Hours to Decimal Chart: Minutes to Decimal Hours for Payroll
Printable minutes to decimal hours chart for every minute from 1 to 60, plus quarter-hour and tenth-hour tables in the format ADP, Gusto, and QuickBooks expect.
Payroll multiplies hours by a rate, so it needs time as a decimal: 7 hours 45 minutes is 7.75, not 7.45. This chart converts every minute from 1 to 60 to decimal hours rounded to two places, the format ADP, Gusto, QuickBooks Payroll, and nearly every other system expect. To convert a specific figure, or go from decimal back to minutes, use the hours to decimal converter.
Minutes to decimal hours chart (1 to 60 minutes)
Decimal hours = minutes ÷ 60, rounded to two places.
| Minutes | Decimal | Minutes | Decimal | Minutes | Decimal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0.02 | 21 | 0.35 | 41 | 0.68 |
| 2 | 0.03 | 22 | 0.37 | 42 | 0.70 |
| 3 | 0.05 | 23 | 0.38 | 43 | 0.72 |
| 4 | 0.07 | 24 | 0.40 | 44 | 0.73 |
| 5 | 0.08 | 25 | 0.42 | 45 | 0.75 |
| 6 | 0.10 | 26 | 0.43 | 46 | 0.77 |
| 7 | 0.12 | 27 | 0.45 | 47 | 0.78 |
| 8 | 0.13 | 28 | 0.47 | 48 | 0.80 |
| 9 | 0.15 | 29 | 0.48 | 49 | 0.82 |
| 10 | 0.17 | 30 | 0.50 | 50 | 0.83 |
| 11 | 0.18 | 31 | 0.52 | 51 | 0.85 |
| 12 | 0.20 | 32 | 0.53 | 52 | 0.87 |
| 13 | 0.22 | 33 | 0.55 | 53 | 0.88 |
| 14 | 0.23 | 34 | 0.57 | 54 | 0.90 |
| 15 | 0.25 | 35 | 0.58 | 55 | 0.92 |
| 16 | 0.27 | 36 | 0.60 | 56 | 0.93 |
| 17 | 0.28 | 37 | 0.62 | 57 | 0.95 |
| 18 | 0.30 | 38 | 0.63 | 58 | 0.97 |
| 19 | 0.32 | 39 | 0.65 | 59 | 0.98 |
| 20 | 0.33 | 40 | 0.67 | 60 | 1.00 |
To use the chart, keep the whole hours as they are and replace the minutes with the decimal from the table. 6 hours 40 minutes becomes 6.67. 9 hours 5 minutes becomes 9.08. The whole hours never change.
The 7.45 vs 7:45 trap
The most common timesheet error is writing minutes after a decimal point. 7:45 with a colon is seven hours and forty-five minutes. 7.45 with a point is seven and forty-five hundredths of an hour, which is 7 hours 27 minutes. The gap is 18 minutes, and it repeats every day the mistake is made.
| Written on the timesheet | What payroll reads | Actual time worked | Lost per day |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8.15 | 8 h 9 min | 8 h 15 min | 6 min |
| 8.30 | 8 h 18 min | 8 h 30 min | 12 min |
| 7.45 | 7 h 27 min | 7 h 45 min | 18 min |
| 9.50 | 9 h 30 min | 9 h 50 min | 20 min |
The error is always in the same direction, because any number of minutes from 1 to 59 is larger than the same digits read as hundredths. An employee who writes 8.30 for 8:30 five days a week loses an hour of pay every week. If you see a decimal ending in .30, .45, or .50 on a handwritten timesheet, check whether it was meant as minutes.
Quarter-hour chart
If your employer rounds to the nearest 15 minutes (the 7-minute rule), only four decimals ever appear:
| Minutes | Fraction of an hour | Decimal | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | .00 | 8:00 = 8.00 |
| 15 | 1/4 | .25 | 8:15 = 8.25 |
| 30 | 1/2 | .50 | 8:30 = 8.50 |
| 45 | 3/4 | .75 | 8:45 = 8.75 |
Tenth-of-an-hour chart (6-minute blocks)
Some time clocks and most government and legal-billing timesheets track in tenths of an hour. Each tenth is 6 minutes, and entries are rounded to the nearest block before conversion.
| Minutes | Tenths | Minutes | Tenths |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | 0.1 | 36 | 0.6 |
| 12 | 0.2 | 42 | 0.7 |
| 18 | 0.3 | 48 | 0.8 |
| 24 | 0.4 | 54 | 0.9 |
| 30 | 0.5 | 60 | 1.0 |
A tenth-hour system rounds 7 hours 45 minutes to 7.8, because 45 is closer to 48 than to 42. The same shift is 7.75 in a hundredths system. Both are correct within their own convention; problems start when a 7.8 from one form is typed into a system expecting hundredths, where it becomes 7 hours 48 minutes.
Rounding to two decimal places
Dividing by 60 rarely produces a clean number. 20 minutes is 0.33333..., 50 minutes is 0.83333..., and 1 minute is 0.01666.... Two decimal places is the payroll standard because the largest possible rounding error is 0.005 hours, which is 18 seconds. At $25 an hour that is 12.5 cents on a single entry, and the errors cancel out over a pay period rather than accumulate in one direction.
Three habits keep rounding errors from adding up:
- Total the week in minutes first, then convert once. Five days of 7 hours 20 minutes is 2,200 minutes, which is 36.67 hours. Converting each day to 7.33 and adding gives 36.65, two hundredths short.
- Do not round twice. If a system already rounded punches to the quarter hour, do not round the total again.
- Match the number of places your payroll system stores. Gusto and QuickBooks display two; ADP accepts two and stores more internally. Entering 8.333 into a two-place field may be truncated to 8.33 or rejected, depending on the system.
How payroll systems expect hours
| System | Hours format | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| ADP Workforce Now / RUN | Decimal, e.g. 8.25 | Time and attendance module converts punches automatically; manual hours entry is decimal only. |
| Gusto | Decimal, e.g. 8.25 | Hours fields accept decimals; imported CSV timesheets must be decimal. |
| QuickBooks Payroll / Time | Decimal by default | QuickBooks Time can display h:mm, but the payroll hours field is decimal. A preference setting controls the display. |
| Paychex Flex | Decimal, e.g. 8.25 | Two decimal places on manual entry. |
| Excel / Google Sheets | Either | A cell formatted as time (8:15) must be multiplied by 24 to get decimal hours before multiplying by a rate. |
The spreadsheet row deserves attention. A time value in Excel is stored as a fraction of a day, so 8:15 is 0.34375 internally. Multiply by 24 to get 8.25 hours, then by the rate. Multiplying the raw time cell by an hourly rate gives a wage that is 24 times too small, which is a common cause of "my formula says I earned $8" questions.
Worked examples
- 8:10 → 8 + 0.17 = 8.17
- 6:35 → 6 + 0.58 = 6.58
- 11:30 → 11 + 0.50 = 11.50 (a 12-hour shift with a 30-minute lunch)
- 4:03 → 4 + 0.05 = 4.05
- 0:52 → 0.87
Going the other direction, multiply the decimal part by 60: 5.4 hours is 5 hours and 0.4 × 60 = 24 minutes. For a full week of punches, the time card calculator shows both formats side by side, and how to calculate hours worked covers the whole method including lunch and overnight shifts.
Frequently asked questions
What is 45 minutes in decimal hours?
0.75. Divide the minutes by 60: 45 ÷ 60 = 0.75. So 7 hours 45 minutes is 7.75 hours on a timesheet.
What is 7:45 in decimal?
7.75 hours. The colon means hours and minutes; the decimal point means hours and hundredths. 7.45 hours would be 7 hours 27 minutes, which is 18 minutes less than 7:45.
How do I convert 20 minutes to a decimal?
20 ÷ 60 = 0.3333, which rounds to 0.33 at two places. Some systems store it as 0.34 because they round up; either way it is a third of an hour, and the difference is 0.01 hours, or 36 seconds.
What is 1 minute in decimal hours?
1 ÷ 60 = 0.01667, which rounds to 0.02 at two decimal places. Payroll systems that need more precision keep three or four places (0.017 or 0.0167).
Should I round to 2 decimal places?
For payroll, yes. Two places puts every minute within 0.005 hours, or 18 seconds, of its true value, which is a fraction of a cent at ordinary rates. Round each final daily or weekly total, not each intermediate step, if you want the fewest rounding errors.
How does ADP or QuickBooks want hours entered?
As decimal hours with two decimal places: 8.25 for 8 hours 15 minutes. ADP Workforce Now, Gusto, QuickBooks Payroll, Paychex, and Rippling all multiply the hours field by the pay rate, so a colon-format entry is either rejected or silently misread. Convert with this chart first.
Is there a chart for tenths of an hour?
Yes, further down the page. Tenth-hour timekeeping rounds every entry to the nearest 6 minutes, so 0.1 = 6 min, 0.2 = 12 min, up to 1.0 = 60 min. It is common on government timesheets and some older time clocks.
Last updated 2026-09-16. Everything on this page runs in your browser. Nothing you type or upload leaves your device.