Timesheet template

This totals a one- or two-week timesheet the way payroll needs it. It takes each week's regular hours and overtime hours separately, because overtime is decided per workweek, deducts the unpaid break for every day worked, pays regular hours at the hourly rate and overtime at time and one-half, which is the Department of Labor's floor for non-exempt employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act, and returns the paid hours, the regular and overtime pay, the gross pay for the period and the effective rate per paid hour. Every figure is yours to change; the multiplier is the law's.

Overtime is counted per week, even on a biweekly sheet

A person who works 45 hours one week and 35 the next has worked 80 hours in the period and is still owed five hours of overtime, because the federal rule counts each workweek on its own. A sheet with a single hours total for the fortnight cannot show that. This page takes the two weeks separately for exactly that reason, and the overtime line is the sum of each week's excess, never the excess over eighty.

Unpaid breaks come off before the multiplication

A thirty-minute unpaid meal break across ten days is five hours, and leaving it in the total overpays the period by five hours at the regular rate. The page deducts the break for every day worked from the regular hours before it multiplies. Short rest breaks are usually paid and should not be entered here; only the unpaid meal period is.

The effective rate is the number to sanity check

Gross pay divided by paid hours should sit a little above the hourly rate when there is overtime and exactly on it when there is none. If it comes out below the rate, the break deduction is too large or the hours are wrong. It is a one-line check that catches most timesheet errors before the pay run does.