Tom’s Tutorials For Excel: Converting an Elapsed Time to a Decimal Number

Tom’s Tutorials For Excel: Converting an Elapsed Time to a Decimal Number

Some employers pay their employees based on work time that is measured in decimals as portions of an hour. For example, if an employee works a 7-hour and 45-minute day, the employer pays that person for 7.75 hours of work time.

Here is how to represent elapsed work times in decimalized fashion.

Step 1
• Enter and copy as needed the numeric formula, example =HOUR(C3-B3)+(MINUTE(C3-B3)/60).
• Select the formula range and right-click that selection.
• From the right-click popup menu select Format Cells.

Step 2
In the Format Cells dialog box:
• Click onto the Number tab.
• In the Category list, select Number.
• In the Decimal Places field, select your desired setting. I selected 2 decimal places.
• In the Negative Numbers field, I selected the black font style -1234.10.
• Confirm your format selections by clicking the OK button.