Why does my timesheet total show 39.99 hours instead of 40?
Last updated: August 25, 2026
Applies to: US W-2 employees, US independent contractors, and Canadian T4 employees who enter their own time in Ascen. If your staffing Partner or client submits your hours through their own system, or you are an employee working outside the US and Canada, you do not enter time in Ascen and will not see a timesheet total here.
Summary: If your timesheet adds up to a hair under the total you expected — 39.99 hours instead of 40, for example — it is almost always decimal rounding, not a mistake in your entries. Here is why it happens and how to get it corrected.
Why the total looks a penny short
When you enter a start time, an end time, and any unpaid break, Ascen converts each day into decimal hours and stores that number rounded to two decimal places. Most times convert cleanly, but some minute values do not divide evenly into hundredths of an hour:
8 hours 20 minutes = 8.3333… hours, stored as 8.33
8 hours 50 minutes = 8.8333… hours, stored as 8.83
8 hours 10 minutes = 8.1666… hours, stored as 8.17
Each day is off by a fraction of a minute. Stack several of those in one week and the weekly total can land just under the round number you worked — for example, a genuine 40-hour week displaying as 39.99.
This is a display and storage artifact of converting minutes to decimals. It does not mean your entries were recorded wrong, and it is not a deduction from your time.
What you should do
Enter your real start times, end times, and breaks. Do not pad or trim your hours to make the total come out even — your timesheet should reflect the time you actually worked.
Check the daily rows first. If a day is off by more than a rounding fraction (a whole missing shift, a wrong break, a shift on the wrong date), that is a different problem — see My paycheck is short or missing hours — what to do.
If only the rounding is off, email support@ascen.com. Tell us the week ending date and the daily hours you actually worked. We can adjust the timesheet so the total matches your real time.
Does this affect my pay or my overtime?
The difference involved is a fraction of a minute per day, but you should still not have to absorb it. If a rounding fraction pushes your week just under a threshold that matters to you — most commonly 40 hours, where overtime begins for US W-2 employees — contact support@ascen.com and we will correct the timesheet before payroll runs. Whether overtime applies to you, and at what threshold, depends on your classification and your work location; see How US employee overtime and double-time pay work.
Who to contact
Ascen — support@ascen.com: timesheet corrections, hours that look wrong, and anything about your pay.
Your staffing Partner: your schedule, your shifts, and which hours you were supposed to work.