Approve timesheets

When technicians submit their weeks, an approver checks each one and either approves it or sends it back with a note. Approving a week locks that technician’s time in it on every client, so the hours you sign off are the hours payroll and reporting see. This page shows how to work the approvals queue, review one week in detail, and reopen a week that needs correcting after it was approved.

Before you begin

• You are on the MSP plan and hold timesheet:approve. See Timesheet reference for the roles that have it.
• Approving locks the technician’s time for that week on every client until you or another approver reopen it. See What approving a week locks.

Work the approvals queue

Select Timesheets > Approvals. When weeks are waiting, Timesheets in the navigation shows how many.

The page opens on Waiting for approval: every submitted week, oldest first. The other built-in view, Not submitted last week, lists every technician whose week for last week is still Draft or Returned, so you know who to chase.

• Find a technician narrows the list by name.
• In the filters, Sheets switches between Waiting for approval and Not submitted, and Week picks one week from the last 12.

Each row shows the Technician, the Week, Total / target, the Billable share of non-leave time, Leave, when it was Submitted, and the State. Select the technician’s name to open their week.

Approve weeks

1. Select the checkbox on each week to approve. The checkbox in the header selects every week in the list.
2. Select Approve.

Only submitted weeks can be approved or returned. If your selection holds a week in another state, Approve and Return say Only submitted timesheets can be approved or returned.

Each week succeeds or fails on its own. When every week went through, the page says how many were updated. When some did not, it lists each technician whose week was not changed, with the reason, and approves the rest.

Return weeks with a note

1. Select the weeks to send back.
2. Select Return.
3. In What needs fixing, say what the technicians need to change. Every selected technician sees this note on their week.
4. Select Return.

The weeks become Returned, and each technician fixes their week and submits it again.

Review one week

Open a week from the queue, or select Timesheets > My timesheet and choose the person in Technician. You see the week as they do: the day strip, the totals, and every row.

• On a submitted week, select Approve, or Return and enter What needs fixing.
• You can correct the week before you decide it. Select a cell to edit or delete an entry, or use Add time to add other time, such as a day of PTO, for them. Ticket and task time can only be added by the technician who did the work, and the dialog says Ticket and task time is added by the technician who did the work.

You can approve your own week. The approval is recorded as a self-approval in the audit trail.

When an approval is refused

An approval is checked against the week as it stands at that moment, not as it was when you opened it.

What you see	Why	What to do
The time on this sheet changed after it was opened. Check the new totals and approve again.	The total you approved is not the week’s total any more. The technician, or someone else, added or changed time after you loaded the page.	Open the week again, check what changed, and approve it again.
Some client data couldn’t be reached. Try again shortly.	A client’s data did not answer, so the week’s real total is not known. Approving would lock a short total.	Wait until every client answers, then approve.
This sheet has moved on since it was opened. Refresh to see where it stands.	The week is no longer Submitted. It was recalled, approved, or returned by someone else.	Refresh the page.

When a client has not answered while you are looking at the queue, the page warns that time for that client is missing and that Approving now would approve a short total.

Reopen an approved week

Reopen a week when time in it has to change after it was approved, for example an entry logged on the wrong day.

1. Open the approved week.
2. Select Reopen.
3. In Reason, say why. Reopening unlocks every entry in the week, and the reason is kept with the week.
4. Select Reopen.

The week becomes Returned, with your reason as its note, and its time can be changed again. The technician fixes it and submits it again.

Verify

• An approved week shows Approved and is gone from Waiting for approval.
• On the technician’s week, a message says who approved it and when.
• Changing that technician’s time in the week, on any ticket, is refused with This week’s timesheet is approved. Ask a manager to reopen it.

Next steps

• Timesheet reference
• Set up time categories and daily targets