Timesheet rounding

Timesheet rounding is applied to the individual clock in and clock out transactions, not total hours. Rounding on the individual transactions produces a more accurate and un-biased form of rounding, and is globally accepted as best practice for timesheet rounding.

Last updated - Jun 02, 2020 at 2:55PM

Timesheet rounding can be performed using two types of methods:

1. Rounding time entries to the nearest interval
2. Rounding hours to a decimal place

Rounding timesheets to the nearest time interval:

On the Timesheets page click the 5m or 15m buttons in the timesheet toolbar to round the individual clock in and clock out transactions to the nearest time on the clock. 5m means the nearest 5 minutes on the clock (e.g. 7:00, 7:05, 7:10) and 15m means the nearest 15 minutes on the clock (e.g. 7:00, 7:15, 7:30).

This will round the clock in and clock out times either up or down depending on what's nearest to the actual clock transaction time.

Rounding timesheets to [n] decimal places:

When performing a CSV data export you also have the option to round to 1 or 2 decimal places.

When rounding to 1 decimal place, the individual clock in and out transactions will be rounded to the nearest 6 minutes on the clock (10th of an hour). This will round the individual clock in and clock out times either up or down depending on what's nearest to the actual clock transaction time.

Rounding to 2 decimal places does not round the individual clock in or clock out transactions, and will display the total hours to 2 decimal places (using standard decimal rounding).

Timesheet rounding calculator:

The table below shows how each of the methods round the clock in and clock out times, and how this can affect the total hours of a shift.

Change the clock in and clock out times in the table above to see the output of each rounding option below it.

Frequently asked questions about rounding

Can we round timesheets to 30 minutes or a whole hour?

The maximum interval you can round to is to the nearest 15 minutes on the clock (e.g. 7am, 7:15am).

Can we round start times up, and finish times down?

You can only round times to the nearest interval. This is the most commonly accepted practise, to ensure that averaged over time the employee is not disadvantaged (leaving employers potentially liable).

Can we set an automatic start time?

No you can't. We've designed TimeDock to be an accurate and real-time solution for clocking into work. If employees aren't clocking in when they actually started work, they should be encouraged to do so.