As of 13 August 2026, AI can only partly import employee timesheets into your UK payroll.

What to actually do

1. Hand it to a person

   The route this page recommends

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Do it yourself

   The distant third

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open the payroll system's current timesheet import template or field specification and export a blank copy.
   2. Gather the timesheet for the pay period, the employee identifiers used by payroll, and the written rules for overtime, absence, bank holidays, shift premiums and other pay items.
   3. Remove unrelated personal data, then paste or upload the timesheet, blank import template and rules into a chatbot with the copyable prompt.
   4. Compare the generated column mapping with the payroll system's template, including date format, employee ID format, pay codes, decimal hours and required fields.
   5. Reconcile the generated employee count, row count and hours against the original timesheet, and resolve every item in the exception report with the responsible manager or payroll administrator.
   6. Import the checked file into the payroll system's test, preview or validation area, compare the resulting pay items with the approved timesheets, and only then run the payroll process.

   Prompt

   I need to prepare an import file for a UK payroll system from employee timesheets.
   
   Source timesheet data:
   [PASTE OR UPLOAD THE TIMESHEET]
   
   Payroll system import template or field specification:
   [PASTE OR UPLOAD THE TEMPLATE]
   
   Pay period:
   [ENTER THE PAY PERIOD]
   
   Rules and known exceptions:
   [ENTER AGREED RULES FOR OVERTIME, ABSENCE, BANK HOLIDAYS, SHIFT PREMIUMS AND OTHER PAY ITEMS]
   
   Create:
   1. An import-ready CSV or table using only the fields and formats required by the payroll template.
   2. A column-mapping table showing the source field, destination field and any transformation.
   3. An exception report listing missing employee identifiers, duplicate rows, invalid dates, non-numeric hours, unexplained changes and records that need a payroll decision.
   4. Reconciliation totals for employees, rows and hours, compared with the source file.
   
   Do not invent employee details, hours, rates, pay codes or payroll rules. Do not decide whether a payment is legally due. Preserve the source values unless a transformation is explicitly required by the template. If the template or rules are insufficient, stop and list the missing information instead of guessing. Keep employee data to the minimum needed for the import and do not repeat sensitive data in the explanation. Mark every item that must be checked by a payroll administrator before import.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.