A simple spreadsheet that totals scheduled hours for each employee, flags anyone scheduled over 40 hours, highlights unfilled shifts and handles shifts that cross midnight.
Formulas were recalculated and checked before publishing. The example and names are fictional.
| Column | What to enter | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Date | Shift date | Day of week fills in automatically |
| Employee, Role, Location | Name or internal ID, the role, the site | Don’t enter SSNs or medical details |
| Start, End | Times like 7:00 AM | An end time earlier than the start counts as an overnight shift |
| Break (min) | Unpaid break minutes | Subtracted from scheduled hours |
| Scheduled hours | Calculated | Plan only, not payroll |
| Status | Draft, Published, Swapped or Unfilled | Unfilled rows turn red |
Eight fictional employees, two roles (Barista and Kitchen), and three situations worth knowing about:
| Employee | Scheduled hours | Shifts |
|---|---|---|
| Ava | 30.0 | 4 |
| Ben, Carla, Diego, Grace, Hugo | 22.5 each | 3 |
| Emma, Felix | 20.75 each | 3 |
Example totals: 189.75 scheduled hours and 1 unfilled shift. No one in the example exceeds 40 scheduled hours.
The summary marks anyone scheduled over 40 hours in the week so you can review it before you publish. Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, non-exempt employees must be paid overtime at one and a half times their regular rate for hours actually worked over 40 in a workweek (U.S. Department of Labor). Some states add daily overtime or other rules, so check your state. For more, see our FLSA overtime guide and overtime glossary entry.
A spreadsheet works for a small team and a single manager. When several people edit the schedule, swaps are frequent, or you need to compare the plan with actual clock-ins, every change becomes another version to send and check. That is the point to look at scheduling software where the schedule and time clock live together.
The template plans the week. Payroll pays what actually happened. The two are rarely identical, and the gap is worth watching. Using Ava from the café example:
| Day | Scheduled | Clocked | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | 7.5 | 7.75 | +0.25 |
| Wednesday | 7.5 | 7.5 | 0 |
| Friday | 7.5 | 8.25 | +0.75 |
| Saturday | 7.5 | 7.75 | +0.25 |
| Week | 30.0 | 31.25 | +1.25 |
One and a quarter hours over plan is not a problem on its own. If it happens every Friday for every closer, the schedule is too short for the closing tasks and should be changed. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the hours actually worked are what count for pay and overtime, not the hours on the schedule.
| Business | Role column | Location column |
|---|---|---|
| Restaurant | Server, Line cook, Host | Dining room, Kitchen, Patio |
| Retail | Cashier, Floor, Stock | Store number |
| Cleaning company | Cleaner, Team lead | Client site name |
| Home care agency | Caregiver, Nurse | Client initials or visit code |
| Warehouse | Picker, Loader, Forklift | Dock or zone |
For home care and other services in private homes, use a code rather than a client’s full name and address in a file that gets emailed around.
If a total looks wrong, check those five first. They cover most of the problems people report with spreadsheet schedules.
A schedule: who is planned to work when. Actual hours worked are recorded by your time clock, and that is what payroll uses. For a timesheet, see our free timesheet template.
Enter an end time earlier than the start time, such as 6:00 PM to 2:00 AM. The formula adds a day so the hours calculate correctly.
Update the version name and publish date at the top, send only the newest file and ask people to delete older copies.
No. It does not check breaks, overtime or predictive scheduling rules. Check your state and city requirements; see our predictive scheduling guide for an overview.
Upload it to Google Drive and open it with Sheets. Check that the dropdowns and formulas still work after opening.
Overtime is owed on hours actually worked over 40 in the workweek for non-exempt employees, not on scheduled hours. The flag helps you spot it before it happens.
At least one week, and two if you can. If you operate in a city or state with predictive scheduling rules, the required notice period sets your minimum.
Yes. Edit the lists on the settings sheet. Keep names short and consistent so totals by role or location stay correct.
Book a short demo and we will show you how it works for your team.