Time Difference in Excel

Time Difference in Excel (Table of Contents)

• Time Difference in Excel
• How to Implement Time Difference in Excel?

Time Difference in Excel

• Time is a numeric value that is being formatted as time but when we subtract one value from another value it gives a decimal number and again we have to format it as time.
• The mathematical formula is End Time – Start Time.
• We can simply subtract the start time from the end time to get the difference of the time.

Today, we will work in various ways to calculate the Difference between two-time values.

How to Implement Time Difference in Excel?

In MS Excel, we can implement the Time value in a cell in 3 methods:

Method 1

Go to Home tab and in Number Group select Click on Time from the drop-down menu to change the cell value into a Time value.

Method 2

Go to Home tab in Number Group and Click on the dialog box launcher icon as shown below.

A dialog box of “Format Cells” will open. We need to select the Time option.

Select the type of time format as required. By default, it is 13: 30: 55. Then Click on OK.

Method 3

Select the Cell.

Press the Right-click button on the mouse. Click on the Format Cells Option.

A “Format Cells” dialog box will open. We have to click on the Time option.

Select type of time format as per requirement. Then Click on OK.

Calculating the Time Difference – Example #1

If we want to calculate the time difference between 6.00 pm and 9.00 PM, just deduct 9.00 pm and 6.00 pm.

In the figure below, we will find out the time difference.

Select Cell B4.

Write the Formula as “= B3-B2 “.

Press Enter Button and Result will show as 3:00 AM.

Go to Home tab an in Number Group select on the Drop-Down menu. Click on time to change the cell value into a Time value.

The result will show as 3:00:00.

This can be done in an alternate way:

Select cell B4.

Write the formula as “= HOUR(B3 – B2).

Press Enter Button and Result will show as 3.

• Suppose, the time difference is in hour: minute format and we want to see the hour and minute difference in separate cells.
• We want to calculate the time difference between 6.30 PM and 9.00 PM

Select Cell A5.

Write the Formula as “= HOUR( B3-B2) “ to calculate the exact hours irrespective of the minutes and seconds.

Press Enter Button and Result will show as 2.

Select Cell B5.

Write the Formula as “= MINUTE (B3-B2) ” to calculate the exact minutes irrespective of the hours and seconds.

Press Enter Button and Result will show as 30.

Adding Time Value to Time – Example #2

• In Excel, one day means 1, which is 24 hours. This represents as times and hours are fractions of 1.
• Now the problem is when the time crosses midnight. That means the day changes. In that case, the calculation is to be done in a different way.
• For example, if the start time is 8:00 PM in Day 1, and the end time is 7:00 AM in Day 2, the start time becomes greater than the end time then the (end time – start time) formula will give a negative value.
• It will show an error with the value of hash characters (#) in the cell.
• So, to avoid this issue, we can use the following formula for times that cross a day boundary:

=1-start time + end time

• If we deduct the start time from 1, we find the time value in day 1. Then we will add that value to the time value( End time ) in day 2.

Select Cell B3.

Write the Formula as “= 1 – B1 + B2 “

Press Enter Button and Result will show as 11:00 AM.

Go to Home tab an in Number Group select on the Drop-Down Menu.

Click on time to change the cell value into a Time value.

The Result will show 11:00:00.

Generalized Format of Formula – Example #3

The previous formula will only work if the day changes. So we need to use a generalized format of formula.

For this reason, we can also use the following formula:

= MOD (End Time – Start Time, 1)

Select cell C2.

Write the Formula as “= MOD ( B2-A2, 1) “.

Press Enter button and Result will show as 4:00 AM.

Go to the Home tab and in Number Group click on the drop-down menu.

Click on time to change the cell value into a Time value.

The result will show as 04:00: 00.

Drag or Copy the Formula of C2 to C3 and Result will show as 23:00:00.

Things to Remember About Time Difference in Excel

• The formula will work only with the data within a 24-hour time frame. It does not work if the end time and start time difference is more than 24 hours.
• We might need to customize the cell format of time like Hours: Minutes, that is hh:mm.

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