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Approving Time, Expenses and Time Off

Approval is the gate between what people book and what the business acts on. Approved time becomes billable and counts in project actuals; approved expenses count in project cost and, if rechargeable, become billable; approved time off comes off a person's capacity. Project managers decide all three on the Approvals tab of Projects & Time.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → ERP - Projects & Time:

  • Projects & Time — the console: the Approvals tab (its badge counts timesheets waiting)
  • Timesheets — every timesheet with its status, who submitted it and who decided it

Admin Panel → Projects & Time:

  • Projects & Time — the same console; its badge counts submitted timesheets in your companies other than your own

Who can approve

Approving needs the ERP: Projects role and write access to the company. Nobody approves their own work: the console marks your own timesheets, claims and requests Your own - another approver must decide and shows no buttons for them, and the engine refuses even if someone tries another way. The check uses who actually submitted the item, recorded on the item when it was submitted, not just the current link in the resource register, so changing that link does not get round it.

Deciding what is waiting

  1. Open Projects & Time, choose the company and go to Approvals.
  2. Read the three figures at the top: Timesheets waiting (with hours and value), Expenses waiting and Time off waiting.
  3. Narrow the lists with Person and Project, or click Refresh.
  4. In Timesheets, click Show N entries on a week to see each day's project, work, hours, rate, value and notes.
  5. Click Approve or Send back on a row, or tick several rows and use Approve selected or Send back selected.
  6. Do the same in Expenses (check the Receipt column: View opens it, Missing means none was attached) and in Time off, where the buttons are Approve and Decline.

Sending back or declining always needs a Reason (required). The person sees it on My Time & Expenses, and their menu badge counts what has come back to them until they correct it.

Reopening an approved week

Decided in the last six weeks lists recent decisions with their reason. Reopen sends an approved week back to its person to correct and resubmit, with a required reason; its time stops counting as approved and billable until then. A week with invoiced time cannot be reopened: credit the invoice first.

Statuses

  • Submitted: waiting for a decision.
  • Approved: billable and counted in actuals.
  • Rejected: shown to the person as Sent back; they correct and resubmit it as a new submission.
  • Invoiced: billed by a billing run (shown on recent decisions).

The status columns on the Timesheets, Time Entries and Expenses datastores are hidden from editing in the generic datastore editor (only an architect can write them there), along with rates and invoice links. Approvals, billing and reopening happen through the consoles, so nobody can type an "approved" status onto time that was never approved.

What goes wrong

  • "You submitted this …, so you cannot approve or reject it. Another approver has to decide it.": ask a colleague with ERP: Projects.
  • "Say why it is being rejected, so it can be corrected and resubmitted.": a reason is required.
  • "Only an approved timesheet can be reopened": the week is not approved yet; decide it instead.
  • Buttons are disabled: you hold ERP: Reporting or ERP: Finance only, or lack write access to the company.

Worked example

On Monday a project manager opens Approvals and sees nine timesheets waiting, 312 hours worth 27,450. They filter to their project, expand each week, and spot one consultant who booked a day of training as billable. They send that week back with the reason "Move Thursday's training to the internal line" and approve the other eight together. Their own week is listed as Your own - another approver must decide, so their director approves it.

Recommendations

  • Approve weekly, before billing runs and month-end WIP.
  • Expand before approving a week that looks unusual in hours or value.
  • Give specific reasons when sending back; they are what the person acts on.
  • Make sure every approver also has an approver, since nobody can approve their own time.