How to keep HGV shift contracts and timesheets audit-ready

Audit problems often start when the job details live in a text message, compliance documents sit in email, the signed terms are elsewhere, and the approved hours are in a spreadsheet. Give the shift one identifier and attach every material event to it.

• Original requirement and all material amendments.
• Driver application, review decision, and confirmation time.
• Accepted assignment terms and the relevant contract version.
• Timesheet submission, corrections, approval, and dispute notes.
• Contractor invoice, hirer payment report, and receipt confirmation where used.

When a shift is confirmed, preserve the agreed rate type, amount, overtime threshold, overtime rate, break treatment, minimum guaranteed hours, VAT basis, and payment terms. Later configuration changes must not silently rewrite a historical agreement.

If either party changes a material term, record the new value, time, actor, and acceptance rather than editing the old record without history.

These are different events. Timesheet approval confirms agreed work evidence. Invoice issue is the supplier’s action. Payment sent is the hirer’s report. Payment received is the supplier’s confirmation. Combining them into one “paid” switch makes disputes and reconciliation harder.

• Timesheet: submitted, corrected, approved, rejected, or disputed.
• Invoice: number, issue date, due date, supplier identity, customer identity, net, VAT, and total.
• Payment: method, reference, sent date, received date, and received amount.

Create a short weekly queue for missing contracts, late timesheets, overdue approvals, invoices not issued, payments reported but not confirmed, and unresolved disputes. Assign an owner and next action to each exception.

The purpose of an audit trail is not to collect paperwork for its own sake. It is to make the next operational decision obvious and to preserve reliable evidence if a customer, supplier, accountant, regulator, or adviser later asks what happened.