# Excel help: calculating hours worked **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 14, 2013, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-help-calculating-hours-worked/673919 "2013-11-14T17:50:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Carol\_the\_Impaler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Carol\_the\_Impaler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carol_the_Impaler)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2013, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-help-calculating-hours-worked/673919/1 "2013-11-14T17:50:23Z")
Howdy. I am trying to calculate the number of hours an employee works using the start and end time, plus ten minutes, minus a half an hour for break. So, for example, I have an employee who is scheduled from 2:00 - 9:30 who is required to clock in at 1:50 and has a half an hour clocked out for dinner break. How can I set this up in Excel so that I can simply enter in the start and end time and have Excel give me a result of total number of hours worked (with the result being number of hours and portion of hours used to calculate payroll. That is to say, so that seven and a half hours being 7.5 hours, seven hours and forty minutes being 7.7). Is this doable? ---
**Author:** ![tim-n-va](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim-n-va/32/3001_2.png) [@tim-n-va](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim-n-va)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2013, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-help-calculating-hours-worked/673919/2 "2013-11-14T18:10:26Z")
Just subtract the start and end time to get the hours/minutes. This formula will turn that into a decimal. You can format to display the result as 7.7 or round to actually make it 7.7 =HOUR(a1)+MINUTE(a1)/60 ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2013, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-help-calculating-hours-worked/673919/3 "2013-11-14T18:51:40Z")
Excel calculates date/time in days. One unit is one day. 1/24 day is one hour. Enter 11/14/13 2:00 PM and 11/14/13 9:30 PM subtract the first from the second, multiply by 24 and you get 7.5 hours ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2013, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-help-calculating-hours-worked/673919/4 "2013-11-14T19:02:46Z")
You have my sympathy. I worked for an agency at one time. I was paid by the hour and my start and finish times were highly variable. I wanted to be able to just enter start and finish times against the date in a form and I did manage to make it all work until I worked some night shifts. I gave up on trying to make it work when the start time was on a different day to the finish time. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2013, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-help-calculating-hours-worked/673919/5 "2013-11-14T19:12:28Z")
Using **sailor** ’s approach will get around the issue of starting and finishing on a different day. If you use the HOURS and MINUTES functions, you’ll need additional logic in case the time could span two days. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2013, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-help-calculating-hours-worked/673919/6 "2013-11-14T19:30:47Z")
A quick google for “calculate hours worked” found lots of sites like this: > **[Time Card Calculator](https://www.calculatehours.com/Time-Card-Calculator.html)** > > Free Online Time Card Calculator - Simple and Easy timecard calculator - Free Hour Calculator And even better: > **[Free Online Time Card Calculator and Excel Timesheet Template to calculate...](https://www.calculatehours.com/)** > > Free Online Time Card Calculator and Excel Timesheet Template to calculate hours worked. Timesheet Calculator to calculate hours worked in Excel. Calculate Time Worked in Excel this site has very explicit instructions and formulas for an Excel sheet.