Everhour supports approved timesheets for billing review, while Google Sheets can handle attorney hour calculations with careful formulas.
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A Google Sheets attorney timesheet answers a practical question: how many decimal hours should a time entry, day, week, or matter total after clock times, unpaid meal periods, and billing increments are handled correctly. Google Sheets stores time as a fraction of a 24-hour day, so 8:15 equals 8.25 hours after conversion, not 8.15 hours.
For U.S. payroll review, covered, nonexempt employees must receive overtime pay for hours worked over 40 in a fixed FLSA workweek. Attorney billing adds a separate client-facing layer. A fee agreement can use agreed minimum billing periods, such as 0.1 hour for 6 minutes or 0.25 hour for 15 minutes, but the underlying entry should still reflect time actually spent.
The core Google Sheets shape is elapsed time minus unpaid break time, then multiplied by 24. If start time, end time, and unpaid break are stored as Sheets time values, the decimal-hours logic is `(end - start - unpaid_break) * 24`. For an overnight row, use `MOD(end - start, 1) * 24` before subtracting unpaid break time, so 10:00 PM to 6:00 AM totals 8 hours instead of a negative number.
Locale also matters. Google Sheets accepts recognized date strings through DATEVALUE, but accepted formats and displayed dates depend on the spreadsheet locale. A U.S. attorney timesheet commonly uses month/day/year and 12-hour AM/PM entries. Imported CSVs can shift dates or times when the source format does not match the sheet locale, so review imported time columns before exporting totals.
Use one column for actual decimal hours and separate columns for payroll or client billing adjustments. Federal law does not require adult lunch or coffee breaks, but short rest breaks of about 20 minutes or less count as hours worked. A bona fide meal period is unpaid only when the employee is completely relieved from duty.
For example, a covered nonexempt legal staff member works 47 hours in one fixed workweek at $31 per hour. Straight-time pay covers 40 hours at $31, which equals $1,240. Overtime covers 7 hours at 1.5 times the regular rate, or $46.50 per hour, which equals $325.50. The weekly gross pay check is $1,565.50 before other payroll additions or deductions.
A Google Sheets attorney timesheet is enough for a one-off fee check, a small matter recap, or a quick export of decimal hours. It also works when one person owns the formulas and reviews every imported row. The risk rises when several attorneys, paralegals, or admins edit the same workbook without a locked approval process.
A managed workflow fits better when entries need submission, approval, rejection, partial approval, and locked records before billing or payroll. Everhour Timesheets collect weekly project hours and working hours by person, then let admins approve or lock submitted time. That gives law firms a review trail before totals move into invoices, reports, or payroll checks.
This content is for general information only, may not be fully up to date, and is provided without any warranty or liability.
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Store start time, end time, and unpaid break as time values, then convert the elapsed day fraction to decimal hours by multiplying by 24. Keep actual time in one column and client billing increments in another column. That separation preserves the work record while still supporting agreed billing periods such as 0.1 hour or 0.25 hour.
Google Sheets stores time as a fraction of one 24-hour day. Noon is 0.5 because it is halfway through the day. A formula that subtracts start time from end time returns a day fraction, so multiply the result by 24 to get payroll-ready decimal hours.
Yes. Use MOD around the time difference when the end time is earlier than the start time. The structure is `MOD(end - start, 1) * 24`, with unpaid meal time deducted afterward when the meal period qualifies as unpaid. This prevents a night entry from turning into a negative total.
No. Actual time spent should remain visible, and billing increments should sit in a separate calculation column tied to the client agreement. ABA Formal Opinion 93-379 allows rounding up to agreed minimum periods such as one-tenth or one-quarter hour, but a lawyer billing by time may not bill more than time actually spent except for that agreed rounding.
The most common mistake is subtracting every break automatically. Under the FLSA, short breaks of about 20 minutes or less are compensable hours worked, while bona fide meal periods are generally unpaid only when the employee is completely relieved from duty. A sheet should label unpaid meal time separately from paid short breaks.
Everhour Timesheets collect weekly project hours and working hours by person, then let managers approve, reject, partially approve, or lock submitted time before billing or payroll review. That workflow gives a firm a controlled approval step instead of relying on open spreadsheet edits.
Replace spreadsheet-only review with submitted, approved, and locked weekly timesheets. Everhour Timesheets give firms a cleaner handoff from attorney hours to billing and payroll review.
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