How to calculate crew pay from timesheets

How do you work out hourly pay from a timesheet?

Gross pay for a period is the sum, day by day, of hours worked × the rate that applied that day. Most of the time the rate doesn’t change, and the sum is simply total hours × rate. Working by day matters when the rate does change, or when overtime starts partway through the week.

1. Total each person’s hours by day

   Add up the hours from every job for each day. Someone who did 5 hours on one job and 4 on another worked 9 hours that day.

2. Split regular and overtime hours

   Apply your overtime rule to the daily and weekly totals, not to individual job rows. The next section covers the federal rule.

3. Price the hours and add bonuses

   Regular hours × rate, overtime hours × rate × multiplier, then any bonuses dated in the period. The result is gross pay, before tax withholding and deductions.

Here is an example with the crew pay calculator’s example numbers. Sam worked 40 regular and 5 overtime hours at $32; Jordan worked 38 hours at $26 and earned a $50 bonus. Sam gets $1,280 + $240 = $1,520, Jordan gets $988 + $50 = $1,038, and the crew total is $2,558.

When do you have to pay overtime?

Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), non-exempt employees must get at least 1.5 times their regular rate for every hour over 40 in a workweek (U.S. Department of Labor).

• Each workweek stands on its own. The FLSA workweek is a fixed, recurring period of 168 hours, and averaging hours over two or more weeks is not permitted (Fact Sheet #23). A 45-hour week followed by a 35-hour week still has 5 overtime hours.
• State rules can be stricter. Some states have their own overtime laws, and where both apply, the employee gets whichever gives the higher overtime pay (DOL).
• Weekends and holidays aren’t overtime by themselves. The FLSA doesn’t require premium pay for work on Saturdays, Sundays or holidays as such; only hours past 40 in the workweek count (Fact Sheet #23).

This is general information, not legal advice. Who is exempt and which state rules apply depend on the work and the location, so check with your accountant or the Department of Labor.

How do bonuses fit into crew pay?

Give each bonus a date and put it in the pay period that date falls in. A bonus without a date tends to get paid twice, or not at all, when someone reworks a period.

• Write down what the bonus is for: finishing a job under its hours, a safety record, an evening callout. The next payroll check goes faster.
• Some bonuses change the overtime rate. Non-discretionary bonuses, such as production, attendance or safety bonuses, are included in the regular rate the FLSA uses for overtime (Fact Sheet #56C). If a week has both overtime and such a bonus, check the overtime figure with your payroll provider.
• Keep bonuses out of the hourly rate. Raising the rate for one week instead of paying a bonus changes what every hour of that week cost the job, and makes the next real raise harder to follow.

In the calculator example, Jordan’s $50 bonus is simply added to gross pay, because Jordan worked no overtime that week.

What if a rate changes in the middle of a pay period?

Price each day at the rate that applied on that day. Hours before the effective date stay at the old rate, and hours from that date on use the new one. For example, Jordan’s rate goes from $26 to $28 on Thursday, in a 38-hour week.

If the week was already paid at $26 for all 38 hours ($988), Jordan is owed ($28 − $26) × 16 = $32. Hours paid as overtime are owed the difference times the overtime multiplier (1.5 under the FLSA), because a retroactive raise increases the regular rate for that period (29 CFR 778.303). The retro pay calculator works out the regular hours. Entering a raise with its real start date before payroll runs avoids the correction altogether.

Should you record hours per job or per day?

Both, and one record gives you both. Payroll needs each person’s hours per day and per week; job costing needs the same hours split by job. Record only daily totals and you can’t cost jobs. Record only weekly job totals and you can’t check overtime.

• Record one row per person, job and day, with the hours and a short note. The crew timesheet template uses this layout.
• Total by day and week for pay, and by job for costing. Both come from the same rows, so they always agree. The guide to labor cost per job covers the costing side.
• Some crews are paid by the day or by the job. That changes how pay is worked out, but keep the hours by job anyway: they show what each job really took.

Overtime comes from the totals, not from the job rows. Two 5-hour rows on two jobs make a 10-hour day, and five of those make a 50-hour week, even though no single row looks long.

When are hours ready to pay, and when do you close the period?

Pay from approved hours only. Someone other than the person who entered the hours checks them before payroll runs, and anything wrong goes back to whoever entered it, with a note on what to change. Once the period is paid, close it so nobody edits hours that were already paid.

1. Check the period’s hours

   Look for missing days, unusually long days, hours on finished jobs and people without a rate.

2. Approve or send back

   Approve what’s right. Send the rest back with a correction note, then approve the corrected entries.

3. Export, pay and close

   Export the totals for whoever pays wages, then close the period. Mistakes found later go into the next open period, with a note referring back to the closed one.

A closed period is your record of what you paid. If it can still be edited, last month’s numbers drift, and your payroll export stops matching your timesheets.

How does HiVis calculate crew pay?

In HiVis payroll, you pick a month or any date range, and HiVis shows each person’s hours, hourly earnings, bonuses and total. Each hour is priced at the person’s rate on that date, and each bonus counts in the period its date falls in. A period closes only when every hour in it is approved and has a rate. Closing stores a snapshot of names, rates, hours, bonuses and totals and locks the period’s time entries, and you export a CSV for whoever pays wages.

• A raise is added as a new rate from its effective date, so earlier work keeps the old rate.
• Hours without a rate mark the total as incomplete instead of counting as zero.
• Corrections after closing go into a later open period that refers back to the closed one.