Claude AI generated XLSX and ODS time sheet files

are you able to provide me with an xls spreadsheet for logging time hours to submit to HR payroll?

Claude AI said:
The user wants an XLS spreadsheet for logging time/hours for HR payroll. Let me read the xlsx skill first. Done

Sure thing, Adam! Let me check the spreadsheet skill first to make sure I create this properly.
Now I'll create a professional timesheet spreadsheet for HR payroll submission.
Now recalculate formulas and copy to output.
All formulas are valid. Let me copy to output.
Done, let me present the file.

Here's your timesheet! It covers a two-week pay period with fields for employee info, daily start/end times, lunch breaks, overtime, and PTO/sick hours. Regular hours are calculated automatically from your time entries, and everything rolls up into a pay period summary at the bottom. There are also signature lines for employee and manager approval. The yellow-highlighted cells are the ones you fill in.

You said:
I don't use Microsoft Excel. Can you make an native time sheet file for LibreOffice Calc?

Claude AI said:
Here you go — native .ods format so it'll open right up in LibreOffice Calc. All the formatting, formulas, and layout are preserved from the original.

You said:
How are the overtime hours calculated in these timesheets? or what are they based on?

Claude AI said:
In the timesheet I created, overtime hours aren't automatically calculated — they're a manual entry field (one of the yellow-highlighted cells). You'd enter them yourself each day based on whatever your employer's overtime policy is.

The reason I left it manual is that overtime rules vary quite a bit depending on the employer and jurisdiction. For example, some companies define overtime as anything over 8 hours in a single day, while others only count it after 40 hours in a week. Some have different thresholds entirely.

If you'd like, I can update the spreadsheet so overtime is calculated automatically based on a specific rule — such as anything over 8 hours/day getting split into regular vs. overtime. Just let me know what rule applies to your situation and I'll wire up the formula.

You said:
As an experiment, I asked ChatGPT to create a timesheet and it included both weekly and daily overtime columns and rows at the bottom section so it meets the needs for both situations. Please modify your Excel xls spreadsheet to also have that feature.

Claude AI said:
Good idea — let me rebuild it with both daily and weekly overtime calculations built in.Here's the updated timesheet in both ODS and XLSX formats. The key additions:

Daily overtime — each day's hours are automatically split: up to 8 hours goes into "Regular Hours" and anything beyond 8 goes into "Daily OT Hours."

Weekly overtime — each week has a subtotal row, and a dedicated section below calculates weekly overtime as any hours exceeding 40 per week.

Pay Period Summary — the bottom section breaks out all five categories: total hours worked, regular hours, daily OT, weekly OT, and PTO/sick time — so HR can apply whichever overtime rule is relevant.

You said:
I noticed the date columns of these are already filled in. Will they automatically update when I open them for the next two week time period? Or is there a trick to do in both Excel and LibreOffice to do that in one shot?

Claude AI said:
The dates are hardcoded values, so they won't update automatically when you open the file — they'll always show the same two-week period.

There are a couple of approaches to handle this:

Formula-based approach — I can rework the spreadsheet so the dates are driven by a single "Pay Period Start" date cell. You'd type in the start date once (in the employee info section), and all 14 day rows would automatically populate from that. This works identically in both Excel and LibreOffice Calc. That's probably the cleanest solution since you're already filling in the pay period start date anyway.

The quick trick — In both Excel and LibreOffice, you can select the date cells, type a new start date in the first one, then drag the fill handle down to auto-increment the rest. But that's manual each time.

Want me to rebuild it with the formula-driven approach so all dates cascade from the single start date field?

You said:
Yes, do that for both types

Claude AI said:
Here are both versions. Now all you need to do is type a date into the Pay Period Start cell (G3) and everything cascades automatically — all 14 dates, day names, and the pay period end date all populate from that single entry. There's a red note under the header reminding you where to enter it.

Everything else works the same: daily OT, weekly OT, regular hours, and the summary section are all still formula-driven. Just clear your time entries and plug in a new start date each pay period and you're good to go.

You said:
That's cool. This is the way to go. I have a couple requests. I don't need PTO Sick hours on this. I want to add my driving time hours. This basically just adds hours in addition to the work time. It's just a nice way to show it separately for the HR payroll department. So, since we are getting rid of the PTO Sick hours. This gives us room. Move the 3 columns for Total hours, Regular Hours, Daily OT Hours to the right and after the Lunch Hours column put Driving Time. I'll need both xlsx and ods file types.

Claude AI said:
Here you go. The column order is now: Date, Day, Start Time, End Time, Lunch, Driving Time, Total Hours, Regular Hours, Daily OT, Notes. PTO/Sick is gone.

Driving time is a manual input field (yellow) and gets added into Total Hours, so it factors into the regular/OT calculations just like work time. The Pay Period Summary at the bottom also breaks out Total Driving Hours as its own line so HR can see it separately. Everything else — formula-driven dates, daily OT, weekly OT — all still works the same.

editorial note: these files omitted, because there is an improvement on the next files generated at the end of this conversation.

You said:
I had a question regarding the driving time hours. For example if I drove 35 minutes. What do I put in the field. Can I put in both 35m or 0.58?

Claude AI said:
As the spreadsheet is currently set up, you'd need to enter the decimal value — so 0.58 (or more precisely 0.583) for 35 minutes. Entering "35m" as text would break the formulas since they expect a number.

The mental math for that conversion can be annoying though. A couple of options I could do:

Option A — Add a small conversion reference table off to the side (like column L) showing common minute-to-decimal mappings (15min = 0.25, 30min = 0.50, 45min = 0.75, etc.)

Option B — Split the Driving Time column into two columns: one for hours and one for minutes. You'd just type "35" in the minutes column and the formulas would handle the conversion behind the scenes. This is probably the most natural way to enter it.

Option C — Let you enter minutes as a whole number (like 35) in the driving column, and the formula automatically divides by 60 to convert to hours.

Want me to go with one of those, or is the decimal entry fine for you?

You said:
Regarding option C, can we modify it so I can type in various way and it will detect and convert so. For example, if I drove 1 hour and 35 minutes. I can fill in the field 4 different ways:
1.58
1h 35m
1 h 35 m <this is just incase I put a space in between.
1 hour 35 minutes

Claude AI said:
That's a great idea. I'll add a smart parsing formula that handles all those formats. I'll need a helper column — you'll type freely in "Driving Time" and the next column auto-converts it to decimal hours for the formulas.The LET() function isn't supported by LibreOffice's recalculator. Let me rewrite it with compatible formulas.All 109 formulas pass clean. Let me convert and package both files.
Let me quickly verify the driving time parser actually works with your input formats before delivering.
All formats parse perfectly. Here are the results:

Here you go — both formats. The "Driving Time" column (yellow) accepts any of those input styles, and the gray "Drive (Decimal)" column next to it auto-converts whatever you typed into decimal hours. That decimal value is what feeds into the totals and overtime calculations. You can type 1h 35m, 1 hour 35 minutes, 1 h 35 m, 1.58, 45m, 2h — all work.

editorial note: these files omitted, because there is an improvement on the next files generated at the end of this conversation.

You said:
I tested your timesheet and see the driving time formula works on LibreOffice. But I noticed an issue. As you can see in this screenshot, if I work 6PM to 6AM the timesheet is not even calculating these or doing anything. What the best way to handle this situation. Obviously, your timesheet works for the day shift person working 6am to 6pm but not for the night shift where the hours overlap onto the next day. Don't generate any new files until we are done discussing how we should go about this.

Claude AI said:
Good catch — this is the classic overnight shift problem. When the end time (6:00 AM) is numerically smaller than the start time (6:00 PM), the formula (End - Start) * 24 gives a negative number, and the MAX(..., 0) just zeros it out.

The fix is simple. The current Total Hours formula is:

MAX((End - Start) * 24 - Lunch, 0)

It just needs to detect when End < Start and assume the shift crossed midnight:

IF(End < Start, (End - Start + 1) * 24 - Lunch, (End - Start) * 24 - Lunch)

In spreadsheet time values, adding 1 equals adding 24 hours (one full day). So 6:00 PM to 6:00 AM becomes: (0.25 - 0.75 + 1) * 24 = 12 hours. That's it.

One thing to flag though — this assumes a shift never exceeds 24 hours. If someone enters 6:00 AM start and 6:00 AM end, it would calculate as 0 hours (same-day), not 24. That seems like the right default, but worth mentioning.

Want me to go ahead and apply this fix to both files, or is there anything else you want to adjust while we're at it?

You said:
Yes. generate both files.

Claude AI said:
All scenarios check out perfectly. Let me package both formats.Here you go. The overnight fix is in — verified with these test results:

Works for both day and night shifts now. Your 6PM to 6AM entries should calculate properly.

You said:
Was is the Submission field for that you have in the top right area for the date range?

Claude AI said:
That's just a field to record the date you actually submit the timesheet to HR/payroll. It's separate from the pay period dates — for example, your pay period might be Feb 16–Mar 1, but you might not turn it in until Mar 2.

Some HR departments want that documented so they can track whether timesheets were submitted on time. But if your HR doesn't care about that, I can remove it to clean things up. Want me to take it out?

You said:
Keep submission in, that's useful. I want to make some changes to fit my needs. The weekly 40 hour overtime is not applicable to my situation. But daily overtime over 8 hours is relevant. So completely remove anything to do with the weekly overtime.

Lunch hours is not applicable either. Remove anything to do with lunch time. I want to make that column for per-diem. Then all that does is just adds up the total below.

When I'm typing my time in the column I just want to type one character for am or pm, for example 6a or 6p, so that does the same thing in the field as is I type in 6am or 6pm. That's just a shortcut that I would like implemented in this spreadsheet to make it faster to fill out.

Claude AI said:
Formulas are clean. Let me test all the time input formats.Nearly perfect — 8 out of 9 formats work. The "6 AM" with a space but no colon has an edge case issue (LibreOffice may auto-interpret that format). Your main shortcuts 6a, 6p, 6am, 6pm, 6:30a, 6:30 pm all work great. Let me convert and deliver.Here are both files with all the changes. Here's what's different:

Removed: Lunch hours column, all weekly overtime calculations and sections.

Added: Per Diem column — just enter a dollar amount each day and it sums up in subtotals and the summary.

Time shortcuts — you can type any of these in the Start/End Time columns:

The parsing happens in hidden helper columns (D, F, I) — they're there but invisible so the sheet stays clean. Overnight shifts still work too, so 6p to 6a correctly calculates as 12 hours.

You said:
This sheet is much better. But there is one problem. As you can see in the screenshot what is happening. When I type 6a or 6p. it stays in the field. I don't want that. I want it to behave the same way as if I type in 6am or 6pm, when my cursor leaves the field, it automatically turns to 06:00:00 AM 06:00:00 PM

Claude AI said:
This requires a macro to intercept the cell input and convert it to a proper time value. Formulas alone can't modify the cell you typed into. I'll embed a LibreOffice Basic macro into the ODS that auto-converts shortcuts like 6a, 6p, 6:30a into real time values. For the XLSX, I'll keep the hidden parser columns as a fallback since VBA injection is trickier — but I'll also try to produce an XLSM with the macro.Now let me inject the LibreOffice Basic macro into the ODS file.Macro is embedded and wired up. Let me copy both files to outputs.Here are both files. The ODS version has an embedded LibreOffice Basic macro that auto-converts your time shortcuts.

ODS version (LibreOffice): When you type 6a or 6p and press Enter/Tab, the macro automatically converts it to a proper time value displaying as 6:00 AM or 6:00 PM — just like typing the full format. One important thing: when you first open the file, LibreOffice will ask about macros. You'll need to click Enable Macros for the auto-conversion to work.

XLSX version: The shortcuts 6a, 6p, etc. still calculate correctly through the hidden parser columns, but the cell will display the raw text you typed rather than converting to the formatted time. If you want the clean display in the xlsx version, you'd type 6:00 AM instead.

Both versions handle all the same features: formula-driven dates, overnight shifts, driving time parsing, per diem totals, and daily overtime.

editorial note: these files omitted, because there is an improvement on the next files generated at the end of this conversation.

You said:
I tried opening the ODS file with LibreOffice and I decided I don't want to mess with the macros. So I'll just use your previous version. Thanks for trying though, at least that was educational.

Claude AI said:
No problem at all! Macros can be a hassle with the security prompts and all. The previous version works well — the shortcuts like 6a and 6p still calculate correctly even though the cell displays the raw text. The hidden columns do all the heavy lifting behind the scenes.

Let me put those previous files back for you.Here you go — the clean, macro-free versions. Enjoy!

You said:
I want to make some changes to our spreadsheets. Pay Periods are Monday to Sunday for 14 days and then Monday starts a new pay period. Remove driving time and make that column Mileage. Pay is 0.25 for miles less than 500 miles. Then pay is 0.35 over 500 miles. But pay maxes out at 750 miles. So, for example, if I put in 1000 miles, just calculate the pay up to 750 miles.

Claude AI said:
All mileage calculations pass. Let me convert and deliver.Here are both files. Here's what changed:

Driving Time → Mileage: You enter miles driven and the Mileage Pay column auto-calculates using the tiered rate:

Pay period: Set up for Monday–Sunday, 14 days. The helper note reminds you to enter a Monday as the start date.

Removed: Weekly overtime calculations and sections are gone. Lunch column is gone.

The summary now shows Total Miles and Total Mileage Pay alongside your hours and per diem. The mileage rate tiers are also noted in the header area for reference.

You said:
Hey 😖 I just discovered, you didn't apply your time fix on this next round. We discussed this earlier for the night shift that overlaps to the next day.

Claude AI said:
Sorry about that! Let me verify and fix it right away...
The fix is actually in the xlsx — it tests correctly here. Let me check if the ODS conversion dropped it.The overnight fix is actually present and working in both files — the formula IF(F9<D9, F9+24-D9, F9-D9) is there and correctly returns 12 hours for 6PM→6AM. You may have been testing with an older file that was still open. Let me give you fresh copies with the fix confirmed.Here are fresh downloads. I verified the overnight fix is present and working in both — 6PM to 6AM correctly calculates as 12 hours. You might have still had the older version open when testing. Give these a try and let me know if you're still seeing the issue!

You said:
Never mind 🤦‍♂️ my bad. I did have the right file open, I was just looking at it wrong. It originally did work. I do have a feature request. I want to be able to input the hourly pay in a field. Remove the Manager field and make this the hourly rate field. Then make the spreadsheet calculates the hourly pay in the "Pay period summary" Then, at the very bottom of the pay period summary, have a grand total of all the dollar amounts.

Claude AI said:
No worries! Let me update both files.Every number matches perfectly. Let me package both formats.Here you go. The Manager field is now Hourly Rate — just enter your rate there (e.g. $25.00). The Pay Period Summary now breaks it all down:

The grand total at the bottom sums all four dollar amounts (regular pay + OT pay + per diem + mileage pay) into one number with a dark blue highlight so it stands out.