Keep your own time card to check your paycheck
Quick answer: Record your actual start and finish time and every unpaid break on the day, keep photos of posted schedules, export your record every pay period, compare it with the pay stub, and raise any gap in writing. Your own time card is evidence; it does not fix payroll by itself, but it is what gets payroll fixed.
“My employer’s time clock keeps getting my hours wrong.” “My own tracking in notes and Excel did not match the payslip, and Excel on a phone after a shift is painful.” Those two sentences, from Reddit, describe why hourly workers keep their own time card. This page is the routine for doing it properly, and what the numbers mean when you compare them. We make Time Card, an app built for exactly this; the routine works with a notebook too.
The five-step routine
- Record actual times on the day. Your real start and finish, and the real length of every unpaid break. If you took 20 minutes instead of 30, record 20. Include work before or after your rostered shift, such as opening up or closing down.
- Set your rate and any different rates. Base rate, and whether evenings, weekends or hours over a threshold pay more. The app will give you hours times rate; you add the extra rates as separate lines or notes so the weekly figure is comparable with the payslip.
- Keep the paperwork. Photos of the posted schedule, the employer’s clock entries if you can see them, and every correction you asked for.
- Export every pay period. A PDF of the period, kept with the pay stub. Compare paid hours and gross pay line by line.
- Raise gaps in writing. Dates, hours recorded, hours paid, the difference. Keep the reply.
Why your own record counts
A record made on the day, with specific times, is the kind of evidence pay regulators and tribunals expect from a worker. It beats a reconstruction from memory, and it beats a screenshot of the employer’s own system because it is independent of it. It will not fix payroll by itself. It is what you put next to the payslip when you ask for payroll to be fixed, and it is what a regulator asks for first.
What to compare, by country
United States. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, most covered non-exempt employees are owed at least 1.5 times their regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek; several states add daily overtime or higher minimums. The Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division publishes the rules and runs a free timesheet app, WorkWise, that records hours and breaks and calculates overtime at the federal rate.
United Kingdom. There is no statutory overtime rate; your contract sets it. Your payslip must show gross pay, deductions and net pay, and from April 2019 the hours you are paid for when pay varies by time worked. gov.uk’s payslips page explains what must be on it. On a zero-hours contract, record every shift and break because nothing else will.
Australia. Your employer must keep time and wage records and give you a payslip within one working day of paying you, and the payslip must show hours worked where pay depends on them. Penalty rates and casual loading come from your award. The Fair Work Ombudsman lists the payslip requirements, and its Record My Hours app is a free record built for this.
This is a description of where the rules are, not advice about your case.
A worked comparison
Your record for the fortnight says 76 hours 30 minutes after breaks. The pay stub says 74 hours. The difference is 2 hours 30 minutes. Look for where it went: a 30-minute break deducted on a day you worked through, two days where you started 15 minutes before your rostered time, and a rounding rule that trims every clock-out. Each of those is a specific date and time to put in your message. “I think I am being underpaid” gets a shrug; “On 7, 9 and 14 October I started at 8:45 am, not 9:00, and on 11 October no break was taken; the stub shows 74 hours against my 76.5” gets a correction.
Which app
- Time Card (ours): manual start, finish and break to the minute, weekly and fortnightly totals, gross pay at your rate, overnight shifts, a PDF of any period, offline, no account. It does not clock you in automatically and it does not apply overtime rules; you add those.
- atWork: clock in and out, overtime and wage estimates, exports to PDF, Excel and CSV. Good if you want the overtime maths done for you.
- WorkWise (US Department of Labor): free, records hours and breaks, calculates federal overtime. The official option in the US.
- Record My Hours (Fair Work Ombudsman): free, the official option in Australia.
Any of them beats a note on your phone, and a note on your phone beats nothing. What matters is that the record is made on the day.
Questions people ask
Can I use my own time card as proof?
Yes. A contemporaneous record, made on the day with specific times, is evidence in a pay dispute in the US, UK and Australia. It carries more weight than a reconstruction made weeks later. It does not override the employer's records on its own; it is what you put next to them.
How is overtime calculated in the US?
Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, most covered non-exempt employees are owed at least 1.5 times their regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek. Some states add daily overtime or higher rules. The Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division publishes the details, and its free WorkWise app also tracks hours.
What should I do if my paycheck is short?
Compare your record with the pay stub, write to your employer with the specific dates and hours, and keep the reply. If it is not fixed, the Department of Labor (US), ACAS or your union (UK) or the Fair Work Ombudsman (Australia) are the places to go next. This page is not legal advice.
Does the app need an account or internet?
Time Card works offline and keeps the record on your phone with no account. That matters for a record you may one day rely on: nobody else can edit it.
What if I work overnight shifts?
A shift from 10 pm to 6:30 am is 8 hours 30 minutes before breaks. Time Card works overnight shifts out correctly, including on the night the clocks change.