Skip to content

Free tool

Weekly timesheet calculator

A whole week, not one shift. Split shifts, overnight shifts, automatic break deduction, rounding policies, night hours and daily or weekly overtime, with the Working Time warnings the week itself throws up. Copy it, print it or download the CSV.

The week

37.50 paid hours
Mon7h 30m
Tue7h 30m
Wed7h 30m
Thu7h 30m
Fri7h 30m
Sat
Sun
Add a split shift:
Pay, rounding and breaksrate, clock policy, auto-deduct
£/hr

Rounding is allowed, but a policy that only ever rounds down can push pay under the minimum wage.

min

Set to 0 to only use the breaks typed in above.

hrs

Deducting a break nobody took is unlawful. Only auto-deduct what is genuinely taken.

Overtime and night premiumsthresholds, multipliers, night window
hrs

0 turns daily overtime off.

hrs

Whichever of the two gives more overtime is used, never both.

£/hr extra

The statutory night period is 23:00 to 06:00 unless you agree another.

Week total

5 days worked

Paid time

37h 30m

37.50 decimal hours for payroll

Gross pay

£476.63

Average £12.71 an hour

Overtime

0.00 hrs

No overtime thresholds set

  • Basic 100%
Mon
7h 30m
Tue
7h 30m
Wed
7h 30m
Thu
7h 30m
Fri
7h 30m
Total paid hours
37h 30m
Basic pay (37.50 hrs)
£476.63
Gross pay
£476.63
Stop typing the week in by hand

Real clock-ins, GPS or QR verified, totalled for payroll automatically.

Indicative only. Paid time is the gap between clock-in and clock-out less unpaid breaks, then the rounding policy you choose; a clock-out before the clock-in is treated as an overnight shift. Overtime uses whichever of the daily or weekly threshold gives more, never both. Gross pay is before tax and National Insurance. Working Time warnings are guidance, not legal advice.

Do it once here, or never again

This is one week, for one person, typed in by hand

Now imagine it for twenty people, fifty-two times a year, with somebody remembering to chase the two who never hand theirs in.

Times nobody has to remember

Staff clock in on their phone with a geofence or a QR code at the door, so the times on the sheet are the times they were actually there.

Approve, do not retype

Managers see the week already totalled with anything unusual flagged, and approve it. Nothing is added up by hand at any point.

1 click

Straight to payroll

Approved hours export in your payroll provider’s format, split into basic, overtime and premium, ready to import.

Six years of records, kept

Minimum wage records have to survive six years and working-time records two. They are already there, per person, per shift.

Free forever on one site · no card to start · cancel anytime

The detail

Where timesheet money actually leaks

Not fraud. Four small habits, each defensible on its own, that quietly move real money in one direction.

Decimal hours, and the 8.30 problem

Payroll multiplies decimal hours by the rate. Eight hours and thirty minutes is 8.5, not 8.30. Written as 8.30 it becomes eight hours and eighteen minutes, and the error repeats every week, for every person who writes it that way. It is the single most common mistake on a hand-written sheet, and it runs against the worker.

Rounding, and which way it points

Rounding clock times to the nearest five or fifteen minutes is normal and lawful. What is not safe is a policy that only ever rounds one way: clock-ins forward, clock-outs back. Fifteen minutes a shift, five shifts a week, is over sixty hours a year taken off one person. HMRC treats that as unpaid working time, and the arrears are restated at today's rate.

If you round, round to the nearest step, or round in the worker's favour. The tool flags the risky option rather than hiding it.

Automatic break deduction

Deducting 30 minutes from any shift over six hours is efficient and usually right. It is unlawful in the case that matters: the shift where nobody got a break because it was busy. That is an unlawful deduction from wages under the Employment Rights Act and a rest-break breach under the Working Time Regulations, at once. Automatic deduction needs a way for staff to say the break did not happen.

Daily against weekly overtime

Contracts often carry both a daily threshold and a weekly one. They are alternatives, not additions. If Friday's long shift produces 1.5 hours of daily overtime and the week's total produces 2 hours of weekly overtime, the answer is 2 hours. Adding them pays the same hour at a premium twice, which is generous until someone notices and applies it consistently across a year.

The week is also a working-time record

A completed timesheet is evidence. A shift over six hours with no break, or a nine-hour gap between a late close and an early open, is a breach visible on the sheet itself. The tool raises both while you are looking at the week, which is the only useful moment: afterwards it is a record of something that already happened.

Common traps

What employers get wrong

None of these are careless. Every one of them is a reasonable assumption that happens to be untrue.

  • Writing 8.30 in the hours column for eight and a half hours.

    Payroll reads that as 8.3 decimal hours. Half an hour is 0.5. This single confusion is the most common timesheet error there is.

  • Treating a 22:00 to 06:00 shift as a negative.

    A clock-out earlier than the clock-in means the shift crossed midnight. Add 24 hours before subtracting.

  • Auto-deducting a break that was never taken.

    That is an unlawful deduction from wages and a working-time breach at the same time. Only deduct breaks that genuinely happened.

  • Rounding every clock-in forward to the quarter hour.

    One-directional rounding removes paid time systematically and is a classic route to minimum wage underpayment.

  • Adding daily and weekly overtime together.

    Use whichever produces more, never the sum, or the same hour is paid at a premium twice.

  • Keeping timesheets for a year and binning them.

    Working time records: two years. Records that evidence minimum wage compliance: six.

Timesheet questions

How do I work out hours from a clock-in and clock-out time?
Find the gap between the two times, then subtract any unpaid break. 09:00 to 17:30 is 8.5 hours; take off a 30-minute unpaid lunch and you have 8 hours of paid time. The calculator shows both the h:m figure and the decimal figure payroll needs.
How do I calculate hours for an overnight shift?
When the clock-out is earlier than the clock-in, the shift has crossed midnight, so you add 24 hours before subtracting. A 22:00 to 06:00 shift is 8 hours, not minus 16. The calculator detects this and marks the row.
What are decimal hours and why does payroll use them?
Decimal hours express minutes as a fraction: 30 minutes is 0.5, 15 minutes is 0.25, 10 minutes is 0.17. Payroll multiplies decimal hours by the rate. Typing 8.30 when you meant 8 hours 30 minutes overpays by 12 minutes, every time, for every person.
Can I round clock-in times?
Yes, but carefully. Rounding to the nearest five or fifteen minutes is normal practice. A policy that always rounds clock-ins forward and clock-outs back removes paid time systematically, and that is one of the most common causes of accidental minimum wage underpayment. The tool warns you when you choose that option.
Can I deduct a break automatically?
You can set an automatic deduction for shifts over a set length, and most rota systems do. It is only lawful if the break was actually taken. Deducting 30 minutes from someone who worked through their break is an unlawful deduction from wages as well as a working-time breach.
How do I split daily and weekly overtime without paying twice?
Work out both and use the larger, never the sum. If Friday produces 1.5 hours of daily overtime and the week produces 2 hours of weekly overtime, the answer is 2 hours, not 3.5. The calculator does this automatically.
How long do I have to keep timesheet records?
Working time records must be kept for two years. Records adequate to show minimum wage compliance must be kept for six years, and HMRC can ask for them at any point in that window.

Stop adding up timesheets

WagePilot records real clock-ins, subtracts breaks and totals approved hours for payroll automatically. From £29 a month per site, never per head.

Free forever on one site · no card to start · cancel anytime

From £29/mo · never per head

Free forever on one site · no card · cancel anytime

Start free