Weekly, biweekly or monthly: choose a useful time card

A period is a view over dated records

A time card needs a clear first date and last date. Those boundaries determine which shift starts belong in the report; they do not change the actual start or end stored on a shift. Begin with the period required by the record you are preparing, then review the dates inside it.

The calculator does not choose a pay schedule for you. An organization may have its own reporting instructions, and a personal project may simply need a convenient review window. The useful choice is the one you can name clearly on the final copy.

Weekly: seven days with a chosen start

A weekly card is useful when you want one manageable list of days and a single week total. The week-start setting matters at the boundary. A Sunday-start card and a Monday-start card place Sunday in differently labeled weeks. Check the full displayed range instead of relying only on a week number.

Biweekly: fourteen consecutive days

A biweekly card contains two seven-day groups and one cycle total. Keeping the two week summaries visible can reveal a misplaced date that the cycle total alone would hide. For example, moving an eight-hour shift from the first week into the second leaves the fourteen-day total unchanged but makes both weekly summaries wrong.

Monthly: the actual calendar month

A monthly card follows the real length of the selected month. Partial weeks at the beginning or end remain partial. February may need a leap-day row, while other months have thirty or thirty-one dates. A monthly report may also need more printed pages; check its export layout rather than shrinking it until the text becomes difficult to read.

Overnight shifts keep their identity

Under MinuteFolio’s convention, an entire completed shift belongs to its start date and the period containing that date. A shift starting October 31 and ending November 1 remains in October, with its actual end date shown. Changing the report window should not delete, split or duplicate the source record. This is an app convention, not a determination of a workplace’s payroll allocation rule.

Before changing a populated card

Save or download a JSON copy if you need a separate version. Then check the new range and its included shift starts. If your goal is a second record with different data, make a copy deliberately rather than overwriting the meaning of the original period.