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Enabling or Disabling the Approval Workflow

Decide whether time needs a manager's sign-off, then turn approvals on or off

Applies to: Workforce · Premium · LawBillity

With approvals on, people submit their time and a manager or admin approves it before it's final. Turn it on if someone needs to check hours before they're invoiced or paid. Leave it off if your team manages its own time.

Should You Use Approvals?

If...
Then...
You have a larger team (10 or more people logging time)
Turn approvals on. A quick review catches errors before they reach invoices.
Clients look closely at their invoices
Turn approvals on so a manager checks entries first. You'll get fewer billing disputes.
Your industry requires manager sign-off on time records
Turn approvals on.
You're a small team and everyone manages their own time
Leave approvals off. You can turn them on later.
Most people don't need review, but a few do
Turn approvals on, then give everyone else auto-approval (see below).

Turning Approvals On or Off

  1. Go to Admin > Settings > System Settings.
  2. Set Approve/Reject Time Entries and Time Off Entries to Enabled, or Disabled to turn it off.
  3. To review expenses too, set Approve/Reject Expense Entries the same way. It works the same as for time.
  4. Click Save.

You can also turn approvals on from the Set Up Wizard on the Dashboard, with the Approve/Unapprove Time Entries card on its Time Tracking tab. See First-Time Setup Wizard (Admin Guide).

What Changes When Approvals Are On

  • People enter time as usual, then submit it. Anything they haven't submitted stays Pending. See Submitting Time for Approval.
  • Managers and admins see submitted time on Entries > Approvals and approve it, or reject it with a reason. See Approving and Rejecting Time Entries.
  • Time must be approved before it can go on a finalized invoice. Rejected entries go back to the person to fix.
  • All time off must be approved too.
  • Existing entries aren't affected. Only entries created after you turn approvals on need approval.

What Changes When You Turn Them Off

The review step goes away. All entries, past and future, are treated as accepted, including anything that was still waiting for approval.

Using More Than One Approver

If entries need sign-off from more than one person, also set Multi-Level Approvals to Enabled in Admin > Settings > System Settings. With Multi-Level Approvals turned on, each user has an approval hierarchy, and their entries go to each approver in order. If an approver rejects an entry, it goes back to the previous approver. If the first approver rejects it, it goes back to the user.

Letting Some People Skip Review

Auto-approval approves a person's time and time off as soon as they enter it. Use it for people you trust while everyone else still goes through review. There's a link to it next to the approval setting in System Settings, or set it on the person's profile: Open Admin > Manage Users, open the person’s row menu, click Edit User, and set Enable auto-approval for Time Entries and Time Off Entries? to Yes. Expenses have their own auto-approval setting on the same page.

Common Problems

  • Someone’s time is approved without anyone reviewing it. Auto-approval is probably on for them. Check Edit User in Manage Users.
  • Expenses aren’t going through approval. Expenses have their own switch, Approve/Reject Expense Entries.
  • Approved time can still change later. Lock past periods after payroll so users can't add or edit entries on those days. Admins and managers can still edit them. See Locking Time Entry Periods.

For the full picture of how statuses work, see How Time Entry Approvals Work.