Your employer is responsible for keeping official records of your hours and pay. Keeping your own record is still worth it: it lets you check each paycheck, spot missed overtime, and answer questions about a shift weeks later. It takes about a minute a day.
What to record for each shift
- Date and the day of the week.
- Start time and end time, to the minute, with AM or PM.
- Unpaid breaks: when a meal break started and ended. Under federal rules, a bona fide meal period, usually 30 minutes or more when you are fully relieved from duty, does not need to be paid. Short rest breaks are generally paid and should not be subtracted.
- Anything unusual: a late finish, a call-back, covering another location, or work done before clocking in.
Write the times down when they happen. A record made at the time is more reliable than one rebuilt from memory at the end of the week.
Pick a method you will keep using
| Method | Good for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Paper notebook or printable time card | No phone needed at work | Totals done by hand; easy to lose |
| Phone notes or calendar | Always with you | No automatic totals |
| Spreadsheet | Flexible, easy to keep for years | Formulas for overnight shifts and overtime are easy to get wrong |
| Weekly pay tracker | Automatic totals, overtime, and history; nothing to install | Saved in one browser; download backups |
Total your hours each week
- For each day, subtract start from end, then subtract unpaid breaks. A shift from 10:00 PM to 6:00 AM is 8 hours, because it ends the next day.
- Add the days in the workweek.
- Convert to decimal hours for pay: divide the minutes by 60. 38 hours 45 minutes is 38.75 hours. The decimal hours calculator does this instantly.
- Hours over 40 in the workweek are overtime for nonexempt employees under federal law. Count each week on its own; see what is a workweek.
The time card calculator handles all four steps for a single week, and the timesheet calculator does the same with lunch punches over one or two weeks.
Keep your records
Keep your weekly totals at least until you have checked the paycheck for those weeks. Many people keep them for a year or longer. If you use the weekly pay tracker, download a backup or CSV now and then, because clearing your browser data removes saved weeks.
Next step
Once you have a week of hours, check your paycheck against it.
Sources
- U.S. Department of Labor, Fact Sheet #21: Recordkeeping Requirements under the FLSA
- 29 CFR 785.19, Meal periods (Cornell Legal Information Institute)
About this guide. Written for US employees as general information, not legal or tax advice. Rules can differ by state, employer, and contract. See our methodology and disclaimer.