Spreadsheet Practice

How to round billable time up to the nearest tenth of an hour in Excel

Formula (Excel and Google Sheets)

=ROUNDUP(B2/60,1)

Convert minutes to hours and round up to one decimal: =ROUNDUP(B2/60,1). Every started 6 minutes bills as 0.1 hour.

Result on the example
one result per row in C2, filled down to C7
Works in
Every current version
Google Sheets
Same formula

See it work

The formula is already in C2, filled down to C7. Change any input and the result updates, or edit the formula to experiment.

How it works

B2/60 turns minutes into hours, and ROUNDUP(…,1) rounds up to one decimal place, a tenth of an hour, or 6 minutes. A 13-minute task is 0.217 hours and bills as 0.3.

=ROUNDUP(B2/60,1)

Result0.2

  1. B27

    The value in B2.

  2. B2/600.1166666667

    The / operator divides.

  3. ROUNDUP(B2/60,1)0.2

    ROUNDUP: Rounds away from zero.

    • numberB2/600.1166666667
    • num_digits1

In Google Sheets

The same formula works in Google Sheets: =ROUNDUP(B2/60,1). We ran it in Google Sheets mode on the same data and it returns the same results.

Other ways to do it

Each one was run on the same example sheet.

FormulaResultWhen to use it
=CEILING(B2/60,0.1)0.2, 0.2, 0.3…The same with CEILING; change 0.1 to 0.25 for quarter-hour billing.
=ROUND(B2/60,1)0.1, 0.2, 0.2…Different resultThe nearest tenth instead of always up. Rounds to the nearest tenth.

Common mistakes

  • Minutes calculated from times can come out as 12.0000001, which ROUNDUP bills as 0.3. Round the minutes first: =ROUNDUP(ROUND(B2,0)/60,1).
  • Check the engagement terms: some firms bill a minimum of 0.2 or 0.25 hours.

Try it yourself

Same data, empty answer cell. Your formula is graded instantly, then re-checked on changed data, so a typed-in number won't pass.

Round billable time up to the nearest tenth of an hour

In C2, convert the minutes to hours, rounded up to the next tenth of an hour, and fill down to C7.

Questions

How do I round up to the next 15 minutes?

=CEILING(B2/60,0.25).

How do I get the minutes from start and end times?

=(end-start)*1440.

Checked by running on 2026-10-30: every formula and result on this page was calculated by the Spreadsheet Practice formula engine, in both Excel and Google Sheets modes.