Approval

Users can submit their weekly and monthly timesheets and expenses for approval. Then, admins can review and approve them for billing and payroll purposes.

All approved timesheets are permanently locked. Not even admins can make changes to the approved time, at least not without leaving a permanent written trace).

Time approval is an extra feature, which you can enable by upgrading your workspace to Standard, Pro, or Enterprise plan.

To use time approval, you first need to enable it in the workspace settings.

Submitting time #

Users can submit their time both via Time Tracker and Timesheet.

In Time Tracker, you can click Submit under the appropriate week or month, and all time in that week or month will be submitted for approval. In Timesheet, you can click the Submit button at the bottom.

You can still edit your timesheets while the time period is pending approval. Changes to pending timesheets are automatically reflected and shown when approving time.

In case of a mistake, you can withdraw the submission by clicking X on the pending tag. If you withdraw your pending time period, the approval request will disappear, and you can submit that time period again when you’re ready.

If you have an approved time, you can add new time (as long as dates are not locked) but you’ll have to submit the new time by submitting that time range for approval again.

You can submit timesheets even if the dates are locked (but you can’t edit the time).

Once entries are approved, they become permanently locked and you can no longer edit them.

Admin can submit timesheet for any user and team manager for their members, via the Approvals page > Unsubmitted tab when you click on the three dots (approval request will have the info who submitted the timesheet and when).
Also, owner, admin and team manager can see the number of hours of approved time off that a user has in the Time off column.

Submitting time (mobile app) #

You can also submit time using the mobile app (iOS and Android):

1. Open Time Tracker or Timesheet
2. Navigate to the time range you wish to submit
3. Click SUBMIT
4. Review and confirm by clicking SUBMIT

All submitted weeks or months will have PENDING label next to them. To withdraw the submission, tap on the pending label and then tap Withdraw.

All approved weeks or months will have APPROVED label next to them, and the entries will have the approved checkmark. You can’t edit approved time. But, you can add new time entries (if that time period isn’t locked) and submit it for another approval.

Approving time #

Admins can approve and reject submitted time from the Approvals page (available in the sidebar).
Each approval request contains the information of who submitted the request and when the request was submitted at the top of the page.

Whenever there’s a timesheet that’s waiting for approval, you’ll see an orange dot as an indicator in the sidebar.

Pending tab lists timesheets that are waiting for approval. You can approve all request at once or filter by user or group.

If a team member has a team manager, admins can click Remind to approve to send an email reminder to each team manager to approve their team members’ timesheet.

To view the full timesheet, click on the request to view it in more details.

To reject a request, open the request, click on the Reject in the upper right corner, and leave a note. The approval request will be deleted, pending label will be removed, and the user will receive an email containing the note.

If a member who submitted a timesheet has some time entries that are wrong, you can either: reject their entire timesheet (and ask them to fix the entry and resubmit); or you can go to Detailed report and manually correct the mistake yourself (possible only if you’re admin, or their team manager and you have permission to edit other people’s time).

Once you approve time, time entries are permanently locked and not even admins can make any edits.

If you invoice time after approval and want to mark what’s been invoiced, you can import them into an invoice and approved time entries will automatically get an invoiced tag so you can see what’s been invoiced and filter reports by the status.

Please note that, if the start and end time include an overnight period, there will be a superscript number next to the end time, showing how many additional days the time entry covers.

Editing 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. In Pending tab, choose submitted timesheet
3. Click on edit pen icon next to time entry
4. In Edit time entry screen, you can edit the following:
   • Time and date
   • Description
   • Project
   • Billability
   • Duplicate/delete entry

After you’ve made all the necessary changes, click SAVE to complete the action.

Manager approval #

In addition to Admins, team managers can also approve timesheets for the users they manage.

1. Go to Team page
2. Click on + Role for the person you wish to make a manager
3. Check Team Manager
4. Select users for whom they can view and approve timesheets
5. Save changes

Once a person has a Team Manager role, they can see Approval in the sidebar, and they can see only their member’s approval requests and either approve or reject them.

Approving expenses #

Admin or Team Manager can approve, reject or edit the submitted expenses from the Approvals page. As is the case with approving time, if there is some expense waiting for approval, you’ll see an orange dot as an indicator in the sidebar.

If you’d like to submit the Expenses approval in the Approvals page:

1. Navigate to the Approvals page in the sidebar on the right
2. Click the Unsubmitted tab
3. Here’s the list of all the unsubmitted Expense approvals with the Team member’s name, total time, number of approved time off hours and total amount of expenses

They are grouped according to the time period. If you expand one and click on the unsubmitted expenses, you’ll be redirected to the Timesheet page with all the Time entries that can be submitted. 

4. Click the SUBMIT FOR APPROVAL
5. Confirmation screen appears
6. Click SUBMIT to confirm the action

Once the expense has been approved, it cannot be edited in any way.

Editing pending expenses #

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

To edit pending expense:

1. Go to Approvals page
2. In Pending tab, choose submitted timesheet
3. Click on edit pen icon next to time entry
4. In Edit expense screen, you can edit the following:
   • Date
   • Project
   • Category
   • Amount
   • Billability
   • Add/delete receipt
   • Delete request

After you’ve made all the necessary changes, click SAVE to complete the action.

Finding users who forgot to submit time #

Admins and Team managers (for their team members) can check whether users added their time entries during the week and send reminders to users that didn’t track time or submit their timesheets. 

This functionality is part of the Approvals feature and is available to users that have the Approvals enabled.

Users that didn’t log their time during the week are displayed in the Unsubmitted tab. Inactive and Limited users are not displayed in this list.   

To see who has unsubmitted time (users who filled timesheet but forgot to submit):

1. Go to Approvals > Unsubmitted tab
2. Users with unapproved time will appear (you can click on time to see their timesheet)
3. Navigate between time range and filter by user or group
4. Click Remind to submit to send an email reminder to all the users you see in the table
5. Alternatively, submit timesheet for the user by clicking on three dots and then Submit

To see who doesn’t have ANY approved time (users who forgot to fill and submit timesheets):

1. Go to the Weekly report
2. Group report by user
3. Select the week you wish to review
4. Choose filter Status > Approved and apply filter
5. Click Show users without time
6. Users with 0 time indicate they don’t have any approved time

or

1. Go to Approvals page
2. Choose Unsubmitted tab
3. Click on Show users without time
4. Click Remind to log and submit (the button is available if there is at least one user with untracked time)
5. New screen pops up with a list of all the users that will receive the reminder
6. Click Send to complete the action

As a result:

• Users that didn’t submit timesheet get an email reminder to submit timesheet
• Users that have untracked time, get a reminder to log their time and submit their timesheet

Mending timesheets #

Approved time is locked permanently. It can’t be edited even if you turn off Approvals or downgrade your account.

Regular users can add new time to their approved time period, as long as the dates are not locked. If they add more time, they’ll have to submit that time for approval again, in which case the manager will be able to approve or reject only the newly added time (previously approved time remains).

If there was a mistake and you need to make changes to approved time:

1. As Admin, go to Approvals page > Approved tab
2. Find the time period that needs fixing
3. Click on the approval request to open its details
4.  Click Withdraw approval in the upper right corner
5. Leave a note, detailing what was wrong, why, and what needs changing
6. Click Withdraw

Once approval is withdrawn, all time entries approved by that request will become editable by admins in Detailed report (plus by their owners, if the dates are not locked). Both the user and all the admins will receive the email containing the note.

When time becomes unapproved, a permanent copy of all the previously approved time entries (along with their original hourly rates) will be created in the Archive tab for audit purpose, so you always have a written trace of all the changes.

Notifications #

• Whenever there’s a timesheet that’s waiting for approval, the Approvals item in the sidebar will have an orange dot
• When timesheet is submitted, user’s team manager will receive an email
• When timesheet is approved, the user will receive an email
• When timesheet is rejected, the user will receive an email along with the note
• When approval is withdrawn, both the user and all the admins will receive an email

If you’re admin and wish to receive an email notification when a user submits their timesheet, you need to have a team manager role for users you manage (therefore you’ll be both an admin and a team manager for certain users).

You can send email reminders to both users to submit their unsubmitted timesheets, and managers to approve their team members’ timesheets.

Orange dot indicates that the approval is pending.