the crew.
Client-verified hours
Mine sites often require signed dockets or verified hours before payment. Digital sign-off attached to the timesheet removes weeks of invoicing disputes.
Multi-entity, multi-site
Separate labour-hire and services entities, several sites and different client rate cards. Timesheets need to know which entity, site and rate applies.
Safety and induction linkage
Pre-starts, JSAs, fatigue declarations and inductions live alongside clock-on in a proper system, so the safety record and the pay record agree.
Your record-keeping obligations in Australia
Whichever app you pick, the obligations stay with you as the employer. Time and wages records must be kept for seven years, be legible and in English, and any change must be traceable. Pay slips have set requirements, and payroll must be reported through Single Touch Payroll.
Check the current detail directly: Fair Work record-keeping and pay slips , modern awards , ATO Single Touch Payroll , and if you are capturing location data, the Australian Privacy Principles . Fatigue and shift risk sits with your WHS regulator, such as Safe Work Australia .
This article is general information, not legal or payroll advice. Confirm your obligations for your award and jurisdiction.
How to roll out a timesheet app without a revolt
- 1Map how time is captured today, including the informal spreadsheets and notebooks.
- 2Define your job, task and cost-code structure before you configure anything.
- 3Load tickets, licences and site inductions with real expiry dates.
- 4Set roster patterns, allowances and overtime rules with payroll in the room.
- 5Pilot with one crew and one supervisor for two full pay cycles.
- 6Run parallel with the old process for one cycle, then compare and reconcile.
- 7Train supervisors on approvals and exceptions, not just employees on clock-on.
- 8Switch off the spreadsheets on a fixed date — parallel forever kills adoption.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Choosing on monthly price alone, then paying an admin to re-key hours into payroll and invoicing.
- Buying a rostering app for project and shutdown work it was never designed for.
- Relying on GPS clock-on as a substitute for supervision and approval.
- Letting employees pick job codes from a list of 400 with no structure.
- Ignoring offline capture until the first remote job loses a week of hours.
- Skipping the payroll conversation, then discovering allowances have to be added manually anyway.
