Working hours
Working hours are the hours a person actually worked in a period. They come from the clock-in and clock-out, reduced by any unpaid break. Time on the premises is a different figure. Somebody present for nine hours with an hour's unpaid lunch has eight working hours.
Three numbers describe the same working day. People confuse them constantly, in reports where the difference decides the answer.
Time on site is first punch to last punch. Working hours subtract unpaid breaks from that. Logged hours are what the person wrote against projects. That is a separate act of recording, done from memory at another moment.
They rarely agree. The gaps are informative: working hours running well above logged hours usually means a timesheet nobody filled in, while the reverse usually means somebody sat down at the end of the week and estimated. Both are worth a word.
Which of the three a report should use depends on the question. Cover questions want time on site. Capacity questions want working hours. Questions about where the work went want logged hours. Pick the wrong one and the answer looks authoritative and points the wrong way.
Where this shows up in PeopleMuster
PeopleMuster shows working hours per record on the attendance table. It shows average working hours for a period separately, with the shortfall against what was expected.
Questions people ask
Do breaks count as working hours?
Unpaid breaks do not. Paid breaks usually do. Which of yours is which comes from the employer's policy, and it is worth checking rather than assuming.
Why do my working hours differ from my logged hours?
They measure different things. Working hours come from punches. Logged hours come from what you recorded against projects. A gap usually means an incomplete timesheet.
Are working hours the same as billable hours?
No. Billable hours are the subset of logged time attached to client work. Plenty of real working hours are not billable to anyone.