Check the month's timesheets before they go to payroll
Before the month's hours go to your accountant or payroll program, Claude checks every timesheet for missed punches, overtime, leave, and starters and leavers. It lists what to fix; payroll itself stays where it is.
FullHRWhen you need it
Set it up5 steps
Open the Claude desktop app and sign in with the Claude account you use for work. On a personal Free, Pro or Max plan, chats can be used for training unless you switch off SettingsPrivacyHelp improve Claude.
No account yet? Ask your manager.
Where things are in Claude
- CustomizeConnectors In Claude's left sidebar: connect your email and files.
- /schedule Type it in a new Cowork task to run a prompt on a schedule.
- Scheduled In Claude's left sidebar: what runs, to pause or change it.
- At month end, put the month's timesheets as you get them (time clock files, or photos of the paper sheets), the leave records and the staff list with each starter's and leaver's date in a Payroll folder inside your HR folder. Leave pay rates out.
- Keep a one-page "Hours rules" file in your HR folder: normal hours and shift times, how overtime is approved, the overtime limit and the holidays, as your handbook or your accountant gives them. Claude checks against it and uses no limit of its own.
- Connect Google Drive under CustomizeConnectors. Keep this workflow's files in one Drive folder called HR.
- A few days before the hours go to payroll, open Cowork, paste the prompt and name the month.
- Check each line with the supervisor and fix it in your time records, then send the hours to payroll as usual. Claude changes nothing and calculates no pay.
Set this up on your computer: the Claude desktop app runs it.
The prompt
- Check the timesheets for the month I name before they go to payroll. Use the timesheet files and photos, the leave records and the staff list in the Payroll folder inside my HR folder, and the "Hours rules" file in my HR folder.
- 1. Missed punches: list every working day with a start and no finish, a finish and no start, or no record at all and no leave recorded, and any day recorded twice.
- 2. Overtime: add up each person's overtime for the month, counted from the normal hours in the rules file. List anyone above the overtime limit in the rules file, overtime with no approval where the rules ask for one, and overtime on a day recorded as leave. If the rules file gives no limit, write [TO FILL: our overtime limit] and do not use one of your own.
- 3. Leave: compare the leave in the timesheets with the leave records, and list every day that is in one and not the other.
- 4. Starters and leavers: check that each one has hours only from their start date up to their leaving date, and that everyone in the timesheets is on the staff list.
- 5. Work on weekends and on the holidays in the rules file: list it apart, so it is paid at the right rate.
- 6. Give me one table: person, department, date, what you found, and what to ask the supervisor. Then a short note for whoever runs our payroll: the month's starters and leavers with their dates, overtime by department, and the lines still open.
- Do not calculate pay and do not change any timesheet. A gap is a question for the supervisor, not a finding against the person: say what the record shows, never why. Never note a reason for sick leave or any health detail. Mark anything you are unsure of instead of guessing.
What you get
One list of timesheet lines to fix or confirm, by person, and a short note for whoever runs payroll with the month's starters, leavers and overtime.
Get this workflow for your team
Two minutes each: everyone gets a plan of ready workflows like this one, inside your company's rules.
Your manager sees progress and hours. Never what Claude reads or writes.
FirstPrompt's workflow library adapts parts of Anthropic's knowledge-work-plugins (Apache-2.0), rewritten by FirstPrompt. Source and licence