Time to decimal hours calculator

The whole hours stay as they are and the minutes are divided by 60, so 1 hour 45 minutes is 1.75 hours and 3 hours 20 minutes is 3.33. The calculator does this for every entry and shows the total in decimal hours, in hours and minutes, and in minutes.

With several entries, it matters when the rounding to two places happens. Three entries of 20 minutes add up to exactly 1.00 hour, but each one converted on its own is 0.33, and three of those make 0.99. Over a week of short entries those lost hundredths add up, so the calculator adds the minutes first and converts the total once. For a single number of minutes, or a chart of every minute from 1 to 60, use the minutes to decimal chart.

The number before the point is the hours, and the part after it multiplied by 60 gives the minutes. 0.4 hours is 24 minutes, 1.3 hours is 1 hour 18 minutes and 7.6 hours is 7 hours 36 minutes.

The usual mistake is to read the digits after the point as minutes. 2.15 hours is 2 hours 9 minutes rather than 2 hours 15, and 1.30 hours is 1 hour 18 minutes rather than an hour and a half. Payroll exports and billing reports often list decimal hours with no unit beside them, so it is worth checking which kind of number a column holds before copying it into a timesheet.

A decimal that was rounded to two places does not always lead back to a whole minute. 0.33 hours is 19.8 minutes, for example, so when decimal hours come from a system that rounded them, the calculator shows the total to the nearest minute.

Excel and Google Sheets store a time as a fraction of a day, so a time multiplied by 24 gives decimal hours. The result has to be formatted as a number, or the spreadsheet shows it as a time again. Many guides also give =HOUR(A2)+MINUTE(A2)/60, but that formula reads only the clock face, so a total of 25:30 comes out as 1.5 hours. Multiplying by 24 has no such limit.

Times that were imported as text cause a quieter problem. They look the same as real times, but SUM skips text, so the total of the column comes out short without any error. By default a real time sits on the right of its cell and text on the left, so a column with cells on both sides needs converting before it is added up. A total of times should be formatted as [h]:mm, because the ordinary time format starts again from zero after 24 hours.

A time card or timesheet usually records blocks of time, and each block is converted and added on its own. A day worked from 9:00 to 12:15 and from 13:00 to 17:40 is 3 hours 15 minutes plus 4 hours 40 minutes, which makes 7 hours 55 minutes, or 7.92 hours. Enter each block as its own entry, with its hours and minutes, and the calculator keeps the total.

When time is billed in units, each entry is rounded before the entries are added up. Rounded up to 15 minutes, the same day becomes 3.25 plus 4.75 hours, or 8.00. Every rounded entry can add up to one unit whatever its length, so the rounding a day collects depends on the number of entries more than on the hours worked. Set the rounding under the entries to see the difference for a day of your own.

A fee is the hours multiplied by a rate, and that multiplication needs the hours as a decimal: 1 hour 45 minutes at 300 an hour is 1.75 times 300, or 525.00. Most firms also record time in fixed units, usually six minutes in the US and the UK, so each entry is rounded to the unit before it reaches the bill.

This calculator only rounds up, so every started unit counts in full. The billing increment chart shows what any amount of time bills as in each unit, rounded up or to the nearest, and Sixminute records the time as it is worked, so no one has to convert it by hand.