Approve timesheets

When timesheet approval is enabled, submitted entries are locked until an approver accepts or returns them. Approvers get a dedicated inbox that groups everything waiting for review by person and week.

Choose who approves

1. Open Organization Settings, go to the Configuration tab, then the Timesheets section.

2. Turn on Timesheet Approval if it is not already on (it is enabled by default).

3. Under Who can approve timesheets?, pick a mode:

   • Organization admins: Owners, Admins, and Portfolio Managers can approve timesheets for anyone in the org.
   • Custom approvers: only designated timesheet approvers can approve. Useful for a dedicated finance or ops team.

4. If you chose Custom approvers, use Add approver to designate members in the Timesheet Approvers panel below.

Work the approvals inbox

Approvers see an Approvals tab on the Timesheet page, with a badge showing how many entries are waiting. The tab has four sections: Inbox, History, Report, and Compliance.

The Inbox groups pending entries by person, then by week. A strip at the top summarizes the visible week (“X of Y submitted”) with counts for approved, pending review, draft, not started, and rejected.

For each week you can:

• Approve week to accept every entry in it at once.
• Return to send the whole week back, with an optional reason the submitter will see.
• Approve or return individual entries using the icons on each row, when only part of a week needs rework.

Returned entries show up for the submitter as Rejected; editing one resets it to Draft so they can fix and resubmit. The History section keeps the trail of approved and rejected entries, and Report aggregates approved hours for export.

Tip

You cannot approve or return your own entries unless you are an Owner or Admin. In a small team, designate at least two approvers so nobody’s week gets stuck waiting on themselves.

FAQs

What does approval change financially? When approval is enabled, only approved entries count toward project actual cost on Finance dashboards. The settings page warns about this when you toggle approval on or off, and offers to auto-approve already submitted entries so historical costs do not jump.

Do approvers get notified? Yes. Submitting a week notifies every approver in-app, and the inbox updates in real time.

Is a reason required when returning entries? No, the reason is optional, but it is shown to the submitter and saved on the entry, so a short note saves a conversation.

What is the Compliance section? A per-person view of who has filed enough hours this week, with a cost-at-risk estimate. See Monitor timesheet compliance.