What Are Quarter Hours?

With all business transactions there must be a set of rules to follow so that all parties involved can be treated consistently and fairly. When an employee works for a company and is paid on an hourly basis, rules must be established as to how the company will keep track of the time consistently and fairly.

Trading Time for Money

As they say, "Time is Money," well, in business time really does equal money. When you get paid a certain dollar amount per hour your are trading time for money. Let's say you get paid $10 per hour. How can your employer pay you accurately if you work 35 hours and 45 minutes in one week?

Punching a Time Clock

Your employer uses a time card to keep track of the amount of time that you work during one single pay period. The time card indicates the exact time that you arrive at work and the exact time that you leave.

The Payroll People

Depending on the company, there is someone in the organization who is responsible for processing the business transaction that is referred to as Payroll. This means someone is looking at your time card to see how many hours you worked in a single pay period.

Payroll People get a break

In the interest of saving time most companies give the payroll people a break and allow them to calculate your pay amount based on an easy method of quarter hours. This means that each hour on the clock is broken into four parts, with each part equal to 1/4 the amount of time, which is 15 minutes.

Getting Paid

So you worked 35 hours and 45 minutes. The payroll person will multiply the $10 per hour that you make by 35 and 3/4 of an hour because 45 minutes equals three quarter hours. Your gross pay amount before taxes will be $357.50. The good news here is that most companies will give the employee the benefit of the doubt and round all times up to the next nearest quarter hour even if you only worked 35 hours and 7 minutes.