The Easiest Way to Track Work Hours

Calculating work hours and overtime at the close of each month is likely one of the most burdensome tasks for managers and accountants.
Whether your’e an employer looking to streamline payroll processes or an employee seeking clarity about your recorded hours, here are some practical tips we prepared on calculating work time — designed to give you a fast, simple solution to calculate working hours.
Let’s dive in and reveal the best practices for mastering time calculations across your organization.

The old-fashioned way: Tracking work hours in Excel

Excel, the spreadsheet software, provides an outdated way to manage and calculate work hours. Here are some tips, formulas, and suggestions to help make attendance tracking more accurate using Excel..

1. Open a new worksheet in Excel and create a table with columns for Date, Start Time, End Time, Break Duration, and Total Work Hours.

2. Fill in the relevant data for each workday in the appropriate columns. Make sure your time entries are written correctly, for example: 09:00, 17:00.

Daily Work Hours Calculation

In the “Total Work Hours” column, use the following formula:
End Time – Start Time – Break Duration =
to calculate the total number of hours worked for each day.

Weekly Work Hours Calculation

To calculate the total weekly hours, use the formula SUM= (range of daily work hours) in the cell below the last day of the week.

Adjust the range so it includes all cells containing the daily work hours for that week. 

Monthly Work Hours Calculation

Similar to weekly calculations, create a new cell and use the formula =SUM(weekly hours range)  to calculate the total monthly work hours. 

Adjust the range to include the cells containing the weekly totals for that month.

Overtime Calculation

To calculate overtime, create a new column titled “Overtime Hours” and use the following formula:

MAX(Daily Work Hours – Standard Work Hours, 0)=

The “Standard Work Hours” stands for the regular number of hours an employee is expected to work per day.

As you can see, calculating work hours in Excel requires advanced spreadsheet skills and consumes significant time when preparing monthly reports.

Leave Excel behind – smart time & attendance calculation

Excel spreadsheets is the old-fashioned method that generations of managers relied on to calculate employees’ monthly work days.

For all due respect for managers past and present, this method is outdated, complicated and prone to calculation errors–even if it`s still an improvement over doing the math in your head or with a pencil and paper.

Today, the advanced and efficient way to calculate monthly work hours is using Meckano`s attendance system, which saves significant time, money, and unnecessary mistakes.

Meckano`s system combines a work hours calculator, an overtime calculator for both hourly and salaried employees, and seamless integration with your payroll system.

Only 3 simple steps: Claculating work hours with Meckano

1. Automatic data collection from different attendance clocks and devices.

2. Data processing according to employment agreements and contracts.

3. Data exporting to the payroll system and pay stubs generating.

Why Meckano?

Meckano automatically collects the attendance data – no need for manual entry. It allows you to set parameters for accurate employee hours’ analysis, whether for simple or complex work agreements, beyond just clock-in and clock-out. You can enter basic employee details – such as name, personal info, and start date – and easily set up an employment contract in the system. Based on these contracts, Meckano automatically calculates work hours and generates detailed reports, which can be exported directly to your payroll system.

Defining employment contracts is significant to calculate employees’ work hours. Here are some examples of the sections you should determine:

• 5 or 6 workdays per week
• Standard daily work hours
• Overtime – percentages and tires
• Handling weekend and holiday hours, including overtime aligned with workweek standard
• rules for missing hours
• rules for early arrivals or late arrivals (time rounding)
• Special hours requiring approval
• Mandatory documentation for sick days

And much more…

All these will preform the important work accurately, no human intervention needed, no errors. A one-time set up will save time and ensures full compliance with labor regulations.

After setting the employment contracts, the manager can select the relevant columns for system-generated-reports – including absences, late arrivals, overtime (120%, 150%), weekend hours, hourly wages, and standards – as well as the summary tables that appear in the final reports.

With Meckano’s advanced time tracking system, you can easily create customized timesheets the combine unlimited data fields, save preferred templates and edit them anytime, generate scheduled reports, set automated notifications for different work scenarios… In addition, Meckano allows you to define relevant workdays, monitor employee attendance in real time, and stay up to date on absences, leaves, and attendance summaries.

Here are some of the most common ways organizations use a smart time & attendance system:

• View up-to-date attendance reports.
• Report sick days, reserve duty, vacation and work-from-home days.
• Automatically calculate overtime for hourly employees.
• Add comments or notes to reports.
• Send notifications to employees regarding attendance issues, or other relevant updates.
• Receive manager notifications regarding late arrivals, overtime, missing attendance reporting, and more.
• Control data access levels for team managers, departments, and executives.
• Approve vacation requests and other employee events.
• Manage employee permissions.

How can employers accurately track and manage employee work hours?

Accurate time tracking is essential for effective business operations, error-free payroll processing, and improved productivity management.
Here are a few best practices employers can adopt:
Set a clear attendance reporting policy: Define clear guidelines and expectations for attendance reporting, and make sure every employee understands them.
Use smart attendance systems: Implement reliable time clocks or attendance apps that allow employees to easily and accurately log their work hours.
Use automated notifications: Automated notifications can simplify the attendance tracking process and ensure managers are immediately informed of any changes in real time.

The Takeaway: Why smart time tracking wins over Excel?

A smart attendance system is an advanced, efficient, and user-friendly solution that saves your business valuable time and money while streamlining the entire process of generating monthly employee reports.
In the Meckano attendance system, you’ll find several predefined employment contracts ready to be assigned – no need for any changes. You can edit and define contracts as needed, of course, fully customizing them to your organization’s requirements and to each individual business.

Want to see Meckano in action?
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