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Kalcufy

Time Card Calculator

Add up a week of clock-ins and clock-outs with breaks and overtime — in decimal hours, because 7 hours 45 minutes is 7.75 on a payslip, not 7.45.

🔢 Minutes to Decimal Hours

  • 15 minutes0.25
  • 20 minutes0.33
  • 30 minutes0.50
  • 40 minutes0.67
  • 45 minutes0.75
  • 50 minutes0.83

Where Timesheets Go Wrong

  • 7 hours 45 minutes is 7.75 decimal hours, not 7.45. Payroll runs on decimals, and writing the minutes straight into the hundredths column overstates or understates every entry.
  • If clock-out is earlier than clock-in, the shift crossed midnight. Subtracting without accounting for that gives a negative number.
  • Unpaid breaks come off the total. A 30-minute lunch on a 9-to-5:30 day makes it 8 hours, not 8.5.
  • The 40-hour weekly rule and the 8-hour daily rule give different answers for the same week. Which applies depends on where you work.

Why Payroll Speaks in Decimals

A timesheet is written in hours and minutes because that is how clocks work, but payroll multiplies by an hourly rate, and you cannot multiply 7:45 by anything sensible. So the minutes have to become a fraction of an hour first: 45 minutes is three quarters, so 7:45 becomes 7.75. Writing it as 7.45 — which happens constantly — treats 45 minutes as 45 hundredths of an hour, or 27 minutes. Over a five-day week that single habit can misstate pay by more than an hour. This calculator returns both forms side by side for exactly that reason: the decimal for the payroll system, and the hours-and-minutes for checking it against the clock.

Two Overtime Rules, One Week, Two Answers

Under the US Fair Labor Standards Act, overtime is time worked beyond 40 hours in a workweek, paid at one and a half times the regular rate. California, and a handful of other states, add a daily rule: anything past 8 hours in a single day is overtime, regardless of the weekly total. The difference is not academic. A week of four ten-hour days totals 40 hours, so the federal rule finds no overtime at all — while the daily rule finds 8 hours of it. Same hours, same worker, different pay. This page calculates under whichever rule you pick, and the reason it asks is that no single answer is correct everywhere.

What the Rules Actually Say

  • FLSA: overtime after 40 hours in a fixed, recurring seven-day workweek, at 1.5× the regular rate. There is no federal daily overtime.
  • California: 1.5× after 8 hours in a day and after 40 in a week, and 2× after 12 hours in a day. Several other states have daily rules too.
  • The workweek is whatever seven-day period the employer fixes. It does not have to start on Monday, but it cannot be moved to dodge overtime.
  • Paid time off does not count toward the 40 for overtime purposes under federal law — only hours actually worked.
  • Rounding to the nearest quarter hour is permitted federally, provided it does not systematically favour the employer over time.
  • Rules outside the US differ entirely. Treat this as arithmetic, and check your own jurisdiction and contract for what is owed.

Breaks, Shifts and the Awkward Cases

  • Unpaid meal breaks are subtracted; short paid rest breaks, typically under 20 minutes, are not.
  • A night shift from 22:00 to 06:00 is 8 hours, not minus 16. Any calculator that returns a negative is subtracting without checking the date.
  • Split shifts need one row each. Combining them into a single in-and-out silently swallows the gap as worked time.
  • On-call time may or may not be payable depending on how restricted you are — that is a legal question, not an arithmetic one.
  • Keep the source record. A calculated total is only as good as the clock-in times you typed into it.
  • For a fortnightly or monthly total, run each week separately. Overtime is calculated per workweek, never across the whole period.

Worked Examples

The decimal trap and the two rules

9:00 to 17:30 with a 30-minute lunch

  1. 17:30 − 9:00 = 8 hours 30 minutes
  2. Minus 30 minutes unpaid = 8 hours 0 minutes
  3. In decimal: 8.00 hours

8.00 hours, not 8.30

Four ten-hour days

  1. 4 × 10 = 40 hours total
  2. Federal 40-hour rule: 0 hours of overtime
  3. Daily 8-hour rule: 4 × 2 = 8 hours of overtime

Same week, two very different pay slips

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I convert hours and minutes to decimal?

Divide the minutes by 60. 45 minutes is 45 ÷ 60 = 0.75, so 7 hours 45 minutes is 7.75 decimal hours. Writing it as 7.45 is the most common timesheet error there is — it treats 45 minutes as 27.

How do I calculate a night shift that crosses midnight?

Add 24 hours to the clock-out time before subtracting. A shift from 22:00 to 06:00 becomes 30:00 − 22:00 = 8 hours. This calculator does that automatically whenever clock-out is earlier than clock-in.

When does overtime start?

Under US federal law, after 40 hours in a workweek, paid at 1.5× the regular rate. California and some other states add a daily rule of 8 hours. Four ten-hour days total 40 hours, so the federal rule finds no overtime while the daily rule finds eight.

Do breaks count as work time?

Unpaid meal breaks do not and are subtracted. Short rest breaks, generally under 20 minutes, are usually paid and stay in the total. A 30-minute lunch turns a 9-to-5:30 day into 8 hours rather than 8.5.

Can my employer round my hours?

US federal rules permit rounding to the nearest quarter hour, provided the practice does not consistently work out in the employer's favour. Rounding that only ever goes down is not permitted.

Can I use this for a two-week total?

Run each week separately and add the totals. Overtime is calculated per workweek, so 30 hours one week and 50 the next produces 10 hours of overtime — not zero, which is what averaging would suggest.

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