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Work Hours and Time Clock Guides
These two guides work through paid time by hand and in Excel. Our calculators give the same answers faster. Say Maria clocks in at 7:00 AM, leaves at 3:30 PM and takes a 30-minute unpaid lunch. She is paid for 8 hours. If her employer rounds to the quarter hour, a punch at 8:07 counts as 8:00, but 8:08 counts as 8:15. For a quick total, use the work hours calculator, the time card calculator or the time clock rounding calculator.
Work hours guide questions
How do I calculate work hours by hand?
Turn each clock time into minutes after midnight, then take the start away from the end. For a shift past midnight, add 24 hours to the end time first. Remove unpaid breaks and divide by 60 to get decimal hours. The full guide has more shifts to copy.
How do I calculate work hours in Excel?
Type clock-in in B2 and clock-out in C2. Then =MOD(C2-B2,1)*24 gives decimal hours, and MOD keeps a night shift from going negative. Take off 0.5 for a 30-minute lunch.
Is time clock rounding legal?
Under federal rules you can round to the nearest 5, 6 or 15 minutes if it evens out over time. California and a few other states are stricter. The rounding guide explains the 7-minute rule.