How the time card works
The time card records one employee’s week: name, trade, hourly rate, and daily regular and overtime hours from Monday through Sunday, with a lunch row for the record and a notes row for job details. Every field starts at zero — an empty card totals zero hours and $0.00. Gross pay is regular hours times the rate plus overtime hours at 1.5× the rate, exactly as entered; the employee and supervisor signature lines make the printed card a payroll document.
Worked example: a carpenter at $32.00/hour works 8 regular hours Monday through Friday and pulls 2 overtime hours on Tuesday and Thursday. That is 40 regular hours and 4 overtime hours. Regular pay is 40 × $32.00 = $1,280.00; overtime pay is 4 × $48.00 = $192.00; gross pay is $1,472.00. Save the card, repeat for the rest of the crew, and the whole week exports as one CSV.
Mistakes that cost money on time cards
The expensive ones are consistent: entering overtime hours in the Regular row (which silently underpays the 0.5× premium); recording hours including the unpaid lunch, which overpays half an hour a day per person; and letting daily-overtime states ride on a weekly split — in California, Alaska, Colorado, and Nevada the daily rules can owe overtime even under 40 total hours, so send those weeks to the Payroll Prep Calculator and pick the state rule. Finally, cards that never get a supervisor signature are the first thing challenged in a wage dispute; FLSA time records must be kept for three years.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does the time card calculate gross pay?
Regular hours are multiplied by the hourly rate, and overtime hours by 1.5 times the rate. You enter regular and overtime hours in separate rows, so the card pays exactly what you record — it does not re-split hours under an overtime rule. To have hours split automatically under federal or state rules, send the week to the Payroll Prep Calculator.
Is the lunch row deducted from pay?
No. Lunch hours are recorded for the record only — they never change the pay math. Enter the hours actually worked in the Regular and Overtime rows, excluding unpaid breaks, and use the lunch row to document that breaks were taken.
Where are my saved time cards stored?
In your browser’s local storage, on your device. Nothing is sent to a server. Each card saves separately, so you can keep one card per employee per week and export them all as one CSV for payroll.
How do I get a week of cards into payroll?
Open All Cards and use "Send a week to Payroll Prep" — every saved card with that week-ending date becomes an employee row in the Payroll Prep Calculator, which applies your overtime rule and labor burden and exports a payroll CSV.