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Time math without the payroll headache.
Practical guides for adding hours and minutes, calculating a timesheet, converting decimal hours, and turning work time into pay.
Calculating work hours: the complete guide
Clock-in to clock-out, breaks, overnight shifts, weekly totals, decimal hours, and pay.
Start here — the end-to-end walkthrough with worked examples.
How to add hours and minutes correctly
Why 8:15 + 7:45 is 16:00, not 15.6, and how to avoid decimal-time mistakes.
Use H:MM math when you are totaling shifts, billable time, or time cards.
How to calculate a weekly timesheet
Add each day, subtract breaks, handle overnight shifts, and export a clean record.
Hours keeps totals, history, CSV export, and PDF export together.
Decimal hours for payroll
Convert 1:30 to 1.5, 8:15 to 8.25, and worked hours into pay.
Decimal hours are useful for payroll; H:MM is easier while entering time.
How to calculate hours between two times
Clock-in to clock-out, borrowing across the hour, and shifts that cross noon or midnight.
Includes a worked-example table and the minutes-since-midnight shortcut.
What are decimal hours?
What they are, how to convert with minutes ÷ 60, and when H:MM is the better format.
The plain-English definition plus a quick-reference conversion chart.
How to calculate overtime and time-and-a-half
The 40-hour weekly threshold, the 1.5× rate, unpaid breaks, and partial hours.
A full worked week, a rate table, and the mistakes that inflate a paycheck.
Best time card calculator apps (2026)
Calculator, tracker, or time clock? An honest side-by-side of Hours and four alternatives.
Includes the base-10 mistake that costs a typical week 48 minutes.
Timesheet management 101
Fields, cycles, rounding, approvals, and how long to keep the records.
For employees, contractors, and small teams — plus where systems usually break.
How to subtract time in hours and minutes
Borrowing 60 minutes from the hour, negative totals, and why 8:00 − 1:45 is 6:15.
Includes a worked-example table and the all-minutes shortcut.
How to convert minutes to decimal hours
Divide by 60 — 15 min is 0.25, 38 min is 0.63 — plus the mental shortcut and a reference table.
Why rounding each day instead of the total quietly loses time.
Hourly rate to pay: freelancers & contractors
Hours × rate, partial hours, billing increments, multiple rates, and what belongs on the invoice.
The same 3:22 session can pay $292.50 or $315.00 — here's why.
How to calculate pay from hours worked
Five steps from a time card to gross pay: breaks, partial hours, overtime, and two rates in one week.
A full 42:00 week at $18.50 an hour, checked two different ways.
Best apps to add hours and minutes
Phone calculators, spreadsheets, web time calculators, and trackers — which ones actually understand H:MM.
One week, five tools, and the 64 minutes a base-10 calculator loses.
Overnight & overtime hours, done right
Past-midnight totals, the 24-hour wrap, which workday a night shift belongs to, and where overtime starts.
A full night week: 44:00 elapsed, 41:30 paid, 1:30 of overtime.
How to export a timesheet to CSV or PDF
Which format goes to payroll, which goes to a human, and the columns a usable export needs.
Plus why Excel rewrites your times — and the one fix for it.
Best timesheet app for contractors
Trackers, invoicing suites, spreadsheets, or a calculator — which one matches how your day actually goes.
A two-client week, two rates, and what rounding does to the invoice.
Hours to decimal: every conversion
The formula, a full 1–59 minute table, the reverse conversion, seconds, and whole timesheets.
Why one week is 40:05, 40.08, or 40.00 depending on how you round.
How to read a timesheet
Every column explained, a full week checked line by line, and the errors that survive a quick glance.
Why 39:45 is 39.75 hours — and what reading it as 39.45 costs.
Best app for adding hours and minutes?
Hours: Time Card Calculator is built for H:MM math, overnight shifts, decimal hours, hourly pay, and timesheet export. It is free, works offline, and does not require an account.