Reading a time
A time is read in whatever form you type it. 9, 9:15,
9:15am, 915, 0915 and 13:45 are all
accepted. Minutes above 59 or hours above 23 are rejected and the row turns pink.
A time with no am or pm and an hour from 1 to 12 is ambiguous: 4 could be
four in the morning or four in the afternoon. The am/pm switch beside each box decides it.
The day's first clock-in has nothing before it, so its switch starts on am and you flip it
for a night shift. Every time after that is read as the next time on the clock after the punch
before it. 7 to 11 is 7am to 11am, not 11pm. Back from lunch at
11:30 is 11:30am. 8 to 4 is 8am to 4pm, eight hours
rather than twenty. After a 10pm clock-in, a bare 6 is 6am the next morning. The
switch always shows the reading it chose.
The one day this reads wrong is a shift of twelve hours or more typed without am or pm:
6 to 9 is read as three hours, not fifteen. Tap the switch, or type
9pm. A switch you tapped, a typed 4am or 4pm, and a
24-hour time like 04:00 or 0400 are never second-guessed — a
leading zero or a four-digit form is treated as deliberate 24-hour time. The
military time card has no switch at all: every time on it is 24-hour,
and 2400 is read as the end of the day.
Totalling a day
Each in and out pair is one segment. A segment's length is clock-out minus clock-in. If the
clock-out is earlier than the clock-in, the shift crossed midnight and 24 hours are added:
10:00pm to 6:00am is eight hours.
The segments of a day are added together. Then the unpaid break, if you entered one, is subtracted from the day's total. A day cannot go below zero. A day with no times entered counts as not worked and is left out of every total.
| Day | Segments | Break | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | 7:00–11:00, 11:30–2:00, 2:30–6:00 | none | 4:00 + 2:30 + 3:30 = 10:00 |
| Tue | 8:52–5:33pm | 30 min | 8:41 − 0:30 = 8:11 |
| Fri | 10:00pm–6:00am | none | 8:00 |
If you punched out for lunch, the punches already exclude it. Enter a break only for time that is deducted without a punch. Entering both deducts it twice.
The night the clocks change
Times on a card are what the clock on the wall said. Twice a year that is not the same as
the time worked. When the clocks go back an hour in autumn, a 10:00pm to
6:00am shift is nine hours of work, not eight; when they go
forward in spring it is seven. Pay is owed on the hours actually worked, so the calculator
counts the real length.
It knows when your clocks change from your device's own time zone: in most of the United States and Canada that is 2:00am on the first Sunday of November and the second Sunday of March; in the UK, the last Sundays of October and March; in Arizona and Hawaii, never, and nothing is added. The adjustment needs dates, so it only happens once you set the first day of the card. The day shows a note saying an hour was added or taken off, and the Excel download says so beside the punches.
What the row notes mean
A line under a day, in red, means the card cannot be submitted as it stands: a time the calculator cannot read (the row also turns pink), a clock-in that is missing, or a clock-out that is missing. The affected pair is left out of the total until it is fixed. A line in amber means one stretch runs over sixteen hours — counted in full, because it might be true, but almost always an am that should be a pm. A grey line marks a shift the clocks changed during, as above; it is the one note that also prints, so payroll can see why the hours differ from the punches. No other note appears on the printed card.
Hours and decimal
On screen a day's total is written 8h 11m rather than 8:11, so it cannot be
mistaken for a time of day or for the decimal beside it. The Excel download uses the
8:11 form, which is what payroll software imports.
Decimal hours are minutes divided by sixty, shown to two places. 8:11 is 8 + 11 ÷ 60 =
8.1833, shown as 8.18. 8:05 is 8.08, not 8.05. The totals row uses
the exact minutes, not the sum of rounded days, so it can differ from adding the decimal
column by hand by a hundredth. The exact figure is the correct one.
Overtime rules
Overtime is worked out one week at a time. A biweekly or monthly card is split into blocks of seven days from the first day, and each block is judged on its own. Nothing carries from one week into the next.
| Rule | What it does |
|---|---|
| Over 40 a week | All hours are regular until the week passes 40. Everything past 40 is overtime. |
| Over 8 a day | Each day: the first 8 hours are regular, the rest overtime. No weekly test. |
| Over 8 a day, 40 a week | Daily rule first, then if the remaining regular hours pass 40 in the week, the excess is also overtime. Hours are never counted twice. |
| California 8 / 12 | Each day: first 8 regular, 8 to 12 overtime, past 12 double time. Then the weekly 40 test on regular hours. And if all seven days of a week are worked, the seventh day is paid at overtime for its first 8 hours and double time after that. |
| None | Every hour is regular. |
Worked example, California rule, one week of 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 and 10 hours: the first six days are 48 regular hours, of which 8 pass the weekly 40 and become overtime. The seventh day is worked, so its 10 hours are 8 overtime and 2 double time. Result: 40 regular, 16 overtime, 2 double time.
Pay
If you enter a rate, gross pay is regular hours × rate, plus overtime hours × 1.5 × rate, plus double time hours × 2 × rate. It is gross — before tax, before deductions. For two jobs at two rates in one week, the time card with overtime and pay works out the blended rate the law asks for.
What it does not do
- It does not round. Employer rounding to the nearest quarter hour is lawful only when it rounds both ways; this calculator shows exact minutes so you can see what rounding did.
- It does not know your state's meal break law, your union contract or your employer's handbook. Pick the rule that matches; if none does, use "none" and apply your own.
- It does not send anything anywhere. Every number on this page is produced on your device.
If you find a mistake
Send the exact times and the answer you expected to hello@hourstally.com. Every reported case becomes a permanent test so it cannot come back.