How to use it· 4 steps
- Type each day's clock-in and clock-out times and the unpaid break in minutes. Leave days off blank.
- Set the overtime rule — over 40 hours a week by default — and, if you need it, a daily limit such as 8 hours.
- Add your hourly rate and overtime multiplier to see gross pay. Choose a rounding rule only if your employer rounds punches.
- Download the card as a CSV for a spreadsheet, or print a clean copy for your records.
Step by step
How to use the time card calculator
- 1Type each day's clock-in and clock-out times and the unpaid break in minutes. Leave days off blank.
- 2Set the overtime rule — over 40 hours a week by default — and, if you need it, a daily limit such as 8 hours.
- 3Add your hourly rate and overtime multiplier to see gross pay. Choose a rounding rule only if your employer rounds punches.
- 4Download the card as a CSV for a spreadsheet, or print a clean copy for your records.
How each day and the week are totalled
Each day's paid time is clock-out minus clock-in, minus the unpaid break. A shift that ends earlier on the clock than it started — 10:00 PM to 6:30 AM — ends the next morning, and the whole shift is counted on the day it began. The week's total is the sum of the days, shown in h:mm and in decimal hours, the figure payroll uses.
The card opens with a common week filled in: Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 5:30 PM with a 30-minute unpaid lunch, which is 8 hours a day and 40 for the week — exactly at the overtime line. Change Friday's clock-out to 7:00 PM and the week becomes 41.5 hours: 40 regular and 1.5 overtime. At $20 an hour and time and a half, that is 40 × $20 + 1.5 × $30 = $845 gross.
A day with only one time filled in, an unreadable time or a break longer than the shift is flagged on its row and left out of the totals, rather than counted as zero hours or guessed at.
Weekly overtime, daily overtime and the order they apply
Under the US Fair Labor Standards Act, non-exempt employees must be paid at least one and a half times their regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek. There is no federal daily limit — ten hours on Monday and six on Tuesday is not overtime by itself. That weekly rule is the default here, and the threshold and multiplier can both be changed.
Some states add a daily rule. California, the best-known example, pays time and a half for hours over 8 in a workday, double time over 12, and has separate rules for the seventh consecutive day. The daily limit here is offered as an option you set, not a statement of any state's law; double time and seventh-day rules are not modelled, so check those cases by hand.
When both a daily and a weekly limit apply, daily overtime is counted first and the weekly limit then applies only to the hours still counted as regular, so no hour is paid as overtime twice. Outside the US, overtime is usually set by national law or a collective agreement — enter the thresholds that apply to you. Whether a particular job is exempt from overtime is a legal question this calculator does not answer.
Punch rounding and the 7-minute rule
Many time clocks round each punch to the nearest 5 minutes, 6 minutes (a tenth of an hour) or 15 minutes. The US Department of Labor accepts this under 29 CFR 785.48(b), on the condition that over time it averages out and employees are paid for all the time they actually work. A policy that only ever rounds in the employer's favour does not meet that test.
With 15-minute increments the practice is often called the 7-minute rule: a punch 1 to 7 minutes past a quarter-hour rounds back, and 8 to 14 minutes past rounds forward. Clocking in at 8:07 counts as 8:00; at 8:08 it counts as 8:15. Over many shifts the ups and downs are meant to cancel.
Practice and law vary. California's Supreme Court held in 2021 (Donohue v. AMN Services) that employers may not round the time punches around meal periods, and some employers do not round at all. Rounding here applies to every punch only when you choose it, so you can compare the rounded total your payslip shows with the exact one.
Breaks, decimal hours and keeping your own record
Enter only unpaid breaks. Under federal rules a bona fide meal period — ordinarily 30 minutes or more, free of duties — is unpaid, while short rest breaks of about 5 to 20 minutes count as paid work time and should not be deducted. State law can require breaks of its own.
Hours convert to decimal by dividing the minutes by 60, so 7:45 is 7.75 hours, not 7.45. Gross pay is worked on exact minutes, before tax and other deductions, so it can differ by a cent from a payroll system that rounds each day to two decimal places before multiplying.
The CSV download has one row per day with the times, break and hours in both formats, followed by the totals and pay, and opens in Excel, Google Sheets or Numbers. Print produces the card alone, not the page around it. Keeping your own log is the easiest way to check a paycheque. Nothing is uploaded or saved here — reloading clears the card — so download the CSV to keep a copy.
Answers
Frequently asked questions
How do I calculate the hours on a time card?
For each day, subtract the clock-in time from the clock-out time and take off any unpaid break, then add the days. 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM with a 30-minute lunch is 8 hours.
How is overtime calculated?
Under the US federal rule, hours over 40 in a workweek are paid at least 1.5 times the regular rate. Some states, such as California, also count hours over 8 in a day; that is available here as an option.
How do I enter an overnight shift?
Enter the clock-in and clock-out times as they are. When clock-out is earlier than clock-in, the shift is treated as ending the next day and counted on the day it started.
What is the 7-minute rule?
A way of rounding punches to the nearest quarter hour: 1–7 minutes past rounds down and 8–14 minutes past rounds up. It is permitted only if it averages out fairly over time.
Should I deduct short breaks?
Only unpaid ones. Meal breaks of 30 minutes or more are usually unpaid; short rest breaks of 5 to 20 minutes are generally paid time under US federal rules and should not be subtracted.
Is my time card saved?
No. Everything stays in your browser and is cleared when you reload or leave the page, so download the CSV or print the card to keep a copy.