Hours Calculator

How the Hours Calculator works

Counting the hours in a shift sounds trivial until the times do not line up on the hour. From 08:30 to 17:15 is not 8.45 hours; it is 8 hours 45 minutes, or 8.75 in decimal. Mixing those two up is one of the most common payroll mistakes, and it always costs the worker, because 45 minutes read as 0.45 hours loses 18 minutes of pay.

How the hours calculator works

The calculator turns each time into minutes after midnight and subtracts the start from the end. If the end is at or before the start, it adds 24 hours, because a shift from 22:00 to 06:00 obviously finishes the next morning. The break is then taken off the time on site to give the hours worked.

• Hours worked is the paid time in hours and minutes.
• Decimal hours is the same figure with minutes as a fraction of an hour, rounded to two places, ready for a pay or billing system.
• Total minutes is useful for systems that record time in minutes.
• Time on site is the full span from start to end, before the break, and notes when the shift ends the next day.
• Pay at that rate appears when you enter an hourly rate and multiplies the decimal hours by it.

Worked examples

A day from 08:30 to 17:15 with a 30-minute lunch gives 8 hours 45 minutes on site and 8:15 worked, which is 8.25 decimal hours. At 14.50 an hour that is 119.63.

A night shift from 22:00 to 06:30 with a 45-minute break gives 8:30 on site, ending the next day, and 7:45 worked, or 7.75 decimal hours.

A split day can be done in two goes: run the morning and the afternoon separately and add the results with the time calculator.

Converting minutes to decimal hours

Decimal hours express minutes as a share of sixty. The quick reference most payroll clerks keep in their head:

Divide minutes by 60 for anything not in the table. The decimal hours converter does both directions and shows the exact value when two places is not enough.

Breaks and what counts as working time

Whether a break is paid depends on your contract and local law, so this calculator simply takes off the number of minutes you enter. Leave it at zero when breaks are paid or when you are working out time on site for access or security records. The break must be shorter than the shift, since anything else is almost certainly a typing slip.

Rest breaks, meal breaks and travel time are treated differently in different places. Check what your agreement says before relying on a total for a pay dispute, and keep your own record of start, finish and break times alongside it.

Where an hours calculator helps

• Checking a payslip against the hours you actually worked.
• Filling in a paper time card or a client's online timesheet.
• Logging freelance hours for an invoice.
• Comparing two shift patterns before agreeing to one.
• Working out how long a site, shop or venue is staffed each day.

Tips for accurate totals

Use the 24-hour clock in your head even if your device shows am and pm, and check the morning and evening are what you meant: 7:00 to 3:00 means a night shift unless you intended 07:00 to 15:00. For a whole week of shifts, the timesheet calculator takes one line per day, totals the week and splits regular hours from overtime.

If your employer rounds clock-in times, for example to the nearest quarter hour, work out both the exact and the rounded figure. Over a year, rounding that always runs in one direction can add up to several days of unpaid time.

How many hours each shift pays

The formula is end time minus start time, plus 24 hours if the shift crosses midnight, minus the unpaid break. For example, a night shift from 22:00 to 06:00 with a 30-minute break is 7:30, or 7.50 decimal hours. Each example below uses the same rule.

Hours worked for common shifts

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