Work hours calculator

A work hours calculator is a device or application used to calculate the total number of hours an employee — or teams of employees — work, so that they can be paid accordingly.

How to calculate work hours

The staff rota can be used as a rough guide for the hours employees work, but bear in mind that rotas — which are planned in advance of shifts taking place — will not reflect things like overtime, absence, or staff showing up late.

For this reason, managers may also need to keep a record of the hours their employees actually work each day, logging them in a document or spreadsheet which they can later use to accurately calculate payroll.

Software to calculate work hours

Manually keeping records of the hours staff work can be time-consuming and can easily lead to mistakes during the data entry process. For this reason, many business owners make use of software that automatically records the hours their staff work and calculates their pay accordingly.

Time and attendance software is one such solution. With it, staff clock in and out of their shifts using their mobile phones or a dedicated clocking-in terminal. Employees’ shift start and end times are automatically saved to their individual timesheets, which are then stored securely online ready for managers to check.

At the end of the pay period, managers simply run a report which calculates not only the total hours worked by each employee, but their pay based on the role (or roles) they work, their hourly pay rate, and things like lateness and overtime.