Most timesheet errors aren’t fraud — they’re notation slips and bad defaults that quietly move money, almost always in the same direction: against the worker. Here are the nine that come up constantly, what each one costs, and the fix.
1. Minutes written as decimals
7:30 entered as 7.30 hours = 12 minutes gone. At $18/hour, a daily slip costs about $47/month. Fix: convert minutes ÷ 60 (the chart makes it automatic).
2. Overtime averaged across the pay period
46 + 34 hours across a biweekly period is 6 OT hours, not zero — workweeks never average. Fix: total each week separately; the biweekly calculator shows per-week subtotals for exactly this reason.
3. Auto-deducted lunches that were worked
A 30-minute daily auto-deduction you worked through ≈ 2.5 paid hours/week. Fix: record actual breaks; flag worked lunches in writing the week they happen, not at year end.
4. Paid rest breaks entered as deductions
Coffee breaks of 5–20 minutes are paid work time federally. Deducting two 10-minute breaks daily costs ~1.7 hours/week. Fix: only bona fide meal periods (30+ min, duty-free) go in the break column.
5. Forgotten split shifts
Worked 9–1, came back 5–9, logged “9–9”? That writes 12 hours instead of 8 — or the reverse, one period forgotten entirely. Fix: enter each period separately (the time card calculator supports up to three per day).
6. Overnight shifts mangled
10 PM–6 AM entered into a tool that can’t cross midnight produces −16 or 16 hours. Fix: use a calculator with overnight detection; sanity-check any day over 16 hours.
7. One-way rounding
Rounding every punch down to the quarter hour is a wage violation — rounding must be neutral over time (29 CFR 785.48). Fix: if your stub only ever shows .00/.25/.50/.75 and your clock-ins rarely land there, audit a month against raw times.
8. Wrong workweek boundary
Overtime depends on where the week starts. A Sunday-start employer evaluated against a Monday–Sunday week shifts weekend hours between weeks and can hide OT. Fix: confirm the official workweek; set the same start day in your tracker.
9. No personal record at all
When payroll and memory disagree, the better record wins. The FLSA puts recordkeeping on employers, but your own copy is leverage. Fix: export your sheet weekly (CSV or PDF) — 10 seconds of habit, three years of evidence.
The 60-second self-audit
- Open last week in the time card calculator and enter real times, real breaks.
- Choose your state’s overtime preset.
- Compare gross with your pay stub.
- Off by more than rounding? Export the sheet and ask payroll to walk you through the difference.