Timesheet approvals

With timesheet approvals, the time people log stays a draft until they submit it, and an approver checks it before it counts as approved. Only approved time, including automatically approved time, can go on an invoice. You decide whose time needs approval, on which projects, and who approves it.

How approval works

Every time entry has a status:

Whether an entry needs approval depends on the person's membership of that project: the Timesheet approval required? option. If an entry that needs approval is edited, even an approved one, it goes back to Draft and has to be submitted again. To stop people changing approved time at all, lock approved timesheets.

Set up approvals

1. Give people their roles. People who log time need the Timesheet/Expense User role. Approvers need the Timesheet Approver role, which only an Administrator can give. It doesn't use a licence, and external contacts can have it too, so a customer can approve the time you log on their projects. Administrators can approve without it.

2. Choose whose time needs approval. In a project's settings, Require timesheet approval by default on the Timesheet Rules tab applies to people added to the project later. For people already on it, tick Timesheet approval required? on the Members tab. The default for new projects is in Settings › Timesheet Settings.

3. Choose who approves. Tick Project Timesheet approver? for someone on a project's Members tab, and they approve everyone's time on that project.

   

4. Or choose a default approver. Pick a Default Timesheet Approver on the Approvers tab of a person's contact record, and that approver handles the person's time on every project. You can use both.

   

Every setting, and who can change it, is in configuring timesheet approval.

Submit time for approval

When you have draft entries that need approval, a Submit for Approval button appears:

• In Day view and in the clock popup next to Start, it submits that day's drafts.
• In Week view, it submits the whole week's drafts. Click Save first: the button is greyed out while you have unsaved changes.

After you confirm, the entries become Pending Approval. An entry with a running timer, or without a project and category, stays a draft: stop the timer or complete the entry, then submit again.

Avaza then emails the person's Default Timesheet Approver and the project approvers of the projects involved. If there are none, every Administrator gets the email. Approvers can switch it off with Receive notification when timesheets are submitted for approval in their user profile.

Someone who can edit another person's timesheet can also submit it for them. See editing another person's timesheet.

Approve or reject time

Go to Timesheets and open the Pending Approval tab. Approvers who don't log time themselves see Timesheet Approvals in the left menu instead. Only Administrators and Timesheet Approvers can open it.

The tab shows one week, grouped by person and then by day. Each person's total sits next to their standard weekly hours, so short weeks stand out. Each entry shows the project, customer, category, task, notes and duration.

• Approve or reject a person's whole week, a single day or one entry, with the tick and cross buttons.
• Rejecting asks for a reason. Avaza emails it to the person, with the rejected entries.
  

• Other weeks: use the arrows, Today or the calendar. Other weeks with Pending Timesheets, under the list, links to every other week with time waiting.
• Filter: narrow the list by Projects, or by Where Timesheet User's Default Approver is. Administrators can use the second one to pick up another approver's people, for example while they're on holiday.
• Edit first: if you can edit other people's timesheets, the pencil on an entry lets you correct it. It stays pending.

Who sees what:

• Administrators see all pending time.
• Timesheet Approvers see time on projects where they're a project approver, and all the time of people they're the default approver for, on any project.

If someone can't see time they should approve, check both settings in configuring timesheet approval.

Approved timesheets

The Approved tab lists the week's approved and automatically approved time, for the same people and projects. Expand a person or a day to see the entries. Approved entries show who approved them, and when.

To reverse an approval, click the cross on the entry to reject it. Invoiced entries show a lock instead, because invoiced time can't be changed. To free one, remove it from the invoice first: see why time is missing from an invoice.

Check the status of your time

In Day view, the bar on the left of each entry shows its status. In Week view, it's the outline of each cell:

• Grey: Draft.
• Yellow or orange: Pending Approval.
• Green: Approved or Automatically Approved.
• Red: Rejected.

Open an entry in Day view to see its status in words. A lock icon means the entry can't be edited. A Week view cell you can't type in is either locked or holds several entries, which you edit in Day view. Hover over it to see which.

Approving expenses

Expenses have their own approval, switched on in Settings › Expense Settings and done by people with the Expense Approver role. The Approvers tab of a contact record also has a Default Expense Approver, who's emailed when that person submits expenses. See getting started with expenses and expense approvals.