Virtual TimeClock Accuracy of Report Totals

Virtual TimeClock Knowledge Base

Accuracy of Report Totals

One of the common questions we hear about Virtual TimeClock involves the accuracy of totaling and reports. Whether you're brand new to digital time tracking or you've been using Virtual TimeClock for decades, it's essential to know that you can trust the totals on your timecards. This article will illustrate a common question we hear, explain how Virtual TimeClock totals employee hours and provide you with complete confidence in your software.

The Timecard Detail report below illustrates the most common question we hear from users regarding report totals.

Virtual TimeClock Decimal Confusion

How Virtual TimeClock Totals Hours
To achieve accurate-to-the-minute report totals, Virtual TimeClock adds up all of the time clock entries in minutes format first and then, as the last step, converts to decimal hours. This completely avoids any error as a result of display limitations and rounding. In the image below, we illustrated this concept.

Virtual TimeClock Decimal Answer

Are Decimal Totals Correct
"When I add up the decimal hours column, that sum does not equal the Total Hours on my report. Is my payroll report accurate?"  The red box above shows this exact question. We added up the decimal hours from the Regular column to show that the sum of 24.45 is a full .02 hours (1 minute) less than the actual Total Hours of 24.47 at the bottom of the report. So which total is correct?

Limitations of Decimal Hours
Decimal hours are limited to displaying two decimal places, but there are often repeating decimals that aren't displayed. The yellow box illustrates this by extending the decimal hours out to 12 decimal places. Summing 'rounded' decimal hours will always result in inaccurate totals because the full decimal number is not taken into account. This is why Virtual TimeClock does not add up the decimal hours to get Total Hours. Below is an example of how hours & minutes is converted to decimal hours.

Virtual TimeClock Convert Time