Time Card Calculator

Time card or timesheet?

The same thing, under two names. A time card is the record of when you clocked in and out; a timesheet is what you hand in at the end of the week. This page produces both: enter the punches, and the totals below are what a payroll system asks for. Print it, download it as a CSV, or copy the figures.

How to use it

1. Enter the clock-in and clock-out time for each day you worked.
2. Add unpaid break time, in minutes, for any day that had one.
3. Set the overtime rules if yours differ from the 40-hour week and the time-and-a-half rate.
4. Add your hourly rate if you want pay as well as hours.

Totals update as you type. Nothing needs to be submitted, and there is no result to wait for.

A worked example

Someone works 09:00 to 17:00 from Monday to Friday with a 30-minute unpaid lunch each day, then a 09:00 to 14:00 shift on Saturday. Their rate is $20 an hour.

• Monday to Friday: 8 hours worked, minus 30 minutes, is 7.5 paid hours a day — 37.5 hours.
• Saturday: 5 hours, bringing the week to 42.5 hours.
• The first 40 hours are regular: 40 × $20 = $800.00.
• The remaining 2.5 hours are overtime: 2.5 × $20 × 1.5 = $75.00.
• Gross pay for the week is $875.00.

The formula

For each day:

paid minutes = (clock out − clock in) − unpaid break

When the clock-out is not later than the clock-in, 24 hours are added, because the shift ran past midnight. For the week:

overtime = paid hours above the threshold

gross pay = (regular × rate) + (overtime × rate × multiplier)

Hours are shown two ways. 7:30 is seven hours and thirty minutes, which is how a clock reads. 7.50 is the same time in decimal hours, which is what payroll systems ask for. Confusing the two is the most common time card error: 7.30 is not seven and a half hours.

Being paid every two weeks

Set the pay period to two weeks and the card takes fourteen days instead of seven, shown a week at a time so each one keeps its own heading and its own total. The totals name each week before the period's sum, and the pay is added from the two weeks rather than worked out again from eighty hours.

That is not a presentation detail. Overtime is owed by the workweek, so the two weeks have to be counted apart: 50 hours and then 30 is ten hours of overtime, although eighty is exactly two forties. Averaging the hours across a pay period is the arithmetic the US Department of Labor names as unlawful, and it is the one a calculator gets wrong by simply adding the fourteen days up.

Rounding, and why it matters

Many employers round punches to the nearest quarter hour, so arriving at 08:58 counts as 09:00 and leaving at 17:03 counts as 17:00. Rounding is applied to each punch before the day is totalled, never to the daily total — the two give different answers, and rounding the total is not what payroll does.

Under United States federal rules, rounding must be neutral over time rather than always favoring the employer. If your employer only ever rounds down, that is worth raising.

Common uses

• Checking a paycheck against the hours you actually worked.
• Totalling a paper time card before handing it in.
• Working out what a week of overtime is worth before agreeing to it.
• Converting hours and minutes into the decimal hours a payroll system expects.
• Adding up split shifts, where a day has two separate blocks of work.

What this does not do

It calculates gross pay only. It does not know your tax withholding, deductions, benefits, or state-specific rules such as California's daily overtime and double-time thresholds — though you can enter a daily threshold yourself. Treat the result as a check on the arithmetic, not as a payslip.