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CalcMax

Time Card Calculator

Range: 0.01 – 1,000,000,000

Result

1,000.00

Gross pay

Hours per week
40.00 hours
Hours before breaks
42.50 hours
Break time deducted
2.50 hours
Days worked
5 days

A time card is a week of clock times, and turning it into money takes three steps that are easy to get wrong: work out how long each shift was, take the unpaid break off each one, and multiply what is left by the hourly rate. This calculator does all three from the fourteen boxes at the top — a start and an end for each day of the week, one break figure, and the rate. The default week, 09:00 to 17:30 Monday to Friday with a 30 minute break, comes to 42.5 hours on the clock, 2.5 hours of break and 40 paid hours, which at 25 an hour is 1,000. The order of those three steps is what the panel's rows are showing: gross hours, then the break, then the paid hours that the money is worked out from. Two details of that order are worth knowing before reading a result. The break is taken off each day rather than off the week, so a break longer than the shift comes out as no paid time at all rather than as a negative that quietly cancels another day — a twenty minute shift with a thirty minute break pays nothing. And the paid hours are worked out from the rounded gross and break figures rather than from the underlying seconds, so the panel can be checked by hand: 42.5 minus 2.5 is 40, and 40 times 25 is 1,000. The table below does the same arithmetic across a spread of weekly hours, with the break and the rate held fixed, so the effect of an extra half hour on the clock can be read off without entering it.

One week's pay across a spread of hours on the clock

Hours on the clockPaid hoursGross pay
4037.5937.50
42.5401000.00
4542.51062.50
47.5451125.00
5047.51187.50

The break and the rate are held fixed so that only the hours move: every row assumes the 30 minute daily break of the default week, five days a week, and the same 25 an hour. The middle column is therefore the first column minus 2.5 hours, and the last column is the middle one multiplied by 25. Reproduce any row by entering five weekday shifts of the length that gives the first column, with a 30 minute break and a rate of 25. Two things are worth reading off it. The first is that a full week on this pattern is four hours and 100 more than a standard one — the difference between a 40 hour week on the clock and a 40 hour week paid, which is a distinction that costs money in one direction and is invisible in the other. The second is the shape of the columns: the first two move in steps of 2.5, because that is the break, while the last moves in steps of 62.50, and once you know that, the middle of the table is arithmetic you can do while reading a payslip.

Formula

Gross pay = hourly rate × (hours on the clock − unpaid break)

monStart
When the week starts, as a clock time on a 24 hour dial: a nine o'clock start is 09:00 and a night shift that begins at ten in the evening is 22:00. The field is the same one the hours calculator in the time category uses, because it is the same quantity, and each day has a start and an end box of its own. Leave both boxes of a day empty and that day is skipped entirely, which is how a four day week is entered without pretending the fifth day was zero hours.
monEnd
When that day's shift finished. An end earlier than the start is read as having crossed midnight rather than as an error, so 22:00 to 06:00 is an eight hour night shift, not a negative one. Filling in one of the two boxes for a day and leaving the other empty is an error rather than a zero: a shift with an end and no start is a half-entered day, and quietly treating it as nothing would understate the week.
breakTime
The unpaid break, entered once for the week and applied to every day worked. It is not a per-day field, which is a simplification worth being aware of: a week with three short days and two long ones gets the same deduction on each. What it does do is stay inside the day — a break longer than the shift is cut down to the length of the shift, so a twenty minute shift with a thirty minute break is twenty minutes of break and nothing paid, rather than a negative that eats into another day's hours.
hourlyRate
What an hour of paid time is worth. Only paid hours are multiplied by it, so the break is already off the figure this acts on. It is the last field rather than the first because the page reads in the order the work happens: clock times, then hours, then money. Whether the rate should be the same for a weekend or a night shift is a question the page does not ask — if the answer is no, the days that pay differently need a second run through the calculator.
grossHours
Everything on the clock for the week, before any break is taken off: the sum of each day's shift length, with a shift that crosses midnight counted as the hours it actually spans. It is the figure a time clock would report and the one to reconcile against the punch records before trusting anything below it. (hours)
breakHours
The break deducted for the week: the daily break multiplied by the number of days actually worked, and never more than the length of the day it is taken from. It is printed separately so the deduction is visible rather than folded into the paid hours, because a break figure is the one number on a time card that people check against what they actually took. (hours)
weeklyHours
The paid hours: what is left of the clock hours after the break, and the figure the pay is worked out from. It is the same quantity the hours calculator reports, which is why the two pages share the name, and it is the number to compare against the contract if the contract specifies a paid weekly total. Hours beyond the standard week are not treated specially here — see the overtime page in the same category for that. (hours)
daysWorked
How many days had both a start and an end filled in. It matters more than it looks, because the break is deducted per day: a week entered as five short days loses five breaks, and the same hours entered as four longer days loses four. It is also the quickest check that the form was filled in the way you intended. (days)
grossPay
The paid hours multiplied by the rate, and the panel's main figure. Gross means before tax and before any deduction, so it is the number that gets reported rather than the number that arrives: income tax, social insurance and pension contributions come off it afterwards, and how much depends on where you are. Overtime, tips, shift premiums and expenses are outside it entirely.

Use it at the end of a week to turn a time card into an amount: checking a payslip against the hours actually worked, quoting a client for a piece of work that is billed by the hour, or working out what a change of hours would be worth before agreeing to it. It is also the page to open when the break is the thing in question, because the deduction sits on its own row — entering the week without a break and again with one shows what that half hour a day is actually worth over a year. What it does not do is decide what any of the hours should be paid at. Overtime, weekend premiums, night differentials and public holiday rates are all rules about which hours attract which multiplier, and this page applies one rate to all of them.

Worked examples

  1. The default week: Monday to Friday, 09:00 to 17:30, 30 minute break

    1. Each day: 09:00 to 17:30 is 8.5 hours
    2. Hours on the clock: 8.5 × 5 = 42.5
    3. Break: 30 minutes × 5 days = 150 minutes = 2.5 hours
    4. Paid hours: 42.5 − 2.5 = 40
    5. Gross pay: 40 × 25 = 1,000.00

    The five rows of the panel in the order they were produced, and the reason the order matters is the last two: the money is worked out from the 40 paid hours and not from the 42.5 on the clock. Half an hour a day is 2.5 hours a week, which is 62.50 at this rate — and the same 2.5 hours a week is 130 hours and 3,250 over a year, which is usually the figure that makes people look at their break policy again.

  2. A night shift that crosses midnight: 22:00 to 06:00

    1. Shift length: 22:00 to 06:00 is 8 hours, crossing midnight
    2. Break: 30 minutes = 0.5 hours
    3. Paid hours: 8 − 0.5 = 7.5
    4. Gross pay: 7.5 × 25 = 187.50

    The end time is earlier than the start time and the shift is still eight hours long, because an end before a start is read as the next morning rather than as a mistake. Nothing else changes: the break comes off the same way, and the money follows the paid hours. Only Monday is filled in here, which is why one day is reported — the other six days are empty rather than zero, and an empty day is skipped.

  3. A break longer than the shift: 09:00 to 09:20 with a 30 minute break

    1. Shift length: 09:00 to 09:20 is 20 minutes, or 0.33 hours
    2. Break: 30 minutes is longer than the shift, so it is cut to the 20 minutes the shift lasted
    3. Paid hours: 0.33 − 0.33 = 0
    4. Gross pay: 0 × 25 = 0

    The break is capped at the length of the day it is taken from, which is what stops a short shift producing negative paid hours that would silently cancel part of another day. The break row shows 0.33 rather than 0.50 for the same reason. A twenty minute shift pays nothing, and that is the arithmetic working rather than failing — the alternative would be to credit hours that were not worked.

  4. A four day week: 08:00 to 16:30, 45 minute break, 30 an hour

    1. Each day: 08:00 to 16:30 is 8.5 hours
    2. Hours on the clock: 8.5 × 4 = 34
    3. Break: 45 minutes × 4 days = 180 minutes = 3 hours
    4. Paid hours: 34 − 3 = 31
    5. Gross pay: 31 × 30 = 930.00

    The same 8.5 hour day as the default week, on four days instead of five, and the consequence is in the break row: four breaks instead of five. The week is 34 hours on the clock, which sounds close to full time, and 31 paid, which is not. Leaving Friday's two boxes empty is what makes this a four day week — filling them with 08:00 and 08:00 would be a zero length day that still counted towards the daily break.

  5. A weekend only: Saturday and Sunday, 10:00 to 14:00, no break

    1. Each day: 10:00 to 14:00 is 4 hours
    2. Hours on the clock: 4 × 2 = 8
    3. Break: none entered, so 0
    4. Paid hours: 8 − 0 = 8
    5. Gross pay: 8 × 20 = 160.00

    The weekend boxes are empty by default rather than filled with the weekday times, so a weekend shift has to be entered deliberately — which is the right default, since a form that put 09:00 to 17:30 in Saturday would report a five day week for someone who works two. A break of zero is a real setting, not a missing one: a four hour shift with no break is ordinary, and the field accepts it.

  6. An empty week

    1. No day has both a start and an end
    2. Hours on the clock: 0
    3. Break for the week: 30 minutes × 0 days worked = 0
    4. Paid hours: 0; gross pay: 0

    What the page shows before anything is typed, and the reason the break is zero rather than half an hour: the daily break is multiplied by the days actually worked, so a week with no days loses nothing. That is also the check that catches the opposite mistake — if a week reports fewer breaks than days you worked, one of the days is missing a start or an end.

Limitations

This page turns clock times and a rate into an amount, and it stops there. Everything it produces is gross: income tax, social insurance, pension contributions, union dues and any other deduction come off afterwards, and how much comes off depends on where you are and on what you have declared, so the paid hours figure is not what reaches a bank account. It applies a single rate to every hour of the week, which means it cannot express anything about hours that are paid differently: overtime at a premium, a weekend or night differential, a public holiday rate, or a rate that changes part way through the week. Those are rules about which hour attracts which multiplier, and the overtime page in the same category is the one that handles them. Nor does it know about anything that is not an hourly rate — tips, commission, a production bonus, a shift allowance, mileage or expenses are all outside the multiplication. Three things about how it works are worth expecting rather than reporting. The first is that the break is entered once for the whole week and deducted every day worked, so a week with days of different lengths gets the same deduction on each; if the real breaks differed, the week has to be entered in pieces or the figures adjusted by hand. The second is that the paid hours are built from the rounded clock hours and the rounded break, not from the underlying seconds, which is deliberate — it means the panel can be checked by hand, 42.5 minus 2.5 is 40 — but it also means a week of very short shifts can differ by a hundredth of an hour from a calculation done in seconds throughout. The third is that only the rate and the break are asked for once: a week that spans two jobs, two rates or two break policies is two runs through this page, and the results are added up outside it. Finally, nothing here is a legal record. Whether a break has to be paid, whether a shift over a certain length triggers an extra break, how many hours a week can be worked at all, and what happens to a shift that crosses midnight under a particular contract are questions of employment law and of the contract, not of arithmetic.

Frequently asked questions

How do I work out pay from a time card?
Add up each day's shift to get the hours on the clock, take the unpaid break off for each day worked, then multiply the paid hours by the rate. Monday to Friday 09:00 to 17:30 with a 30 minute break is 42.5 hours on the clock, 2.5 hours of break, 40 paid hours and 1,000 at 25 an hour. The panel shows each of those steps on its own row so the result can be checked by hand.
How do I enter a shift that crosses midnight?
Enter the start time and then the end time as a clock time that is earlier than the start — 22:00 to 06:00 is an eight hour shift. An end earlier than a start is read as the next morning rather than as an error. The break comes off the same way it does on a day shift.
Why does a short shift with a long break pay nothing?
Because the break is capped at the length of the shift it is taken from. A twenty minute shift with a thirty minute break gives twenty minutes of break, not thirty, so the paid hours are zero rather than negative. Without that cap a short day would produce negative hours that silently cancelled part of another day, which is a much harder error to spot.
Do I fill in the days I did not work?
No. A day with both boxes empty is skipped entirely, and the weekend boxes start empty for that reason. Leaving a day empty is different from entering the same time in both boxes: filling in 08:00 and 08:00 makes a zero length day that still counts as worked and still has a break deducted from it. Entering only one of the two times for a day is an error rather than a zero, because a half filled day would understate the week.
Is the break deducted per day or once for the week?
Per day: the break you enter is deducted for each day that has hours, so five days loses five breaks and four days loses four. It is entered once for the week, which means every day is assumed to have the same break. If the days differed, enter the week in two runs or adjust the paid hours by hand — the panel prints the break on its own row so it is clear what was taken off.
Does this include overtime?
No. One rate is applied to every hour of the week, so hours beyond the standard week are paid at the ordinary rate rather than at a premium, and a night or weekend differential is not modelled at all. The overtime page in the same category handles premium rates. What this page gives is the gross pay for the hours on the card at the rate you entered, which is the figure an overtime calculation starts from.

References

Related calculators

Hours CalculatorTotal the hours worked across a week, with breaks deducted.Work Hours CalculatorHours worked from start and end times, minus breaks.Hourly to Salary CalculatorAnnual salary from an hourly rate and hours per week.Overtime CalculatorOvertime hours and pay, at any rate multiplier.