Approve time & expenses

Admins and managers can review and approve tracked time entries and expenses submitted by team members. Timesheet approval and expenses approval have separate tabs, but they are both located in the Approvals page.

Enable approvals #

You can choose to enable timesheet or expense approval in your workspace settings:

1. Click on the three dots icon next to your workspace name
2. Select Workspace settings
3. Select Enable time approval and/or Enable expenses approval
4. Select the frequency of when approvals are made (Weekly, Semi-monthly, or Monthly)

Activate expenses #

To activate expenses:

1. Go to Workspace settings
2. Click Activate expenses on the bottom part of the Approvals section
3. Click the toggle to ON for Activate expense tracking

You should now have the option to enable time and expenses approval.

Permissions #

Depending on the permissions defined in the Workspace settings, submitted time and expenses can be managed from the Approvals page in the following way:

• Admin: approve, reject, edit
• Team manager (if enabled): approve, reject, edit
• Project manager (if enabled): approve, reject

To modify these permissions:

1. Navigate to the Workspace settings > Permissions tab
2. Locate the following sections:
   • Who can approve submitted timesheets
   • Who can approve submitted expenses

3. Select the options for both sections:

• Admins and team managers: Team members can approve timesheets and expenses submitted by their team members
• Admins & project managers: Project managers can approve timesheets and expenses submitted by members assigned to the projects they manage

Approve/reject timesheets #

To approve timesheets:

1. Go to the Approvals page
2. Make sure the topmost tab is set to Timesheet
3. Go to the Pending tab
4. Click Approve All to approve all timesheets or
5. Click the team member’s name and click Approve or Reject on the next page

6. For a rejected timesheet, you need to write a note to send to the user
7. Click Reject when done

Approve/reject expenses #

To approve expenses:

1. Go to the Approvals page
2. Click Expenses on the topmost tab
3. Go to the Pending tab
4. Click Approve All to approve all expenses or
5. Click a team member’s name and click Approve or Reject on the next page

6. If rejecting, you need to write a short note for the user and then click Reject

Remind to approve #

If there are Team or Project managers that are supervising teams or project assignees, you, as an Admin, can click Remind to approve to send an email reminder to each Team or Project manager to approve their team members’ timesheets.  

To send managers reminder to approve:

1. Go to the Approvals page
2. Select Timesheet or Expenses on the topmost tab
3. Go to the Pending tab
4. Click Remind to approve

A reminder to approve submitted timesheets and expenses will be sent to managers’ email addresses.  

To see a full timesheet, click on the request to see it in more detail.

Remind to submit #

Admins and managers can check for unsubmitted timesheets and expenses and click Remind to submit.

To do this:

1. Go to Approvals
2. Select Timesheet or Expenses on the topmost tab
3. Go to the Unsubmitted tab
4. Click Remind to submit

Edit pending time request #

Admins can edit other user’s pending requests directly from the Pending tab in the Approvals page.
Unless time entries are locked, Team managers can edit their team’s pending requests.

To edit pending request:

1. Go to Approvals page
2. Select the Timesheet tab
3. In Pending tab, choose submitted timesheet
4. Click on edit pen icon next to time entry
5. In Edit time entry screen, you can edit the following:
   • Time and date
   • Description
   • Project
   • Billability
   • Duplicate/delete entry
6. Click Save to complete the action

Edit pending expenses #

Admins can edit other user’s expenses directly from the Pending tab in Approvals > Expenses.

Team managers can edit their team’s pending requests unless time expenses are locked.

To edit pending expense:

1. Go to Approvals page
2. Select the Expenses tab
3. Choose submitted expense in Pending tab
4. Click on edit icon
5. In Edit expense screen, edit the following:
   • Date
   • Project/Task
   • Category
   • Amount
   • Billability
   • Add/delete receipt
   • Delete request
6. Click Save to complete the action

Archive tab #

You can review all your approval history for both timesheets and expenses to see if all the required changes have been made. 

1. Go to Approvals
2. Select Timesheet or Expenses tab
3. Click Archive

• The Timesheet archive shows the history of submitted, approved, rejected, and withdrawn timesheets.
• The Expenses archive shows the history of submitted, approved, rejected, and withdrawn expenses.

Use the filter timesheets and expenses according to their status (Approved, rejected, or withdrawn).

When you click on the timesheet marked rejected, you will see the detailed view that includes: 

• User name and submission period
• Date & time of submission
• Timesheet details (time entries, expenses)
• Rejection comment explaining why timesheet wasn’t approved (if rejected)

Notifications #

• User’s manager is notified if Timesheet is submitted 
• User who submitted the timesheet is notified if Timesheet is approved 
• User receives an email and note if Timesheet is rejected
• User and all the Admins receive an email if Approval is withdrawn 

Learn more about Notifications in Clockify.