Course: Career Communication

Reading a Time Card

As its name suggests, a "time card" is a document onto which an employee -- or, in some cases, a company computer -- enters the time he worked on a certain day. Although time cards come in different formats, they always contain certain pieces of key information. After all, their ultimate purpose across all industries and companies is the same: to aid employers in calculating employees' pay. Reading a time card is therefore simple, no matter what the card in front of you looks like.

1. Locate the employee's name. This is the most important element of the time card because it identifies the individual who worked. Knowing that one of your employees worked from 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday is meaningless if you don't know which one of them worked. Look near the top of the card to find the employee's name.
2. Identify the time frame the time card covers. Depending on your workplace's pay period -- in other words, how often employees are paid, be it monthly, bi-monthly or weekly -- this range can vary, but you can differentiate it from other dates on the card because it will be a range, for example "February 1 to February 8."
3. Verify each day's "Hours Worked" and make sure they correspond to the posted range. The next element of the time card is where it lists when the employee "Punched In" and "Punched Out" each given day. If your employee Veronica punched in at 8 a.m. on Monday and out at 1:15 p.m., the total "Hours Worked" for Monday should read either "5:15" or "5.25 hours," since 15 minutes is one quarter of an hour, or ".25" hours. If an employee didn't work on a day, his "Hours Worked" should read "0," or be blank.
4. Total the verified hours worked and compare them against the value listed next to "Total Hours" or "Total Regular Hours," which will be located under the table which lists time worked for each day. For example, if Veronica worked 5.25 hours on Monday, eight hours on Tuesday and eight hours on Friday, her total hours should read "21.25," or "21:15."
5. Take note of any overtime. Although your local laws may vary, overtime generally consists of any hours in a week worked over 40. So if Veronica worked from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, then worked from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, her "Regular" hours would be 40 -- eight hours each of the five days of the week -- and she would have earned five "Overtime" hours.

>