California parents who are separating or divorcing must work with the court during the process to establish custody and child support. Under California support guidelines, visitation and parenting time have a direct influence on how much child support is paid or received. Using an inaccurate parenting time total may result in unfair or inaccurate payments.

California parenting time

Each state has slightly different methods for determining parent-child visitation. In California, the total time spent with children is the annual percentage of parenting time.

For example, if the non-custodial parent spends every other weekend and half of all holidays plus four weeks of summer, it would total 20 percent of the year. Adding just two weeks puts the percentage at 24 percent. Half days, extended overnight visits, and other long non-overnight visits also contribute to total parenting time.

Counting parenting time

Once the divorcing parents agree on a custody schedule, it’s time to count visitation hours to establish child support. There is no one way to do this, but some methods are easier than others and produce more accurate results.

Parents should count all hours in parenting time when they will be with the children. This total is then divided by 8,760 hours. The answer is the percentage of timeshare needed for the California support formula.

Ways to Calculate Parenting Time in California

There are three ways to count parenting time:

1. Estimate
2. count manually
3. custodial schedule software

Estimating timeshare percentages means that parents use various California visitation tables. These charts provide visitation scenarios with entries such as “Alternate weekends plus one night per week” and then a corresponding percentage, such as “28.49 percent.” Estimates can take the time and frustration out of counting actual hours, but are generally inaccurate when compared to the actual time spent. Estimates also typically do not take non-traditional weeks into account, such as holidays, vacations, illnesses, special events, or third-party weather.

Counting manually provides a more accurate number than estimating. Parents can view parenting hours and add up all parenting time hours. Every visit counts, whether it’s during a weekday, vacation, or other visit. It can be time consuming to count hundreds of hours in a year, and counting manually increases the risk of human error and addition errors. If the schedule changes for even a few days, it can affect the total, so parents need to start over.

Custody scheduling software allows parents to create a custody schedule on the computer, with time shares accurate to the hour. As parents create the schedule, the program counts all visiting hours for each parent. If parents make a schedule change, the count is automatically recalculated. Custody software allows parents to know exact visitation totals quickly and accurately.