Clock time in, decimal hours out
Timesheets are filled in as clock times and paid in decimal hours, and the conversion between the two is where small errors accumulate. Eight hours and ten minutes is 8.1667 hours, which most systems round to 8.17. Over a five-day week that rounding can move the total by a few minutes in either direction, so the calculator shows the exact decimal alongside the rounded one and totals from the unrounded values.
Breaks
Enter an unpaid break in minutes per day and it is deducted from that day's total before the week is summed. Paid breaks should simply not be entered. Whether a break is paid is set by your employer and, in some states, by law — this calculator does not know your jurisdiction and does not try to guess.
Overnight and split shifts
A shift from 21:30 to 05:45 is 8 hours 15 minutes. When the finish time is earlier than the start time the calculator treats the shift as crossing midnight. For split shifts, add a second row for the same day; both spans are counted and the day's break deduction is applied once.
Worked example — a five-day week
Mon 08:30–17:00 with a 45-minute break is 7:45. Tue and Wed the same is another 15:30. Thu 08:30–15:15 with a 30-minute break is 6:15. Fri 08:30–16:00 with a 45-minute break is 6:45. The week totals 36 hours 15 minutes, or 36.25 decimal hours. At $24.00 an hour that is $870.00.
Overtime is not calculated
This tool gives you hours worked. It does not apply overtime multipliers, because the threshold and the multiplier depend on your employer, your state and sometimes your contract — over 40 in a week is the common US federal rule, but daily thresholds, seventh-consecutive-day rules and averaging agreements all exist. Take the total from here and apply your own rule to it.
Rounding conventions
Some employers round each punch to the nearest quarter hour, some to the nearest tenth, some not at all. Rounding each day before summing gives a different answer from summing then rounding, and the difference is real money over a year. We sum unrounded and round once at the end, and show you both so you can match whatever your payroll actually does.
The convention this calculator uses
Every timesheet tool makes four choices. Ours, stated:
- Punches are taken as entered. No punch is rounded to a quarter hour or a tenth on the way in. If your employer rounds, apply their rule to the exact figure this page gives rather than the other way round — you cannot recover an exact total from pre-rounded punches.
- Breaks are deducted per day, before the week is summed. A break longer than the shift is rejected rather than producing a negative day.
- A finish earlier than the start means the shift crossed midnight. The hours land on the day the shift started, which is the usual payroll treatment and the one that keeps a week totalling correctly.
- Wall-clock arithmetic. On the two days a year when US clocks change, the elapsed time and the clock difference are not the same number. See below.
Worked example — the two clock-change shifts
US clocks go forward on Sunday 8 March 2026 and back on Sunday 1 November 2026. A night shift running 22:00 to 06:00 on the spring date shows eight hours on the clock but only seven hours were worked; on the autumn date the same shift shows eight and nine were worked. Which figure is payable is set by your employer or your contract, not by arithmetic — the common US practice is to pay actual hours worked, so seven and nine. This calculator gives the wall-clock figure and flags the two dates, because a tool that silently picks one of the two answers is the reason the March payslip argument happens every year.
Worked example — a fortnight with a split week
Week one: five days of 08:30 to 17:00 with a 45-minute unpaid break is 7:45 a day, 38 hours 45 minutes, or 38.75 decimal. Week two: four days the same is 31:00, plus a Saturday call-out of 09:15 to 13:40 with no break, which is 4:25. Week two is 35 hours 25 minutes, or 35.417 decimal. The fortnight totals 74 hours 10 minutes, or 74.167 hours. Note what happens if you round each week first: 38.75 plus 35.42 is 74.17, which is a cent or two different at any real hourly rate and a visible difference over a year. The page sums the exact minutes.
Where other timesheet calculators disagree
- Rounding. Quarter-hour rounding at each punch is common in US payroll and legal under federal rules if it is neutral over time. It is not neutral if it always rounds down. A tool that bakes it in cannot show you the difference; this one shows the exact total so you can compare.
- Break handling. Some tools deduct a fixed break whenever a shift exceeds a threshold. That is a policy, not arithmetic, and it varies by state.
- Overnight shifts. Tools that assign an overnight shift to the finishing day will disagree with ours on which week the hours fall in, which matters at a week boundary and for overtime thresholds.
- Decimal precision. Two decimals loses up to eighteen seconds a day. Over a hundred entries that is a visible amount.
What this page deliberately does not do
It does not apply overtime multipliers, shift differentials, holiday pay, or any deduction. Those depend on your employer, your state and often your contract, and a calculator that guessed at them would be confidently wrong for most visitors. It gives you hours worked, exactly, in both clock and decimal form; the rate and the rules are yours to apply. For a single span rather than a week, the time duration calculator is quicker; for adding several durations together, use the time calculator. If your shifts are logged in 24-hour form, the military time converter has the full chart.