How to calculate fortnightly hours from employee timesheets

Written by Roster Flow. Published 27 June 2026.

Adding up a fortnight looks like simple arithmetic, and mostly it is. The mistakes come from doing it in the wrong order: converting each shift to decimals and adding the rounded figures, adding the fortnight as one lump when the award looks at each week or each day, or totalling the hours without separating a Saturday shift from a Tuesday one. This post sets out an order that avoids all three. The timesheets, breaks and paid hours guide covers what each timesheet should record in the first place.

Before you start: the dates and the timesheets

Fix the dates first. The fortnight should start on the first day of your pay period and run for 14 days, so the hours line up with the pay run they are for. Awards have a say in how often you pay. Under the Restaurant Industry Award 2020 (clause 19.1) and the General Retail Industry Award 2020 (clause 18.1), the employer may set a weekly or fortnightly pay period, and the Restaurant Industry Award also allows a monthly period by agreement with an employee. Under the Hospitality Industry (General) Award 2020 (clause 23.1), the employer and each employee may agree on a weekly or fortnightly pay period.

Then gather two weeks of timesheets for each person, checked by whoever supervised the shifts. Each should show the actual start, finish and unpaid breaks for every shift. If a finish time is missing, chase it now, before you add anything up. The free fortnightly timesheet template has fourteen days of start, finish and unpaid breaks that add themselves up, and the payroll cutoff planner works back from pay day to the date the hours need to be approved.

Step 1: Work out each shift in minutes

For every shift, take the start from the finish, subtract the unpaid breaks, and keep the answer in minutes or in hours and minutes. A shift from 9:00 am to 3:45 pm with a 30 minute unpaid break is 6 hours 45 minutes less 30 minutes, which is 6 hours 15 minutes, or 375 minutes.

Shift minutes = (finish - start) in minutes - unpaid break minutes

Paid breaks stay in, because they are paid time. For a shift that finishes after midnight, add 24 hours to the finish before subtracting, and decide which day the shift belongs to before you total the weeks.

Step 2: Total each week separately

Add up the minutes for week one, then for week two, and keep both totals. It is tempting to go straight to a fortnight, but many of the rules that decide pay work per week or per day, not per fortnight.

• Maximum weekly hours. Under the National Employment Standards, an employee can work a maximum of 38 hours a week unless asked to work reasonable additional hours, as the Fair Work Ombudsman’s hours of work page explains.
• Part-time overtime. Under clause 10.13(b) of the Restaurant Industry Award, a part-time employee is paid overtime rates for time worked beyond 38 hours a week or an average of 38 over the roster cycle, beyond the daily maximum, or beyond their rostered hours. Under clause 10.8 of the General Retail Industry Award, time beyond a part-time employee’s guaranteed hours, as agreed or varied in writing, is paid at the overtime rate.
• Full-time arrangements. Some awards let full-time hours be spread unevenly over two weeks. The General Retail Industry Award allows 76 hours over 2 consecutive weeks (clause 15.6(g)(ii)), and the Hospitality Industry (General) Award allows 76 hours over a 2 week period with at least 4 days off (clause 15.1(b)(v)).
• Casuals. Under clause 11.2 of the Restaurant Industry Award, a casual can work up to 12 hours a day and 38 hours a week, or an average of 38 over a roster cycle of up to 4 weeks, and time beyond those limits is paid at overtime rates (clause 11.5).

These rules differ between awards, so check yours with the Fair Work Ombudsman’s Find my award tool before deciding what counts as overtime.

Step 3: Add the weeks and convert once

Add week one and week two in minutes, then divide by 60 to turn the fortnight into hours, with the minutes left over. Only now convert to decimal hours, if payroll wants them: divide the leftover minutes by 60 and round to two places. Rounding each shift first and adding the rounded figures can leave the fortnight slightly out. The decimal hours converter shows the decimal for any minute.

Step 4: Split the hours paid at different rates

A fortnight total on its own is not enough to pay from. Payroll also needs to know how much was ordinary time on weekdays, on Saturdays, on Sundays and on public holidays, and how much was overtime, because each can be paid at a different rate. Under the Restaurant Industry Award, clause 23.3 says overtime worked on any day stands alone from overtime worked on any other day, so overtime is worked out day by day rather than from the fortnight total.

For each shift, mark which kind of time it is and total each kind separately, still in minutes. The overtime hours calculator splits ordinary hours from overtime against the daily and weekly limits you enter.

Using the fortnightly hours calculator

The free fortnightly hours calculator does steps 1 to 3 for one person. Pick the first day of the fortnight, then enter each day’s start, finish and unpaid break. It shows week one, week two and the fortnight in hours and minutes and in decimal hours, adding in minutes so rounding does not creep in, and you can copy the result or save it as a CSV file. Nothing you type leaves the page. Three things to know when you use it:

• It takes one shift a day. For two shifts on the same day, enter the day as one span with the gap between them as the unpaid break, or use the work hours calculator, which takes several shifts.
• A shift that runs past midnight counts on the day it starts, so a Sunday night shift finishing on Monday stays in the week it began. Check that this matches how your award and payroll count it.
• It adds up hours. It does not decide which hours are weekend, public holiday or overtime hours, so do step 4 alongside it.

A worked example: a part-time cook’s fortnight

A part-time cook is covered by the Restaurant Industry Award. The roster is the same both weeks: Monday and Tuesday from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm, Thursday from 4:00 pm to 10:00 pm and Saturday from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, each with a 30 minute unpaid meal break. That is 5 hours 30 minutes, or 330 minutes, a shift and 22 hours a week. In week one the cook stayed 45 minutes late on Tuesday for a delivery, and in week two 20 minutes late on Saturday to finish the clean down.

The fortnight is 1,365 + 1,340 = 2,705 minutes, which is 45 hours 5 minutes, or 45.08 decimal hours. That is 1 hour 5 minutes more than the 44 rostered hours, and both weeks are well under 38 hours.

The fortnight total cannot show how to pay the extra 65 minutes. Under clause 10.13(b) of the Restaurant Industry Award, time a part-time employee works beyond their rostered hours is paid at overtime rates, and clause 23.3 treats each day’s overtime on its own. Table 7 in clause 23.4 sets overtime at 150% of the minimum hourly rate for the first 2 hours Monday to Friday, and 175% for the first 2 hours on a Saturday. Ordinary Saturday hours for a part-time employee are paid at 125% under clause 24.2. So the fortnight goes to payroll in four parts:

The weekday ordinary hours are the six weekday shifts at 330 minutes each, 1,980 minutes, and the Saturday ordinary hours are two shifts at 330 minutes, 660 minutes. Entered in the calculator, the same two weeks give 22 hours 45 minutes, 22 hours 20 minutes and 45 hours 5 minutes. The split into four lines is the part to do yourself or in payroll, and the current dollar rates are on the Restaurant Industry Award pay rates page.

Checks before the hours go to payroll

• Both weeks cover the right dates, starting on the first day of the pay period
• Every shift has a start, a finish and its unpaid breaks
• Each week’s total is checked against the award’s weekly limits and the employee’s rostered or guaranteed hours
• Weekend, public holiday and overtime hours are totalled separately, with overtime worked out day by day
• The fortnight was added in minutes and converted to decimals once
• Differences from the roster have been approved, with a reason for each correction

The roster vs actual hours tool puts rostered and worked hours side by side for each person, which is the quickest way to find extra time like the cook’s 65 minutes before it is lost in a fortnight total.

When the adding up becomes the job

For a handful of people, a calculator and two weeks of timesheets are enough. As the team grows, the time goes on collecting timesheets, chasing missing finish times and retyping totals into payroll. Roster Flow handles those parts of the fortnight: availability and leave from staff phones, the roster published to everybody at once, clock ins that become timesheets, and approved hours sent to Xero, MYOB or a CSV file.

Sources

• Fair Work Ombudsman: hours of work
• Fair Work Ombudsman: find my award
• Fair Work Commission: Restaurant Industry Award 2020 [MA000119]
• Fair Work Commission: General Retail Industry Award 2020 [MA000004]
• Fair Work Commission: Hospitality Industry (General) Award 2020 [MA000009]

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