A week of clock punches, and the hours either side of the threshold you type

AThe week, at a glance

No card name typed, no reference typed, and no week-ending date typed.

The figure this page exists for is the one an in-and-out adder does not print: a week footed from its own minute count, both readings of every day side by side, and the money on each side of the threshold you typed. Print this card

Printed from otherworldlabs.com, the weekly time card.

BThe week you are typing

The threshold and the two rates are yours, read off your own arrangement. This page carries no threshold, no rate and no rule of its own, and it never fills one in for you.

Only hold the week's total? A total does not say which days made it, so this card cannot be rebuilt from one number: read the in and out times off the card, the clock printout or the timesheet. With the total alone, the only arithmetic left is the one that needs no grid - hours up to the threshold you type are regular, the rest are overtime, and each side is priced at the rate you type - while the seven rows, the per-day working and the printed card need the punches.

CThe card, day by day

Both readings of every day side by side: the clock span the punches make, the paid hours left once the typed break comes out, and those paid hours in payroll decimal beside hours and minutes.

A signature line belongs on the card payroll receives, and the file sold beside this page carries one. This page prints the arithmetic.

DEvery figure, worked

Each day, in minutes first, because minutes are what clock punches subtract to.

Then the week, footed from its own minute count rather than from the rounded rows above it.

EHow the figures are read

The clock span

The minutes from the in punch to the out punch, with no break taken out of it. It is the first of the two readings of a day this card keeps apart, and it is the one a clock printout shows.

Paid hours

The clock span with the day's typed unpaid break taken out of it. It is the second reading, and it is the one the money is computed from. A day whose span and paid hours differ is a day with a break typed on it, and nothing else.

A day read as crossing midnight

Where the out punch is not later in the clock than the in punch, this card reads the day forward from the in punch into the next day, so a night shift punched in at ten and out at six is eight hours. Two identical punches are read as a full day of twenty-four hours, which is the only arithmetic reading of a day that ends where it began. The row says so in its own last cell, so a night shift is never a silent negative.

A typed break past the span

Where the typed break runs past the day's own clock span, the day's hours are dashed and named rather than counted as nothing, because a break cannot take out more than the day held, and treating it as nothing would hide a typing slip inside a weekly total. No weekly figure prints while such a day stands: the day is not entered, so the week waits for the correction.

A day punched with no break typed

A blank break is not a break of nothing. Where a day carries both punches and no break figure, that day's paid hours are dashed and the row says so in its own last cell, and the week waits for the figure rather than paying the whole span. Type 0 where no break came out of the day; that is a figure, and it completes the day.

Payroll decimal

Minutes divided by sixty, kept to two places. A quarter of an hour is point two five, not fifteen. Each day's own decimal is rounded for printing, and the week is footed from the week's minute count instead of from those rounded rows, so the week does not inherit seven roundings. Where the two readings part company by a hundredth, this card prints both and says which is which.

The threshold, and the two rates

All three are typed by whoever holds the arrangement. Hours up to the threshold are priced at the first rate and the rest at the second, and this card names no rule, no multiplier and no figure of its own for any of them. Two typed rates rather than a multiplier is the whole of this card's position on the subject.

A day left blank and a day ticked as not worked

A blank day is a day nobody has typed yet; a ticked day is a day typed as worked by nobody. The week's figures wait for all seven days to be one or the other, and a punched day is not one of them until its break is typed too, so a card filled from the top prints a count of what is still missing instead of a confident total off one day.

FThe four things the arithmetic does not settle

Each of these is yours to decide, and none of them is decided here. The options are set out and this card prints whichever reading you type.

A shift that starts on one day and ends on the next

A night shift can be recorded on the day it started or on the day it ended. This card holds one in punch and one out punch a day and reads the span forward, so the shift sits on the day you type it against. Whichever you choose, choose it once for the whole week: two conventions inside one card is the way a week comes out an hour short.

A break that was taken but never timed

Some cards carry the break as a figure, some carry a second pair of punches, and some carry nothing at all. This card takes one break figure a day, in minutes. A break that was taken and not timed is a decision about what to type, not an arithmetic question, and this card will not make it for you: a blank break is read as a figure still to come, so that day's hours are dashed and the week waits, and a typed 0 is the reading that no break came out of the day.

Minutes that nobody wants to pay in minutes

Time can be priced in quarter hours, in tenths of an hour, or to the minute, and which of those your arrangement uses is yours to say. This card prints the minute figure and the payroll decimal and rounds neither of them into a quarter, because which quarter a minute belongs to is a term of your arrangement and not a property of the clock. If your arrangement rounds, round the figures this card prints.

A week that straddles two pay periods

Where the pay period and the week do not share a boundary, the split at a weekly threshold depends on which week the arrangement counts. This card holds one week ending on the date you type. Two cards, each with its own week ending and its own threshold, is the honest way to record a straddled week.

GWhat this card will not do

• It names no threshold, no rate, no multiplier and no rounding practice as the right one. Every such figure on it is one you typed, and arithmetic is the only thing it adds.
• It says nothing about wage law, about any overtime entitlement, or about how anybody should be classified. There is no statute, no agency and no rule of any kind in it, for any place or any trade.
• It stops at hours and money an hour. There is no tax in it, no deduction, no net pay and no paycheck.
• It is not a record anybody has to accept, and it certifies nothing about the week it prints. It is arithmetic on the punches you typed, with the working beside each figure.
• It holds one week and keeps no history. Close the page and the figures are gone; the file sold beside it is what keeps a card payroll receives and a season of them.