Hours to Decimal Payroll

Why the timesheet drops the colon

Payroll multiplies hours by a rate. Multiplication needs a single number. A clock time has two numbers and a colon, so the minutes are converted to a fraction of an hour and added to the hours. The line is decimal = hours + minutes / 60. Eight hours and thirty minutes becomes 8.50. Fifteen minutes becomes 0.25. Forty-five becomes 0.75. Six minutes becomes 0.10, which is the tenth many time clocks print. The home hours to decimal calculator does that conversion in both directions. This page is the payroll context around it: what the decimal is for, and where rounding should wait.

Writing 8.30 because the clock said 8:30 is the expensive typo. 8.30 hours is 8 hours and 18 minutes. At $20 an hour the gap between 8.30 and 8.50 is 0.20 hours, or $4, on a single line. Over a week of the same slip the gap is real. If the source still says hours and minutes, use hours and minutes to decimal. If the software already printed a decimal and you want the clock time back, use decimal hours to hours and minutes.

Tenths, hundredths, and when to round

Some payroll systems round each punch to the nearest tenth of an hour. A tenth is six minutes. Others keep hundredths, where one minute is about 0.0167 and displays as 0.02 if you round the minute by itself. The hours to decimal chart shows both displays for minutes 0 through 59, and quarter hours through 12:00. The practical rule on this site is to add the exact values first and round the total for display. Rounding every day to two decimals and then adding the rounded days can drift. The batch box on the converter follows that order. Two decimal places remain the default, because that is what most pay stubs show. Money, once you multiply by the rate, is rounded to the cent.

A decimal hour is not yet overtime. Overtime is a rule about the workweek. After the days are decimals, add them and give the total to the overtime calculator. The default split is still 40 hours at straight time and 1.5 times after that. A biweekly check does not change the split into an 80-hour test. That distinction is on overtime after 40 hours and in the biweekly overtime calculator. Hours you already know are overtime can be priced on the time and a half calculator.

What a decimal does not settle

Converting 8:30 to 8.50 does not decide whether those minutes were hours worked, whether a meal break came out, or whether the job is exempt. It does not apply a state daily overtime rule, and it does not withhold taxes. Employer policy can round punches. That policy is not reproduced here. The federal overtime description, which is a summary and not advice about a particular job, is on FLSA overtime. The formulas are on assumptions and formulas. Nothing you type into the converter is uploaded.

• U.S. Department of Labor — Overtime Pay (opens in a new tab)
• DOL Fact Sheet #23: Overtime Pay Requirements of the FLSA (opens in a new tab)