GUIDE — WHEN THE HOURS DIFFER
Finding a difference is the easy part. Working out whether it is an ordinary quirk of payroll or a genuine missing hour is the part that takes experience. These are the reasons that come up again and again — in the order worth checking.
None of them is an accusation. Most differences have an innocent explanation, and checking in this order is what tells the two apart.
This is the most common and most easily missed. An unpaid break is not hours worked, so a 12-hour shift with a one-hour unpaid break is 11 paid hours. Paid breaks stay in.
How to check: if the difference is exactly the length of your break, that is almost certainly it. Look at the paid-hours figure, not the length of the shift.
Many payroll systems round clock-in and clock-out to the nearest 5, 10 or 15 minutes, or round each shift to the nearest quarter hour. A difference of 15 minutes or less on a shift points to rounding rather than a missing shift.
How to check: look at whether the differences are always small, and always in the same direction. That is rounding. A single day that is an hour short is something else.
A shift that runs past midnight belongs to two days. A Friday 22:00–06:00 shift is two hours on Friday and six on Saturday. If Saturday carries a weekend rate, those six hours should be on the weekend line, not the weekday one.
How to check: add the two days together before you compare. A shift that looks missing on Friday is often sitting on Saturday.
A payslip period is not a calendar week. It can run from any weekday to any weekday, and it can be weekly, fortnightly, four-weekly or monthly. Pay is also often in arrears, so the pay date is later than the end of the period it covers.
How to check: find the period the payslip states, and compare the shifts inside that period — not the shifts since the last pay day. A shift at either edge is the usual suspect.
Why the week numbers can disagree with your rota is covered in tax week, pay week and duty week.
Hours can be moved onto a different line: holiday pay averaged over previous weeks, a rest day paid at a different rate, or a bank holiday premium. The total can then look short on the ordinary hours line while the pay is correct.
How to check: add up every line before you compare the total, and check the payslip's own total against the sum of its lines.
If your rate changed part-way through the period, the same shift can be split across two lines at two rates. The hours are all there, but they are in two places.
A total can match while the split between rates is wrong, and a total can disagree while the pay is right. The only reliable check compares each line. The method is in how to check your payslip hours, line by line.
| Difference is exactly the unpaid break | Break, not a missing hour |
|---|---|
| Difference is under 15 minutes, always the same way | Rounding |
| Two neighbouring days, one short and one long | Midnight split |
| Only the first or last day of the period | Period boundary or arrears |
| Hours missing but pay correct | Moved to another line |
Write it down while you still have the details, and send payroll a short, factual message: the dates, the times you worked, your breaks, and the hours you believe are missing. ACAS advises raising it informally first and then by grievance.
Since April 2019 an employer must show the number of hours on a payslip where pay varies with the time worked, and ACAS says the hours should be broken down by rate where different rates apply — so the information needed to check it should be on the payslip.
This guide explains how payslips are commonly worked out. It is not legal or tax advice. Your payslip, your contract and HMRC remain the record.
Because an unpaid break is not hours worked. If you logged a 12 hour shift but an hour of it was an unpaid break, the paid hours are 11. Paid breaks stay in.
Some employers round each shift to the nearest quarter of an hour, or round clock-in and clock-out times. A difference of 15 minutes or less on a shift usually points to rounding rather than a missing shift.
Pay is often in arrears, so a payslip can cover a period that finished before the pay date. The period a payslip covers is not the same as the date it was paid.