Numbers - Format Issues for Converting Time to Decimal

Your formula creates a duration. A duration is not a decimal number or text so you cannot force either of those formats upon it. There are functions to convert a duration into a decimal number of days, hours, minutes, seconds, etc. You want DUR2HOURS to do the conversion to hours. Then you want ROUND to round it to the nearest 1 decimal place.

=ROUND(DUR2HOURS(your_duration_formula),1)

Mach03 wrote:

an error was returned saying that it required two arguments but only showed one. I ended up only needing to use the DUR2HOURS for the results I needed.

You probably missed one of the ().

Keep in mind that without the ROUND function, using "just" DUR2DAYS, you can format the cells to make it appear that you are getting the rounded result you want. But the actual value in the cell may still have extra decimal places that you have hidden. That may not matter if you just want to display the results. But it will cause problems if you are doing further calculations (such has multiplying by an hourly rate).

If you are doing ongoing calculations you need to use one of the ROUND functions, ROUND, MROUND, FLOOR, or CEILING.

Here's a simple example showing how they produce different results:

Functions used to round values – Apple Support (UK)

ROUND – Apple Support (UK)

MROUND – Apple Support (UK)

CEILING – Apple Support (UK)

FLOOR – Apple Support (UK)

BTW, you are correct in noticing that Numbers handles date and time differently from Excel. Numbers stores date-time strings. Excel uses a serial date system. Excel doesn't have the DUR2 functions. Each approach has its advantages and disadvantages.

SG

Mach03 wrote:

starting duty at 2230 and finishing at 0130. The result is a -21.0 value. Do you happen to know a workaround for this?

The crossing midnight problem. You can use MOD something like this:

=MOD(ROUND(DUR2HOURS(B2−A2),0),24)

In your example, that will give you 3.

MOD – Apple Support (UK)

SG

Strange. The formula I posted has two parameters in it. The first is DUR2HOURS and the second is the number 1.