Learning how to convert decimals to minutes and minutes to decimals in Google Sheets is very important. Do you know why?

It can help you to prepare payrolls, the full and final settlements of employees, calculate rental bills, etc.

If you depend on Google Sheets for payroll, you may want to convert minutes to decimals.

Sometimes you may want the reverse of the same, i.e., decimals to minutes.

Here, find the best formulas to convert decimals to minutes and minutes to decimals in Google Sheets.

Decimals to Minutes and Minutes to Decimals in Google Sheets

Should we split the number (to get the fraction) or time (to get the minutes) to convert decimals to minutes or the minutes to decimals?

Nope! You can take decimal numbers as a whole and apply simple formulas.

In the case of payroll, do you know why such a conversion of minutes to decimals is needed?

You may probably have your employees’ rates on an hourly basis.

So if you have the total work hours of employees in HH: MM format, you can’t calculate their wages.

Suppose one employee has worked 10:30 (10 hours 30 minutes). His per-hour rate is $35.50. How will you calculate it?

10.30 * $35.50 is not the correct answer. It should be 10.50 * $35.50.

Sometimes you may want the reverse of the same. Like, convert 10.50 to 10:30. All this is possible in Google Sheets.

In this tutorial, you can learn how to convert decimals to minutes and minutes to decimals in Google Sheets.

1. How to Convert Minutes in Time Format to Decimals in Google Sheets

Suppose you have the total hours worked by an employee in time format as below in cell A1.

10:30

It’s ten hours and 30 minutes. How to convert this 30 minutes to decimal.

For payroll calculation, you want to retain the hours as it’s and convert the fraction, i.e., the minutes, to hundredths of an hour.

For example 15 minutes (1/4) = 0.25, and 30 minutes (1/2) = 0.50 etc.

You can use the following formula in any cell to convert time to decimal/number. I am using it in cell C1.

=A1*24

They apply the Format menu > Number > Number.

If cell A1 contains only 00:30 (30 minutes), the above value in cell C1 would be 0.5.

Follow the above steps to convert time in the format, hours [12:00], minutes [00:25], or hours and minutes [12:25], to numbers or decimals in Google Sheets.

Tips

1. Multiply time by 24 to convert time to the number of hours in a day (divide by 24 to reverse it).
2. Multiply time by 1440 to convert time to the number of minutes in a day (divide by 1440 to reverse it).
3. To convert time to seconds, multiply the time by 86400, which is the number of seconds in a day (divide by 86400 to reverse it).

2. Convert Total Minutes in Numbers to Time or Duration in Google Sheets

Let me take you into another scenario. Here is a different situation.

Here no question of decimals to minutes or minutes to decimals conversion arise.

I have a column with the following data.

In this, the machine runtimes are in minutes, and the total runtime is in cell B8 which is also in minutes.

Let’s see how to convert these minutes in numbers to hours and minutes (time or duration format) in Google Sheets.

Please insert the following formula in cell C2, and copy-paste it until C8.

=B2/1440

Now format this output to time from Format > Number > Time or Duration.

Note: You must format cell C8 to duration, not time.

Hope you could understand how to convert minutes (in time format) to decimals and decimal minutes to time or duration in Google Sheets.

3. How to Convert Decimals (Decimal Places) to Minutes in Google Sheets

Usually, we prefer to record work hours and minutes like a decimal number in the format 1.38. It represents 1 hour and 38 minutes.

It is okay for viewing. But in a calculation, this can land you in lots of issues.

Note:- I’m not talking about a converted time such as 10:30 to 10.50 as per subtitle # 1 above. Here, if the machine run time is 10.50, it means 10 hours and 50 minutes.

Example:

The total in cell B8 should be 14 hours and 37 minutes because the 97 minutes are the minutes in the hundredth equal to 1 hour and 37 minutes.

We got 97 minutes in cell B8 because of adding up the run time in decimal numbers in the range B2:B7.

How to convert work hours in decimal hours and minutes to a recognizable time format in Google Sheets?

The easiest solution is as below. Just substitute the period with a colon. You can use the below formula for that.

=value(SUBSTITUTE(B8,".",":"))

Then format the result to time from the Format menu > Number > Time (Duration).

#VALUE error – VALUE parameter ‘xx:x’ cannot be parsed to number

If you see this error type, don’t get panic. The number to convert should contain two decimal places.

That means you can use 2.20, not 2.2, to represent two hours and twenty minutes.

So, first, format the range B2:B7 by using the “Increase decimal places” icon on the Sheets toolbar.

Use the above simple formula to convert decimal places to minutes in Google Sheets.

Resources

1. How to Convert Military Time in Google Sheets.
2. How to Convert a Timestamp to Milliseconds in Google Sheets.
3. Convert Time Duration to Day, Hour, and Minute in Google Sheets.
4. Convert Unix Timestamp to Local DateTime and Vice Versa in Google Sheets.
5. EPOCHTODATE function in Google Sheets.
6. How to Use All Different Time Formulas in Google Sheets.