A chauffeur is on the clock the moment the wheels leave the yard, not when the client opens the door. Garage-to-garage billing captures that, and two rules sit on top of it: time bills in half-hour increments, and every job carries a minimum.
A 95-minute airport run rounds to 2.0 hours but bills 3.0 — the minimum wins.
The example
Three jobs, each with the total minutes from garage-out to garage-in and the minimum on that contract.
| A | B | C | D | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Job | Total minutes | Min hours | Billable hours |
| 2 | Airport transfer | 95 | 3 | 3.0 |
| 3 | Prom night | 310 | 3 | 5.5 |
| 4 | Wedding charter | 405 | 4 | 7.0 |
The formula
Two rules, applied in the right order:
How it works
Work from the inside out:
B2/30converts minutes into half-hour blocks. Garage-to-garage means the number already includes the dead run out and back.ROUNDUP(...,0)takes the next whole block — 95 minutes is 3.17 blocks, so 4./2turns blocks back into hours: 4 blocks is 2.0 hours.MAX(C2,...)applies the contract minimum. The minimum is a floor, not an addition, so MAX is exactly right and adding it would double-charge.
Multiply billable hours by the hourly rate, then add fuel surcharge and gratuity as separate lines so the client can see what they are paying for.
Try it: interactive demo
Enter the garage-to-garage minutes and the contract minimum.
Variations
Bill in 15-minute increments
Swap 30 for 15 and 2 for 4 to change the increment.
Line total with the rate
Multiply the billable hours by the hourly rate for the vehicle.
Pitfalls & errors
Do not add the minimum — compare to it. =C2+ROUNDUP(B2/30,0)/2 turns a three-hour minimum into a three-hour surcharge on every job.
Garage-to-garage only works if dispatch logs both timestamps. If drivers record client-in and client-out instead, the dead run vanishes and you are giving away the drive across town twice a day.
Keep the minimum in a cell per job, not per company. Weekends, holidays and stretch vehicles usually carry different minimums, and a cell handles that without a second formula.
Practice workbook
Frequently asked questions
Is garage-to-garage standard in the industry?
What if the job runs past midnight into a higher rate?
Stop fighting formulas. Learn them in a day.
This recipe is one of hundreds of real-world formulas we teach. Our Excel Formulas & Functions class covers lookups, logic, text, and dynamic arrays hands-on — live in Dallas–Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, Oklahoma City, Denver, or online.
See the Formulas & Functions Class