How the time card adds up
Each day's paid time is simply clock-out minus clock-in, minus any unpaid break. The calculator totals Monday through Friday, splits the week into regular hours (up to 40) and overtime (everything past 40), and, if you enter an hourly rate, turns the split into gross pay at your chosen overtime multiplier. Days you leave blank are ignored, and a day whose clock-out isn't after its clock-in gets flagged and skipped rather than silently corrupting the total. You can also switch to a two-week card, apply the same rounding your timesheet system uses, and print the finished card straight from the result.
The formula
Regular hours are the weekly total capped at 40; overtime is whatever exceeds 40. Payroll systems track minutes, then convert to decimal hours; this chart is the whole trick:
| Minutes | Decimal hours |
|---|---|
| 15 min | 0.25 |
| 20 min | 0.33 |
| 30 min | 0.50 |
| 40 min | 0.67 |
| 45 min | 0.75 |
| 60 min | 1.00 |
Worked example
You work 8:00 to 17:00 Monday through Friday with a 30-minute unpaid lunch: that's 9 hours on the clock minus 0.5, so 8.5 paid hours a day, or 42h 30m for the week.
At $20/hour with 1.5× overtime: 40 regular hours × $20 = $800, plus 2.5 overtime hours × $30 = $75, for $875 gross.
The half-hour that goes missing
The most common time card mistake is treating "8 to 5" as 8 hours. It's 9, and whether you're paid for 8 or 8.5 depends entirely on whether your lunch is unpaid, which is why the break column exists. Under the U.S. FLSA, non-exempt employees generally earn at least 1.5× pay for hours over 40 in a workweek, but the details vary by state and country (California, for instance, adds daily overtime after 8 hours), so treat this calculator's 40-hour weekly split as the common case, not legal advice.
Bi-weekly cards: overtime is per week, not per 80 hours
If you're paid every two weeks, switch the calculator to two weeks and fill in the second week. One thing trips people up constantly: under the FLSA, overtime is computed on each workweek separately, never on the 80-hour pay period. Work 45 hours in week 1 and 35 in week 2 and you're owed 5 overtime hours, even though the two weeks average out to exactly 40. An employer can't average the weeks together to make overtime disappear, and this calculator splits each week at 40 on its own before adding the two together.
What time rounding does to your paycheck
Many timesheet systems round each day to the nearest 5, 6, or 15 minutes, so the same options are here to help you match your pay stub. The honest fine print: rounding is legal in the U.S. only when it's neutral, meaning it rounds up as often as it rounds down and doesn't systematically favor the employer over time. If your card always seems to round against you, that's worth a conversation. Check what your timesheet system actually does; our work hours calculator covers the rounding rules in more depth.