Timesheet calculator

How the timesheet calculator works

Enter the times you clocked in and out each day, the way they appear on a time card, and the timesheet calculator turns them into the totals a timesheet asks for: hours per day, hours for the week in hours and minutes and in decimal hours, regular time and overtime, and gross pay if you add a rate.

Each day can hold more than one in/out pair, for a split shift or for clocking out at lunch. If you take an unpaid lunch without clocking out, put it in the break field instead and it is taken off that day.

A worked week

The calculator starts with a common full-time week: 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM, Monday to Friday, with a 30-minute unpaid lunch. That is 8 hours 30 minutes on the clock, minus 30 minutes, so 8:00 a day and 40:00 for the week, with no overtime.

Add four hours on Saturday morning and the week comes to 44:00. The first 40 hours are regular time and the last 4 are overtime. At $20 an hour, that is 40 × $20 = $800 plus 4 × $30 = $120, so $920 gross for the week.

How to convert minutes to decimal hours

Payroll systems usually want hours as a decimal number rather than hours and minutes. To convert, divide the minutes by 60 and add the result to the whole hours. 7 hours 45 minutes is 7 + 45 ÷ 60 = 7.75 hours.

The mistake to avoid is reading the clock time as a decimal. 7:45 is not 7.45 hours. At $20 an hour, 7.45 hours pays $149.00 and 7.75 hours pays $155.00, so the slip costs $6 on a single day. The calculator shows both forms side by side so you can copy whichever one your form asks for.

Overtime rules in plain words

The calculator uses the federal rule by default. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, non-exempt employees get at least one and a half times their regular rate for every hour over 40 in a workweek (US Department of Labor, overtime pay). A few details matter when you fill in a timesheet:

• The workweek is fixed. It is a regularly recurring period of 168 hours, seven 24-hour days in a row. It can start on any day and at any hour, so line the calculator up with your employer’s week.
• Each week stands alone. Two weeks cannot be averaged. 45 hours one week and 35 the next is still 5 hours of overtime, even though the pay period adds up to 80.
• There is no federal daily overtime. A 10-hour day is not overtime under federal law if the week stays at 40 hours or less.
• Some states add daily rules. California, for example, pays 1.5 times after 8 hours in a day and double time after 12 (California Department of Industrial Relations). Tick the daily overtime box to use those thresholds. The calculator counts each hour once, so hours already counted as daily overtime do not count again toward the weekly 40.
• Exempt employees are different. Some salaried roles are exempt from overtime, but a salary alone does not make you exempt: the job’s duties and pay both have to fit (US Department of Labor, Fact Sheet #17A). The overtime figures apply if you are not exempt.

State laws vary, and union contracts or company policy can be more generous than the law. The calculator does the arithmetic for the rules you pick. It does not cover every special case, such as California’s seventh-day rule, and it is not legal advice. Check your state labor department if you are unsure.

How to fill out a timesheet

1. Use your employer’s workweek and pay period. Write the dates at the top so nobody has to guess which week it covers.
2. Record every clock-in and clock-out on the day it happens. Times written down on Friday from memory are where most timesheet errors come from.
3. Note unpaid breaks separately. Under federal rules, short rest breaks, usually 20 minutes or less, count as hours worked, while a bona fide meal break, typically 30 minutes or more with you completely relieved from duty, generally does not (US Department of Labor, hours worked).
4. Total each day, then the week. Give the total in the format your employer asks for, hours and minutes or decimal hours, and split out overtime if the form has a column for it.
5. Check, sign and keep a copy. Download the CSV or print the page before you submit, so you have your own record if a paycheck looks wrong.

Time card or timesheet?

The two words are often used for the same thing. Strictly, a time card is the record of punches, the in and out times from a time clock, and a timesheet is the summary of hours per day and per week that payroll works from. This page does both: you enter punches as on a time card and get the totals for a timesheet, which is why it works as a time card calculator too.

Written and maintained by the DoneThat team. The formulas match the calculator code, and the rules above were last checked against their sources on 3 November 2026.

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