Approving Timesheets

Submitted timesheets can be electronically signed by an employee's approver. An employee can have a Primary Approver and a Backup Approver. Approvers are assigned to an employee from the Employee Details page. Note that to be an approver the employee must have a Permission Level such as Administrator or Manager with the "approve" timesheet permission checked. If you do not see the Approval tab then your permission level does not have the "approve" timesheet permission checked.

A backup approver has the same permissions as a primary approver, but will not be sent any approval-related email notices. The Notices topic has more information.

Timesheet Lookup

To list employee timesheets click the Approval tab, enter an appropriate Start date, then click the Search button. You can optionally enter a Finish date and Status in order to narrow down the list of returned timesheets. If you do not find any timesheets no matter what search criteria you use then you may not be assigned to any employees as an approver.

Administrators (or anyone with "Can Approve All" timesheet permission) can view and approve all timesheets. Managers with limited permissions ("Can Approve Limited" timesheet permission) will have a restricted list where they can only see timesheets for 1) employees that they are a primary or backup approver for, or 2) employees in groups they are assigned to with a permission level that allows timesheet approval.

Timesheet Approval/Rejection

Timesheets in the list that are submitted (pending approval) can be approved by checking the checkbox in the Approved column. Then click the Save button to save the approval change.

You can approve individual time entries (line items) by clicking the Time Period link in the timesheet list. This allows you to view the timesheet details and approve each row individually. When all time entries are approved then the entire timesheet is considered approved.

When viewing the individual time entries you have the option of rejecting any of them, and thereby rejecting the timesheet. To reject a time entry check the Rejected checkbox for the appropriate time entry, enter a Reject Reason at the bottom of the page, then click the OK button to save the changes. A rejected timesheet is un-submitted and sent back to the employee for correction.

Approval Options

You can customize which time entry fields are displayed in the timesheet details page by clicking the popup menu in the upper-right corner and choosing Options. The Timesheet Approval Options page lets you customize which timesheet fields are displayed in the timesheet approval page. For a detailed description of the various timesheet fields refer to the Templates topic.

Approval Levels

Your system can be configured to have mulitple approval levels (including zero levels, for organizations that don't need timesheet approval). This is covered more fully in the Approval Levels topic.

Crew Time Approval

An alternative to approving timesheets is to use the Crew Time Approval page. This is more appropriate for construction and field service applications where you are doing daily time approval.

Exporting Timesheets

If your permission level allows it you can export the list of timesheets by clicking the popup menu in the upper right of the list and then clicking the Export List link. This will export the timesheet status information as displayed in the list to your local computer, in comma-separated value (CSV) format. This file can then be opened in Microsoft Excel or other applications that support the CSV format. You can optionally change this to Microsoft Excel's native format (XLS) by clicking the Preferences link on the Home tab.

Clicking the Export Timesheet Data link will download the time entries for each timesheet in the list as a file that you can save on your local computer. This is useful for exporting time entries to external systems such as Payroll processing applications. You can optionally mark time entries as being exported, so that you can avoid re-exporting the same data. Once a timesheet has been marked as exported it cannot be unsubmitted (unlocked) for re-editing. You will need to make corrections to the timesheet by clicking the "Add Correction" button. This is a safeguard to avoid modifying previously exported time entries. Note that administrators (those with the "Can Manage All" timesheet permission) can bypass this restriction and still unsubmit a previously exported timesheet, if the need arises.

Another option for getting access to timesheet data is to run a Timesheet Details report. This report can be customized to only output the fields you require, and can be downloaded in a number of formats, including Microsoft Excel. The Reports topic has more information.

Importing Timesheets

If your permission level allows it you can import timesheet data by clicking the popup menu in the upper right of the list and then clicking the Import Timesheet Data link. The Importing/Exporting topic has more information.

Printing Timesheets

The 'Print Timesheet' option in the popup menu in the upper right corner of the timesheet list allows you to download a PDF hard copy of all of the timesheets in the list. This is useful if you need to print out multiple timesheets for signing, for instance. Note that, rather than printing the entire list, you can print selected timesheets by clicking the checkbox on each row before selecting the 'Print Timesheets' option.

You can also print individual timesheets by clicking the time period link in the timesheet list, then clicking the 'Print' view button in the upper-right corner of the timesheet. This will download a PDF version of the timesheet suitable for printing.