Time card calculator

How the time card adds up your week

Each day is your time out minus your time in, minus any unpaid break. The days are then added together, and the weekly total is split into regular hours and overtime using the rule you choose. Here is a typical week:

Under the federal rule that is 40 regular hours and 2.25 hours of overtime. At $20 an hour, the pay before tax is 40 × $20 = $800 plus 2.25 × $30 = $67.50, for $867.50. The day you count a shift on matters too: a night shift from 10 PM to 6 AM counts toward the day it started.

Rounding punches and the 7-minute rule

Many time clocks round each punch. The Department of Labor’s rule on this, 29 CFR 785.48(b), accepts rounding to the nearest 5 minutes, the nearest tenth of an hour (6 minutes) or the nearest quarter hour, provided that over time it doesn’t result in employees being paid for less time than they actually worked. In practice that means rounding has to go both ways. With quarter-hour rounding:

The calculator rounds each punch before adding up the day, as a time clock does, and shows the rounded times under the day. Breaks aren’t rounded. Leave rounding on Exact if you’re paid to the minute. Some states go further than the federal rule: in 2021 California’s Supreme Court held that employers can’t round meal-period punches (Donohue v. AMN Services).

Paid and unpaid breaks

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, rest breaks of about 5 to 20 minutes count as hours worked and must be paid (29 CFR 785.18). A bona fide meal period, usually 30 minutes or more, where you’re completely relieved of duty doesn’t have to be paid (29 CFR 785.19). So a 30-minute lunch goes in the break column, but two 10-minute coffee breaks don’t. Some states set their own break rules: California, for example, requires a 30-minute meal period on most shifts over five hours (Labor Code section 512) and a paid 10-minute rest break for every four hours worked.

Overtime counts one workweek at a time

Federal overtime is worked out per workweek: a fixed, regularly recurring run of seven consecutive days, which your employer can start on any day (29 CFR 778.105). Each workweek stands alone, so 30 hours one week and 50 the next means 10 hours of overtime in the second week, even though the two weeks average 40 (29 CFR 778.104). That’s why you can set the week to start on Sunday or Monday. The calculator pays overtime at 1.5 times the rate you enter. Your real overtime rate can be higher, because some bonuses and shift premiums count toward the “regular rate”, and not every job is covered: salaried exempt employees usually don’t get overtime. Check your contract or your state labor department if a number looks off.

Decimal hours, printing and spreadsheets

Payroll counts hours in hundredths, so 7 hours 45 minutes is 7.75 hours. Every day and total is shown both ways, and the CSV has decimal columns you can paste straight into payroll, an invoice or a spreadsheet. Print gives a one-page timesheet with signature lines; to keep a PDF, choose Save as PDF in your browser’s print dialog. Your week is saved in this browser as you type, so you can fill it in day by day. When a new week starts, click Clear week: your name, rate and settings stay.

For a single shift, the hours calculator is quicker. To see what overtime is worth without entering daily punches, try the overtime calculator, and to turn your hourly rate into a yearly figure, use hourly to salary. If your time clock shows 24-hour times like 1730, the military time converter turns them into AM and PM.