Australia

Employee time records in Australia: what Fair Work expects

Updated 28 September 2026

If you employ people in Australia, you have to keep time and wage records, and the Fair Work Ombudsman can ask to see them. Here’s what that means in practice for a small business, and how to make it painless.

This guide explains the basics in plain words. It isn’t legal advice. For your situation, check the Fair Work Ombudsman, your award or agreement, or an adviser.

How long to keep records

Time and wage records must be kept for 7 years. They need to be clear and in English, available to the employee if they ask, and ready for a Fair Work Inspector to look at any time.

A shoebox of paper timesheets technically counts. Finding one Tuesday from four years ago is another matter.

Which hours you must record

What you record depends on the employee and how they’re paid:

Casual and irregular part-time employees paid by the hour: record the hours they worked.
Other employees: where overtime attracts a penalty rate or loading, record the overtime hours worked each day, or when the overtime started and finished.

In practice, most small businesses find it simplest to record start and finish times and breaks for everyone, every day. That covers every case, and it’s what you need to pay the right award rates anyway.

Mistakes: fix them, don’t hide them

Records can’t be false or changed. You can correct a mistake, as long as you also record the error and the reason for the fix.

This is where paper and spreadsheets struggle: a crossed-out time or an overwritten cell doesn’t show what it was or why it changed.

Pay slips

Separately from time records, employees must get a pay slip within 1 working day of being paid. Your payroll software handles this; it just needs the right hours.

How a timesheet app helps

A good time-and-attendance system does most of this for you:

Start, finish and breaks recorded when they happen, not reconstructed on Friday.
Corrections with a reason. In Vaultime, a clocked-in time is never overwritten: the employee (or a manager) asks for a correction with a reason, a manager decides, and the original punch is kept.
An audit log of who changed what and when, with the old and new values.
Kept for as long as you choose, 7 years by default for clock-in records, and exportable any time.
Pay-ready totals: approved hours per person, exported for payroll, with the raw times alongside.

A simple routine

Staff clock in and out (or log hours) on the day.
Managers review flags, such as missed clock-outs or no break recorded, and approve the week.
Corrections are made with a reason, never by editing the original.
Export approved hours for payroll each pay period.
Keep everything for 7 years, and export it if you ever leave the system.

Sources

Checked 28 September 2026.