Cleaner timesheets and NZ record keeping: what the law asks for

This article is general information for New Zealand cleaning business owners, not legal advice. Rules change, so check the official sources linked below or talk to an employment lawyer or adviser about your situation.

For a commercial cleaning company, timesheets are where operations meet the law. Cleaners often work short shifts across several sites, at night, on variable rosters. That's exactly the kind of work where hours get lost, disputes start and record-keeping slips. This guide explains what New Zealand employers are required to keep, for how long, and practical ways to make it less painful.

The law in one paragraph

Under section 130 of the Employment Relations Act 2000, every employer must keep a wages and time record for each employee. Employment New Zealand says wages and time records, and holiday and leave records (under the Holidays Act 2003), must be kept for 6 years, even after the employee has left. Records can be on paper or electronic, as long as the information can be easily accessed and converted into written form.

What the wages and time record must show

Section 130 lists what the record must include for each employee. In summary:

• the employee's name, and age if under 20
• their postal address
• the kind of work they usually do
• whether they're on an individual or collective agreement (and if collective, the title, expiry date and their classification)
• the number of hours worked each day in a pay period, and the pay for those hours
• the wages paid each pay period and how they were calculated
• details of any employment relations education leave taken.

For cleaners, the line that causes trouble is the daily hours. The law allows a shortcut where hours and pay are agreed and the employee actually works those usual hours: stating the usual hours in the agreement or roster can be enough. But commercial cleaning rarely works like that. Shifts run over, sites get added, cleaners cover for each other. Where actual hours vary from the usual, you need a record of what was really worked each day.

Who can ask to see the records

Employees (or their representative) can ask for access to, or a copy of, their wages and time record from the previous 6 years, and the employer must provide it immediately. Labour Inspectors can also require records. Employment New Zealand notes that if you can't supply records straight away, you must do so within 10 working days, and failing to supply them is an infringement offence. Penalties can also be ordered by the Employment Relations Authority for not keeping the right records.

In practice, the most common time an owner needs these records is a disagreement over pay. A clear daily record protects both sides.

Common record-keeping mistakes

Employment New Zealand's guidance for auditing employment standards lists some common mistakes. Several apply directly to cleaning:

• Keeping wage records but not time records. Payslips alone aren't enough.
• Entering hours as a total and destroying the detailed time records. A weekly total of 32 hours doesn't show the hours worked each day.
• Assuming the accountant keeps the records. The obligation sits with the employer.
• Not checking payroll software. If payroll does the calculations, you still need to check they're right.

Why this is hard for cleaning companies

• Many sites per cleaner. A cleaner might do 6pm to 8pm at one office and 8:30pm to 11pm at another. Both need recording.
• Night work. Nobody is in the office to see people arrive and leave.
• Paper and texts. Paper sheets get lost or filled in at the end of the week. Texts to a supervisor live on one person's phone.
• Minimum wage margins. Many cleaning roles are paid close to the minimum wage. From 1 April 2026 the adult minimum wage is NZ$23.95 an hour. If unrecorded extra time pushes effective pay below the minimum, that's a problem for the employer.

A practical timesheet process

1. Record start and finish at the site, at the time. The best record is made when the work happens, not reconstructed later. A check-in and check-out at each site gives you daily hours automatically.
2. Record per site, not just per day. This also tells you whether each contract is running over its budgeted hours.
3. Review weekly. Look for missed check-outs, unusually long or short shifts and duplicates. Fix them with the cleaner, and keep a note of what changed and why.
4. Export to payroll. Send the reviewed hours to your payroll system so pay is calculated from the same record.
5. Keep the detail for 6 years. Store the daily records, not just weekly totals, in a form you can easily print or export.
6. Tell your team how it works. Explain what's recorded, why and how they can see their own hours.

Breaks, travel and other grey areas

Cleaning raises questions that are worth getting advice on, such as whether travel between sites during a shift is paid work, how rest and meal breaks are handled on short evening shifts, and how holiday pay is worked out for cleaners with variable hours. The answers depend on your employment agreements and the facts, so this is an area to check with Employment New Zealand or an adviser rather than guess. What helps in every case is an accurate record of when people actually started and finished.

Contractors vs employees

Some cleaning companies use contractors. Whether someone is genuinely a contractor depends on the real nature of the relationship, not just what the agreement calls it. If a worker is in fact an employee, all of the record-keeping rules above apply. Employment New Zealand has tools and guidance on this.

Checklist: are your records in good shape?

• Can you show the hours each cleaner worked each day last month?
• Could you produce any cleaner's records from five years ago?
• Do your records show which site each shift was at?
• Do your payroll calculations match your time records?
• Could you provide copies within 10 working days if asked?

If any answer is no, it's worth fixing now, before you need the records.

Sources

• Employment New Zealand: Record-keeping
• Employment Relations Act 2000, section 130: Wages and time record (NZLII)
• Employment New Zealand: Auditing compliance with employment standards
• Employment New Zealand: Minimum wage rates and types

Sources checked 15 November 2026.