What’s Hiding in Your Timesheets? 4 Costly Mistakes to Catch Now 

As the school year winds down, the behind-the-scenes work in K-12 districts ramps up. From payroll and summer scheduling to compliance prep and staff changes, this busy stretch is when K-12 time tracking mistakes often slip through the cracks unnoticed; creating downstream issues for Payroll, HR, and Finance.  

Whether you’re part of a large department or juggling multiple roles in a small district, now’s the time to step back and ask: What might be hiding in your timesheets that could create problems later on? 

Here are four common (and costly) mistakes — and how to catch them before they carry over into the new year. 

1. Are You Tracking the Right Role for the Right Time? 

“We have staff working multiple jobs — how do we know they’re clocking into the right one?” 

It’s not uncommon for the same employee to wear different hats throughout the week — or even the day. A classroom aide might shift into a summer tutoring role. A cafeteria worker might help with after-school programs. And plenty of staff are paid from multiple funding sources depending on what they’re doing, when. 

But if all those hours are logged under the same job code, it can throw off everything from payroll to grant reporting. 

• Blurred roles = misused state or federal funds 
• Wrong codes = incorrect pay or benefit eligibility 
• Lack of job-level detail = audit risk 

Catch it now: Your system should let employees select the right job at clock-in, apply the correct pay rules automatically, and track time to the right cost center — so you’re not stuck untangling it later. 

“Before Frontline, we were doing many timesheets by hand. It was time-consuming and overwhelming.”

Lisa Moreland, Mason County Schools

2. Unapproved or Unplanned Overtime 

“Did someone approve all this overtime?” 

Overtime costs often spike at year-end — especially with summer programs, facilities work, or extra duty. But if you discover that overtime after it’s already been paid, you’ve lost your chance to control it. 

• Missed approvals = financial risk 

• Surprises = poor budgeting optics 

• Manual tracking = burnout for Payroll 

Catch it now: Look for a time tracking system that allows real-time approvals, automatic alerts for overtime thresholds, and visibility into trends — before it becomes a finance fire drill. 

“We went from three and a half days of agonizing about payroll errors… to just a day and a half.”

Jeff Swartzentruber, Mid-Prairie CSD

3. Fragmented Hour Tracking for ACA & Compliance 

“Why is ACA compliance still so hard?” 

It’s not a secret that tracking hours for ACA, FLSA, and FMLA can get messy fast — especially for employees working multiple roles or varying schedules. If your data is spread across spreadsheets, paper slips, or siloed tools, you’re setting yourself up for compliance trouble. 

• Eligibility decisions get delayed 
• Reports take hours to compile 
• Inaccurate tracking opens you up to audits or penalties 

Catch it now: Use a system that captures all time data in one place, across roles, calendars, and contracts. Compliance starts with visibility. 

4. Disconnected Systems, Siloed Teams 

“We changed the schedule — but Payroll never saw it.” 

When scheduling, absence tracking, time collection, and payroll systems don’t talk to each other, critical information gets stuck. Updates made by one team never reach another. Data doesn’t flow where it needs to. And your staff is left filling the gaps manually. 

• Missed or unapproved absences don’t reflect in timesheets 
• Calendars and time rules are out of sync 
• Manual fixes slow down payroll and increase the chance of error 

Catch it now: Make sure your Absence Management and Time & Attendance tools are connected—and that your HR and Payroll teams can rely on the same shared data. Without system interoperability, inefficiencies and inaccuracies multiply. 

Time Tracking That Works (Whether You’re a Team of 2 or 20) 

In some districts, one or two people are responsible for everything — assigning jobs, approving time, running payroll, and making sure every hour is funded and documented correctly. In others, those responsibilities are split across HR, Payroll, and Finance teams, each with their own systems and workflows. 

But the underlying challenges are the same: 

• Too much manual entry 
• Systems that don’t talk to each other 
• Errors that show up after the fact—when it’s too late to fix them easily 

Smarter time tracking isn’t just about cleaner data. It’s about giving your team a process that works with the resources you actually have, not the ones you wish you had. 

With the right tools, you can: 

• Track time accurately across roles, calendars, and locations 
• Eliminate duplicate entry and reduce payroll delays 
• Surface issues early — before they turn into compliance risks or budget surprises 

Whether you’re closing out the year or preparing for what’s next, now is the time to take a closer look at how your district tracks time. 

Because in schools, time isn’t just money — it’s people, programs, and peace of mind.