Hours calculator.
The time between two times, minus breaks — in hours, minutes and decimal.
From clock times to a timesheet
Enter a start and end time and the calculator returns the gap, subtracts any unpaid break, and shows the result two ways: as hours and minutes, and as decimal hours — the format payroll and invoicing systems expect, where 8 hours 30 minutes is 8.5, not 8.30. The conversion trips people up because there are 60 minutes in an hour, not 100: to convert minutes to decimal, divide by 60 (45 minutes ÷ 60 = 0.75). If the end time is earlier than the start, the calculator assumes the shift ran past midnight and counts it as overnight, so a 10 pm to 6 am shift comes out as 8 hours. It's built for timesheets and shift totals; for a single day's worth of multiple entries, run each and add the decimals. To count whole days instead of hours, see the date calculator.
A worked example
Say a shift runs from 08:45 to 17:20 with a 30-minute unpaid lunch. The gap between the two clock times is 8 hours 35 minutes; take off the break and you are left with 8 hours 5 minutes. Converted for payroll that is 5 ÷ 60 = 0.0833, so the decimal total is 8.08 hours. Entering 8.05 instead — the mistake the 60-versus-100 confusion invites — would under-pay the shift by nearly two minutes every day, which adds up across a month.
Adding up a week
Timesheets are totalled in decimal hours precisely because decimals add cleanly and hours-and-minutes do not. Run each shift through the calculator, note the decimal figure, then sum those: 8.08 + 7.75 + 8.25 + 6.50 + 8.00 comes to 38.58 hours for the week. If you try to add 8h05m + 7h45m in your head you have to keep carrying at 60, which is where errors creep in.
Many payroll systems treat hours beyond a weekly threshold as overtime at a higher rate, but the threshold, the rate and whether it is calculated daily or weekly all depend on your country, industry and contract — check your own terms rather than assuming the common 40-hour figure applies.
Rounding and breaks
Employers often round clock-in and clock-out times to the nearest quarter hour. Rounding is generally only acceptable where it is neutral over time — rounding always downwards systematically shortchanges staff. If your workplace rounds, apply it to the clock times before subtracting the break, not to the final decimal, or the rounding compounds.
Whether a break is paid matters as much as its length. Enter only unpaid breaks; paid rest breaks should stay inside the total. If a shift has several unpaid breaks, add their minutes together and enter the combined figure.