Reconcile work records that cross midnight
Preserve elapsed duration while applying an explicit date-assignment rule.
Preserve the elapsed duration, then apply the recipient’s explicit rule for assigning work across dates. Do not treat crossing midnight as a negative duration or two independent full entries.
Keep dates with the times
A fictional interval from September 21 at 23:30 to September 22 at 01:00 lasts 90 minutes when both timestamps use the same fixed offset. A time-only subtraction can look negative because it omits the next date. In a spreadsheet, retain full start and end date-times; Microsoft documents subtracting date-times and converting the result to hours.
Choose a date-assignment method consciously
A recipient may require the whole interval under the start date or a split at midnight. Those are different grouping rules. Under a split rule, the example becomes 30 minutes on September 21 and 60 on September 22. Preserve a parent record ID so the pieces remain related. Do not apply both the unsplit row and its pieces to a total.
Test offsets and period cutoffs separately
An overnight interval crossing a weekly boundary is also a reporting-period case. A daylight-saving transition adds another layer: local clock labels may repeat or skip. Use explicit offsets and actual product behavior for such tests. If the export provides only a duration and assigned date, avoid reconstructing start/end times it never supplied.
Reconcile the split back to the source
Confirm that child durations sum to the original 90 minutes and that the receiving report includes each piece once. Record the transformation rule and preserve the original export. When a recipient cannot support the required split, hold the handoff or agree an alternative before changing the source. This is data reconciliation, not advice about daily pay or overtime classification.
Continue this work-record check
Use the linked guide for the next decision in this workflow. Keep your original records separate from experiments and record any unresolved requirement before changing a live process.
Sources and boundaries
Primary documentation supports the dated product facts. Proposed checks and fictional examples are our editorial method, not observed product results.
- Microsoft — time · checked September 23, 2026
- Time Doctor — export · checked September 23, 2026