Increments of Six – How to write and read payroll time

“Military time”, “Filmitary time”, “Cine time”, “Decimal time”…There are many names for the time system used on time cards. I personally like to call it “Increments of Six”. But all in all, few people know much about it, what it’s for, or how to use it. So here is my tutorial to payroll time and how to solve the fatigue that you may have at the end of the day with eye masks amazon

Time is Money

I’m sure you’ve heard this saying before. And in case you haven’t realized it yet, the entertainment industry is all about tracking man hours and how much they cost.

In most cases, freelance employees are not paid by the day, or the hour, but by the minute. Any time reported as worked is paid time. But dividing someone’s hourly rate by the exact number of minutes they work can be tedious. You could argue that modern technology could make this effortless, but let’s remember for a second that most film sets still ask people to fill out time cards on paper, and that the person processing said time card is also working with a pen until it gets handed to a payroll company. Nothing about the entertainment industry’s payment system is modern. Producing your own pay stubs also means quicker payment for your employees and you can also let them have the advantages of paperless paystubs and the essential financial documents.

When someone makes $10/h, it’s a lot easier to multiply that rate by 0.1, 0.2, 0.3…than having to divide $10 by 60 (minutes) and then multiply that by the number of minutes worked.

This is why, on large productions, call times are always in increments of six minutes. You don’t get called at 8:15am, you get called at 8:12am or 8:18am. Even though few people realize it, the job of a 2nd Assistant Director (who creates schedules and collects time cards to report their information into the production report) is to track time, and thus, money.

The Basics

Decimal to Minutes conversion chart

Let’s start with the increments’ conversion chart. This is something that you need to memorize if you intend on using this system. The good news is, it will become natural as you practice. Remember when, as a kid, you had to learn what 8×6, 7×4 and 9×9 equated to? Same thing here!

0.0 = 0 minutes
0.1 = 6 minutes
0.2 = 12 minutes
0.3 = 18 minutes
0.4 = 24 minutes
0.5 = 30 minutes
0.6 = 36 minutes
0.7 = 42 minutes
0.8 = 48 minutes
0.9 = 54 minutes

The 24h conversion chart

Although call sheets use “AM” and “PM” to differentiate between the morning and the afternoon, payroll does not. My guess is that payroll works with limited space on time cards, and also wants to avoid any possible mistakes as it deals with money, which people tend to get upset about when it’s missing.

So, as with the above chart, you need to memorize this 24h conversion chart. An easy way to learn is to switch your phone’s clock settings to 24h.

13 = 1pm
14 = 2pm
15 = 3pm
16 = 4pm
17 = 5pm
18 = 6pm
19 = 7pm
20 = 8pm
21 = 9pm
22 = 10pm
23 = 11pm
24 = 12am

The subtleties

Question: What happens if you get called or wrapped at a different time?
Answer: the system always goes in your favor.

If you get called at 8:05am, your call time on paper is 8.0

If you wrap out at 8:05am, your wrap time on paper is 8.6

Question: What happens if you start during the day and work later than 12am?
Answer: you keep going past 24h. For instance:

25 = 1am
26 = 2am
27 = 3am
etc...

Explanation: we don’t go back to 1, 2, 3…because it wouldn’t let you calculate your total worked hours as easily. For example:

You start your day at 1pm (13.0), and wrap at 3:30am (27.5):
 27.5 - 13.0 = 14.5h

In practice

Consider the following time card. Let’s calculate the total hours worked (time worked minus meals)

For this, you need to subtract the call time from the wrap time, and then subtract the time taken out for lunch. For that, you can do lunch in minus lunch out.

22 - 7 - (13.5 - 13) - (20 - 19.5) =
22 - 7 - 0.5 - 0.5 = 22 - 8 = 14 total hours

Also, the “real time” equivalent to this would be:

Call at 7am
Lunch from 1pm to 1:30pm
2nd meal from 7:30pm to 8pm
Wrap at 10pm