How to Add Hours and Minutes for Timesheets (Free)

To add hours and minutes, add the hours and the minutes separately, then turn every 60 minutes into an extra hour. 8:30 + 7:45 is 15 hours 75 minutes, which is 16 hours 15 minutes. For a whole week of timesheet entries, paste one time per line into the free time duration calculator and it gives the total in hours and minutes and in decimal hours, ready for payroll.

The tricky part of time maths is that it isn't base 10. A calculator that treats 7:45 as 7.45 gives the wrong answer, and those small errors add up over a month of shifts.

Adding hours and minutes by hand

Use the carry-over method, the same idea as column addition but with 60 instead of 10:

1. Add all the hours.
2. Add all the minutes.
3. Divide the minutes by 60. The whole number is extra hours, the remainder is the minutes left over.

Example, a five-day week:

Day	Hours worked
Monday	8:30
Tuesday	7:45
Wednesday	9:15
Thursday	8:00
Friday	6:50

Hours: 8 + 7 + 9 + 8 + 6 = 38. Minutes: 30 + 45 + 15 + 0 + 50 = 140. 140 minutes is 2 hours and 20 minutes, so the week totals 40 hours 20 minutes.

Converting to decimal hours

Payroll systems and invoices usually want decimal hours, such as 40.33 instead of 40:20. To convert, divide the minutes by 60:

Minutes	Decimal
15	0.25
20	0.33
30	0.5
40	0.67
45	0.75
50	0.83

So 40:20 is 40 + 20 ÷ 60 = 40.33 hours. At a rate of ₹500 or $25 an hour, that's ₹20,166.67 or $1,008.33.

The classic mistake is writing 40:20 as 40.20. That loses 8 minutes of pay (0.33 − 0.20 = 0.13 hours) every time, which adds up over a year.

Add a week of hours with the calculator

Open the free time duration calculator and choose Add and subtract hours:

1. Delete the sample lines in the box, then type each day's hours on its own line. You can write them as 8:30, 90m, 1h 30m or 8.5h.
2. To take time off, start a line with a minus sign, such as - 0:30 for an unpaid break. You can also write a line like 7:45 + 1:15 - 0:30.
3. Read the total under the box. It shows Hours and minutes, Decimal hours, and, for totals over 24 hours, Days, hours, minutes.
4. Press Copy total to paste it into your timesheet.

For the week above, the tool shows 40 hours 20 minutes, 40:20, and 40.33 decimal hours.

One thing to watch: a plain number without a unit is read as minutes. 45 means 45 minutes, and 8.5 means 8.5 minutes, not 8.5 hours. If you're typing decimal hours, add an h: 8.5h.

Work out hours between a start and end time

If your timesheet records clock-in and clock-out times instead of totals, use Time between two times:

1. Set Start and End.
2. Put any unpaid break in Minus a break. It starts at 30m, so change or clear it if your break differs. It accepts 30m, 45, 1h or 0:45.
3. Read the result in hours and minutes, decimal hours and total minutes. Copy decimal hours puts the payroll figure on your clipboard.

Example: 9:15 to 17:40 is 8 hours 25 minutes. Take off a 30-minute lunch and the paid time is 7 hours 55 minutes, or 7.92 hours.

Night shifts

When the end time is earlier than the start time, the calculator assumes the shift ended the next day and ticks Ends the next day for you. 22:00 to 06:30 is 8 hours 30 minutes (clear Minus a break, which starts at 30m). If a shift runs a full day or longer, tick the box yourself.

Rounding rules for timesheets

Many employers round clock times to the nearest 5, 6 or 15 minutes. Rules differ between companies and, in some places, are set by employment law, so check your own policy. Two common approaches:

• Quarter-hour rounding: times are rounded to the nearest 15 minutes, so 8:07 becomes 8:00 and 8:08 becomes 8:15.
• Tenth-of-an-hour rounding: time is counted in 6-minute blocks, so each block is 0.1 hours. Lawyers and consultants often bill this way.

Round each entry the way your policy says, then add them up. Rounding only the weekly total gives a different number.

Other places this comes up

The same maths works well beyond payroll:

• Freelance invoices: add the sessions you spent on a project, convert to decimal, multiply by your rate.
• Study logs: add up revision sessions for the week.
• Video and audio: add clip lengths to see if a playlist fits a time slot.
• Travel: add flight legs and layovers to find total journey time.

For dates rather than hours, such as how many days are left until a deadline, use the free date calculator instead. There's also a guide to calculating the days between two dates.

Add your hours now

Paste your times one per line and get the total in hours, minutes and decimal hours at once. The free time duration calculator works on your device, so your timesheet never leaves it.