Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Excel 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Excel, click here: Rounding to the Nearest Quarter Hour.

Rounding to the Nearest Quarter Hour

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated June 3, 2023)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


Lisa is trying to set up a timesheet. It needs to go by the seven-minute rule. If it is 7 minutes till the hour it rounds to, say, 8:00 am; if it is 10 till it rounds to 7:45. If it is 7 minutes after it would be 8:00, and 8 minutes after would be 8:15 am. In other words, whatever time is entered needs to be rounded to the nearest quarter hour.

The full name of the rule that Lisa mentions is the "7/8 minute rule." It's a throwback to when timecards were processed manually. Depending on the particular time clock, the rule may not have the same result as quarter-hour rounding. Consider that the 7/8 rule rounds down all the way to 7 minutes and 59.9 seconds whereas quarter-hour rounding rounds down only to 7 minutes and 29.9 seconds. It's not a huge difference, but the 7/8 minute rule in a payroll context gives employers a 30 second freebie.

If Lisa is only entering hours and minutes, then quarter-hour rounding is just fine. This can be handled in a number of different ways. For instance, you could create a lookup table that shows what the rounded time would be for each time within the hour, and then—based on the number of minutes in the original time—use VLOOKUP (or one of the other lookup functions) to determine the correct minutes.

A better way, however, is to remember that Excel stores times as a fraction of a day, so to convert any given time to minutes you simply multiply a time value by the number of minutes in a day (24 * 60 = 1440). You can then divide by the desired time interval, in this case 15. This means that you can use any of the following equivalent formulas, if the time you want to round is in cell A1:

=ROUND(A1*(24*60/15),0)/(24*60/15)
=ROUND(A1*(1440/15),0)/(1440/15)
=ROUND(A1*96,0)/96

If you prefer, you can also "reverse" the formula by using any of these equivalent formulas:

=ROUND(A1/(15/(24*60)),0)*(15/(24*60))
=ROUND(A1/(15/1440),0)*(15/1440)
=ROUND(A1/0.01041667,0)*0.01041667

If you have the Analysis ToolPak enabled on your system, you could also use the MROUND function to determine the rounded time. The following are equivalent formulas that use the MROUND function:

=MROUND(A1,15/60/24)
=MROUND(A1,0.25/24)
=MROUND(A1,0.01041667)

If you are not comfortable figuring out the number that Excel uses to represent 15 minutes (as is done in these formulas), you could combine MROUND with the TIME function, in this manner:

=MROUND(A1,TIME(0,15,0))

As mentioned, all the formulas presented so far assume that seconds are not being entered into the original value. If they are being entered and you want to use the 7/8 rule exactly (favoring the employer for that half minute), then you need to use an adapted formula, in this manner:

=ROUND((A1*1440-0.5)/15,0)*(15/1440)

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (9359) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Rounding to the Nearest Quarter Hour.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Quickly Formatting Multiple Documents

Need to format a bunch of documents so they all look the same? If the documents use styles, doing the formatting is ...

Discover More

Problem with Missing Context Menu Option

When you right-click a cell, does it seem that the Context menu is missing an item or two? Here's how to get those items ...

Discover More

Setting the Default Fill Color for a Shape to None

When you insert a shape into a worksheet, Excel does some preliminary formatting on that shape. You can subsequently make ...

Discover More

Create Custom Apps with VBA! Discover how to extend the capabilities of Office 2013 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Access) with VBA programming, using it for writing macros, automating Office applications, and creating custom applications. Check out Mastering VBA for Office 2013 today!

More ExcelTips (menu)

Dealing with Small Time Values

It is no secret that you can store time values in an Excel worksheet. But do you really know how small of a time value ...

Discover More

Entering or Importing Times without Colons

Enter a time into a cell and you normally include a colon between the hours and minutes. If you want to skip that pesky ...

Discover More

Dealing with Large Numbers of Seconds

When adding values to a time to calculate a new time, you may naturally choose to use the TIME function. This can cause ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 2 + 2?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the menu interface (Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, or Excel 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.