Time Card Template

What's in the time card template

Both files are one worksheet each, built to print on a single page:

• Employee, employer and date fields at the top: employee name, employee ID, employer/manager, the week (or pay period start), hourly rate and overtime multiplier (defaults to 1.5).
• A 7-day grid (two grids in the biweekly file) with columns for Day, Date, In, Lunch out, Lunch in, Out, Break (min) and Hours. The Date column fills itself in from the week's start date, so you only type it once.
• A summary block under each week: Total hours, Regular hours, Overtime hours, Regular pay, Overtime pay and Gross pay — every one a formula.
• Signature lines for employee and supervisor, useful if you print and hand it in.

How to fill in the time card template

1. Open the downloaded file in Excel, Google Sheets, LibreOffice Calc or Numbers.
2. Enter the week of date (weekly file) or pay period start date (biweekly file) — the first Monday of the period. Every day's date fills in on its own.
3. Type your clock-in and clock-out time for each day you worked, e.g. 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM.
4. If you clocked out for lunch, fill in Lunch out and Lunch in too. If your lunch is a fixed amount that isn't punched, leave those two cells blank and put the minutes under Break (min) instead.
5. Enter your hourly rate once, near the top. Every pay cell in the sheet uses it.
6. Read the Hours, Total hours, Regular, Overtime and Gross pay cells — they update as you type.

How the formulas work

Every "Hours" cell uses the same formula, whichever day of the week it's on (this is row 9, Monday, in the weekly file):

=IF(C9="","",IF(AND(D9="",E9=""),
    MOD(F9-C9,1)*24-IF(G9="",0,G9)/60,
    (MOD(D9-C9,1)+MOD(F9-E9,1))*24-IF(G9="",0,G9)/60))

In plain terms: if there's no clock-in, leave the cell blank. If there are no lunch punches, take the whole span from clock-in to clock-out and subtract the Break (min) column. If there are lunch punches, add the time before lunch to the time after lunch, then still subtract Break (min) on top (for a second, unpunched break on the same day). MOD(end−start,1) is the standard Excel trick for a shift that crosses midnight — it gives the right length even when the clock-out time is numerically earlier than the clock-in time, so a 10:00 PM to 6:30 AM shift still comes out to 8 hours after a 30-minute break.

The weekly totals are just as plain:

Total hours    =SUM(H9:H15)
Regular hours  =MIN(40,H16)
Overtime hours =H16-H17
Regular pay    =H17*$C$5
Overtime pay   =H18*$C$5*$G$5
Gross pay      =H19+H20

$C$5 is the hourly rate cell and $G$5 is the overtime multiplier cell (1.5 by default) — the dollar signs keep those references fixed as you copy the formula, so every row and every week points at the same rate.

Overtime rules, and how the biweekly file applies them

Under the federal FLSA, most hourly employees are owed at least 1.5 times their regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek — a fixed, repeating 7-day period. This has to be worked out one workweek at a time, never averaged over a longer pay period. Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division.

That's exactly what the biweekly template does: Week 1 and Week 2 are two separate blocks, each with its own Total, Regular, Overtime and Gross pay formulas. The pay-period rows at the bottom just add the two weeks' numbers together — =H16+H32 for total hours, =H21+H37 for gross pay. Nothing re-applies a 40- or 80-hour threshold to the combined two weeks, because that would give the wrong answer. For example, 45 hours in week 1 and 35 in week 2 is 5 hours of overtime (paid at $20/hour: $1,650), not the $1,600 you'd get by wrongly treating 80 hours as one block. The biweekly time card calculator walks through this in more detail, including what to do when your pay period doesn't start on the first day of your workweek.

Some states add their own rules — California, for example, also pays daily overtime over 8 hours. This template uses the federal weekly rule only; check your state labor department if a daily rule applies to you.

Printing the time card

Both files are already set up to print cleanly: fit to one page, gridlines on, and a footer with the page number. Open File → Print (or Ctrl/Cmd + P) and print, or choose "Save as PDF" instead of a physical printer if you need a PDF to email. If you just want a blank printable time card, print it before typing anything in — the grid and signature lines are still there.

Using the template in Google Sheets or LibreOffice

The file is a standard .xlsx workbook, so it opens directly in other spreadsheet apps:

• Google Sheets: File → Import → Upload → choose the downloaded file → "Insert new sheet(s)". All the formulas (SUM, MIN, MOD, IF, AND) carry over and keep working.
• LibreOffice Calc: just open the .xlsx file directly — no import step needed.
• Numbers (Mac): File → Open, or drag the file onto the Numbers icon; Numbers converts it to its own format automatically.

Template or the online calculator?

They solve slightly different problems:

• Want a spreadsheet file you keep, reuse every pay period, or hand to a bookkeeper? Download the template above.
• Want a quick total right now, with printing, PDF, CSV and multiple in/out punches per day, and it should remember your entries between visits without a spreadsheet app? Use the time card calculator.
• Taking a lunch break? The time card calculator with lunch has dedicated lunch-out/lunch-in fields and explains which breaks are paid.
• Paid every two weeks? The biweekly time card calculator is the online version of this page's biweekly file.
• Just need the length of one shift, or minutes converted to decimal for payroll? See the hours calculator and the minutes to decimal chart.

Frequently asked questions