What Is a Work Ticket?
Let me explain what a work ticket is. It's a form that captures the time an employee spends on a specific job. You use it to bill customers for direct labor costs, and it can also help calculate wages for hourly employees. In accounting for worked hours, you might hear it called a time card or timesheet, which are more common terms. When recording hours on a particular task, the term work order comes into play as well.
Understanding Work Ticket
Work tickets aren't just for paying hourly or temporary workers. They ensure clients get billed for work done on their behalf under your supervision. Beyond that, you can use them to calculate labor costs, track productivity, build budgets, forecast future labor requirements, monitor projects, and figure out profits or losses.
Work Ticket vs. Timesheet
When tracking hours for hourly or temporary employees, work tickets can be paper-based or digital. They include hours worked, leave time, accruals, and adjustments. You typically fill them out weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or bi-monthly based on your pay period. Submit them to a supervisor for approval or changes, then they go to payroll for processing. Digital versions, like those with punch clocks or electronic readers, automate billing or payroll and might use biometrics for security.
Work Ticket vs. Work Order
A timesheet for customer work, known as a work order, is usually for services. In this case, the work ticket includes task instructions or problem descriptions, cost estimates, authorization forms, dates, estimated labor time and costs, requester and billing details, and the name of the person making the request.
For instance, if you take your car to a shop for repairs, the bill shows time spent by mechanics on different parts, along with their rates. That time comes directly from the work ticket.
