The night shift problem
Most people work out hours by subtracting one clock time from the other. That is right until somebody starts at ten at night and finishes at six in the morning, at which point the sum gives you minus sixteen hours instead of eight.
The fix is not complicated, but it has to be done deliberately: when the finish time is at or before the start, the shift ran into the next day and you add twenty four hours. This tool does that automatically and tells you when it has, so you can see it has understood the shift rather than guessed.
Decimal hours, which are not what the clock says
Payroll systems take hours as a decimal. Seven hours and thirty eight minutes is 7.63 hours, not 7.38. Thirty eight minutes is 63 per cent of an hour, not 38 per cent, and typing the clock reading straight into a payroll box is one of the most common ways people quietly underpay themselves.
The gap looks small and adds up fast. Thirteen minutes a day, five days a week, is about a day and a half of unpaid work a year. Every result here shows both the human form and the decimal form, so you can copy whichever the system in front of you wants.
Breaks, paid and unpaid
A break only comes off if it is unpaid. Whether it is paid is a matter for your contract, and plenty of trades are paid through their break while plenty of others are not, so this tool asks rather than assuming. Leave the break at zero and you get the full span.
Separately from pay, there is a legal minimum. Under the Working Time Regulations 1998 a worker is entitled to an uninterrupted rest break of at least twenty minutes when the working day is longer than six hours, and to eleven consecutive hours of rest between working days. Those are minimums for the worker's benefit rather than a payment rule, and they are worth knowing about separately from what ends up on the payslip.
Type it however you write it
Site paperwork is written in every format going, so this accepts most of them. 0730, 7:30, 7.30am, 730 and even just 7 all parse to half past seven in the morning. Where something cannot be read, it says so rather than silently interpreting it as something else, because a wrong number that looks confident is worse than no number.
Arithmetic that does not need to know who you are
This is arithmetic and it runs on your device. Nothing about your shifts, your job or your hours is sent anywhere, and there is nothing to sign up to. Close the tab and there is no record of it.
Common questions
Why does subtracting the start time from the finish time give a negative number for a night shift?
Because a shift like 22:00 to 06:00 crosses midnight, and a plain subtraction gives minus sixteen hours instead of eight. The fix is to add 24 hours whenever the finish time is at or before the start time, which this tool does automatically and flags on screen so you can see it has understood the shift.
Why is 7 hours 38 minutes shown as 7.63 rather than 7.38?
Because payroll systems take hours as a decimal, and thirty eight minutes is 63 per cent of an hour, not 38 per cent. Typing the clock reading straight into a payroll box is one of the most common ways people quietly underpay themselves, and the gap adds up to roughly a day and a half of unpaid work a year at just thirteen minutes a day.
Does the tool always deduct a break from the total hours?
Only if you tell it to. A break only comes off if it is unpaid, and whether it is paid is a matter for your contract, since plenty of trades are paid through their break and plenty are not. Leave the break at zero to get the full span between start and finish.
What is the legal minimum break and rest period between shifts?
Under the Working Time Regulations 1998, a worker is entitled to an uninterrupted rest break of at least twenty minutes when the working day is longer than six hours, and to eleven consecutive hours of rest between working days. These are minimums for the worker's benefit rather than a payment rule.
What time formats can I type in?
Most of the ways site paperwork is actually written. 0730, 7:30, 7.30am, 730 and even just 7 all parse to half past seven in the morning. Where something cannot be read, the tool says so rather than silently guessing at a different time.