How to calculate hours worked
Work out how long the shift lasted from start to finish, then take away the unpaid break. A shift from 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM lasts 8 hours 30 minutes; with a 30-minute lunch, that is 8 hours worked, or 8.00 in decimal hours.
For a night shift, tick Ends next day so the end time counts on the following day.
Examples you can reproduce
For a night shift, enter 22:30 → 06:30, select Ends next day, and combine two unpaid breaks of 15 and 30 minutes into the Break field: 45. Gross duration is 8 hours (480 minutes). Subtract 45 to get 435 minutes of net work: 7 hours 15 minutes, or 7.25 decimal hours. A paid break stays in worked time and should not be deducted again.
To check a mistake, change that break to 600 minutes: it exceeds the 480-minute shift, so the calculator reports an error instead of a negative result. Correct it to 45 and calculate again. For timesheets, 7 hours 15 minutes is 7.25 hours, not 7.15; the two-place decimal is a display value, so keep exact minutes for later totals.
What it does not do
It handles one shift at a time. For a whole week, use the Time Card Calculator. It does not work out pay, hourly rates, overtime premiums, tax or holidays, and it ignores time zones and daylight-saving changes.
Which breaks belong in the total?
Enter all unpaid time within the first start and final end in whole minutes, including gaps between split shifts. Leave paid breaks out. For example, 09:00–13:00 and 14:00–18:00 becomes 09:00 → 18:00 with a 60-minute break, giving 8 hours. If you need to keep separate records for each segment, this single-shift tool cannot do that.