Timesheet Calculator

How to use the timesheet calculator

The sheet runs Monday to Sunday. For each day, type when you started, when you stopped, and how many minutes you took off. The calculator accepts 9:00, 9am, 9:00 AM, 1730 and 5:30 pm. Each day's hours show in decimal and in hours and minutes, the week is totalled in the table footer, and the grand total is in the green bar. Add a second week for a fortnightly sheet.

Set the rounding to the increment you bill in before you read the total. If you bill by the tenth of an hour, choose 6 minutes. If you bill by the quarter hour, choose 15. Rounding is applied to each day and then the days are added, which is what most clients expect to see on a timesheet.

Worked example for a freelancer

You spent Monday 9:15 am to 12:45 pm on a client project, took the afternoon for another client, and came back 2:00 pm to 5:20 pm. Enter the morning as one row and the afternoon as another by adding a second week block and relabelling, or use the hours calculator for split days. The morning is 3 hours 30 minutes. The afternoon is 3 hours 20 minutes, which rounds to 3:18 at six minute increments or 3:15 at quarter hours. Billing by the tenth, the day is 6.8 hours. At 95 dollars an hour that is 646.00 on the invoice.

Timesheet vs invoice: keep the numbers matching

Clients compare the two. If the timesheet says 7:20 and the invoice says 7.3, someone will ask. The calculator gives both formats for every day and for the total, so you can put hours and minutes on the timesheet and decimal hours on the invoice and know they agree. Open the pay section, enter your rate, and the gross figure is the line total for the invoice.

Billing increments and contracts

Six minute increments are standard in law and consulting. Fifteen minute increments are common for design, development, and trades. Some clients want exact minutes. Whichever you use, write it into the contract or proposal, apply it the same way every week, and keep the printed sheet. Rounding up every entry to the next quarter hour without saying so is the fastest way to lose a client's trust.

Common mistakes

• Leaving am and pm off. 1:00 is one in the morning. Write 1pm or 13:00.
• Including admin time you agreed not to bill. Enter only billable hours, or track non-billable time in a separate week block so the client total stays clean.
• Rounding the total instead of each day. Clients audit day by day. The calculator rounds per day for that reason.
• Sending the sheet without printing a copy. Print or save a PDF for your own records before you clear the week.

Other free tools

For a single shift or a split day, the hours calculator lets you add rows freely. Employees on a clock should use the time card calculator or the time clock calculator with overtime. Once you know your weekly hours, the yearly revenue goal calculator works out the rate you need to charge. Harpoon's time tracking and invoicing do the whole loop for you.