Time card calculator
Payroll runs on decimal hours, and this is where hand-written time cards go wrong. Eight hours thirty is 8.5, not 8.30. Fifteen minutes is 0.25, twenty minutes is 0.33, and forty minutes is 0.67. Entering 8.30 instead of 8.5 underpays by twelve minutes a day, which is about an hour a week — small enough to go unnoticed and large enough to matter over a year.
Hours worked are clock-out minus clock-in, less unpaid breaks. Nine to five-thirty with a thirty-minute break is 8 hours exactly — 8.0 in decimal hours, which is what payroll needs rather than 8:00.
How to work out a time card
Whether overtime is measured daily or weekly changes the answer materially. Federal US rules use a 40-hour week, so four ten-hour days attract no overtime at all; several states apply a daily threshold of eight, under which the same four days generate eight hours of overtime. European working time rules are different again, focusing on maximum weekly hours and rest periods rather than a premium rate. Setting the threshold field to match the rule that applies to you is the difference between an accurate figure and a confident wrong one.
Questions
Divide the minutes by 60. Thirty minutes is 0.5, twenty is 0.33, forty-five is 0.75.