Time Card Calculator

How do you calculate a weekly time card?

1. Pick a mode. "Check my pay" compares hourly pay; "Bill a client" adds daily notes and an invoice button.
2. Enter clock-in and clock-out separately. Use 9:30 am and 5:30 pm, or 09:30 and 17:30. A shorthand entry such as "8–5pm" belongs in two fields, with AM/PM made explicit. For an overnight shift, enter the real end time. Split shift? Add a second session.
3. Add unpaid breaks in minutes. Paid rest breaks stay in.
4. Pick the overtime rule and your rate. The total updates as you type. Leave rounding off for exact minutes; choose a rounding setting to compare a rounded card.

A weekly timesheet records each day's clock-in, clock-out and unpaid breaks, then totals the worked hours. Use the week-start date from your records and leave days off empty. Keep worked hours, breaks, regular hours and premium hours separate.

To check a card by hand, subtract each start from its end, subtract unpaid breaks once, then add the seven daily results. A 09:30–17:30 day spans 8 hours; a 30-minute unpaid lunch leaves 7 hours 30 minutes. Five identical days total 37 hours 30 minutes.

For the time between just two clock readings, use the hours calculator.

For conversion tables, use the decimal hours calculator.

To combine recorded durations, use the add time calculator.

How does a week with lunch, split shifts and an overnight shift add up?

Dana bills a client $28 an hour, with an agreed 1.5× rate after 40 weekly hours. This example week includes unpaid lunches, a split Wednesday shift and an overnight Thursday shift.

Total: 43.50 hours. With overtime after 40 hours a week: 40 × $28 = $1,120, plus 3.5 × $42 = $147. Total $1,267.

Thursday crosses midnight, so 4:00 pm to 1:30 am counts as 9.5 hours before the break, not a negative number. Wednesday is entered as two sessions, so lunch isn't taken out twice.

Show the math gives the daily breakdown: the first four days total 34.50 hours; Friday adds 5.50 regular and 3.50 premium hours.

Who uses a time card calculator?

Hourly employees checking a paycheck

Enter the worked week and your rate. Compare hours with the pay stub first, then regular and overtime amounts.

Contractors and freelancers billing clients

Switch to Bill a client, describe each day's work and turn the week into invoice lines.

Crew leads and small business owners

Total a helper's week and keep the timesheet PDF with the job records. This card calculates hours and hourly amounts.

Night and shift workers

Hours stay on the day the shift started. The card uses wall-clock minutes without a daylight-saving adjustment; clock-change shifts need their actual elapsed time accounted for separately.

Nannies, caregivers and household workers

Share the daily record as a PDF. Federal domestic-service regulations contain specific live-in overtime exemptions; third-party employers cannot use the live-in exemption (29 CFR 552.102 and 552.109).

How do you subtract lunch breaks from work hours?

Federal hours-worked guidance counts short rest breaks, usually 20 minutes or less, as work time. A meal period, typically 30 minutes or more, can be excluded when the worker is completely relieved of duties; eating while answering work calls is work time (DOL Fact Sheet #22). Enter only unpaid time in the break field.

For one continuous shift with two unpaid breaks, enter their combined minutes once. If you enter the morning and afternoon as separate sessions, the lunch gap is already excluded: leave the unpaid-break field at zero unless another unpaid break occurred inside a session. The field applies once to the whole day, not once to each session.

Keep actual lunch start and end times in the underlying record, even when entering only their combined minutes here. Record each day's actual unpaid break rather than automatically deducting the same lunch from every shift.

A break longer than the clocked time shows an error beside that day and excludes it from the total. Correct that day before using the weekly figure.

Which overtime setting does this weekly time card support?

The table separates statutory rules from custom arithmetic settings. One hourly rate is used throughout the card; there are no separate fields for bonuses, shift differentials or multiple base rates.

Nonexempt employees within FLSA coverage are subject to its overtime requirements; employees specifically exempt from those requirements are excluded. The federal weekly standard is overtime beyond 40 hours at a rate of at least 1.5× the regular rate (29 CFR 778.100, 778.101 and 778.107). The card calculates a selected rule; it does not classify a worker as exempt or nonexempt.

California's general nonexempt rule includes daily, weekly and seventh-day premiums, with exemptions and special schedules described by the California DIR overtime guidance. California mode applies the general thresholds; the custom daily option applies only the daily threshold you see in the selector.

How do you calculate a biweekly time card?

If you're paid every two weeks, overtime is still counted one workweek at a time. You can't average the two weeks (29 CFR 778.104). Two 40-hour weeks have no weekly overtime. A 45-hour week followed by a 35-hour week has 5 weekly overtime hours, even though the total is 80.

Calculate and save each week separately. Add their worked-hour totals for the pay period, and combine the two regular-pay amounts and two premium-pay amounts separately. This card has seven days; keep each week's overtime split with its own card.

How do rounding settings change the time-card total?

Federal guidance accepts rounding to 5 minutes, a tenth of an hour or a quarter-hour when the practice does not undercompensate workers over time (29 CFR 785.48(b)).

Here, rounding happens once per day, after unpaid breaks are subtracted. It does not round each clock-in and clock-out separately. With 15-minute rounding, a daily worked total of 8 hours 7 minutes becomes 8 hours; 8 hours 8 minutes becomes 8 hours 15 minutes. The overtime split then uses the rounded daily totals.

Exact and Rounded appear side by side. Daily rounding can also differ from rounding only the weekly sum. Use Show the math to locate differences; turn rounding off to compare original worked minutes.

Why doesn't the time card total match my paycheck?

Compare the same workweek, break minutes, rounding and overtime rule. Missing sessions or paid breaks entered as unpaid change hours. If hours agree, compare the rate and multiplier. Total pay is gross hourly arithmetic, before paycheck deductions.

Keep the daily breakdown beside your pay stub when asking your employer about a difference. FLSA-covered employers must keep time and wage records under 29 CFR Part 516, §§ 516.2 and 516.5–516.7. Questions about unpaid wages can be directed to the Wage and Hour Division.

How do you calculate billable hours and an amount?

Multiply regular hours by your agreed hourly rate and premium hours by the agreed premium rate, then add the amounts. The example above shows both parts. In client mode, a premium represents agreed after-hours terms. A flat-rate contract uses No overtime; minimum call-out charges are separate items.

Switch to Bill a client and describe each day’s work. Turn into an invoice opens an editable invoice after free registration, with one line for each worked day. That line contains the day’s note, total hours and rate breakdown in its description; its quantity is one day and its price is the daily charge. Or make it without an account carries the same daily lines into the free invoice generator. Keep the timesheet PDF with the invoice.

For a document starting point, see the hourly invoice for freelancers, independent contractors or handyman jobs.