Timesheet approval process: how to approve hours every week

A timesheet approval process is the weekly routine that turns logged hours into a record you can invoice and cost from. It has six steps: each person submits a complete week, an approver reviews it and approves it or rejects it with a note, the person corrects and resubmits, the approved week locks, and the approved hours go on to invoicing and payroll.

Below: why approval is worth the effort, each step in detail, who should approve, what to check, deadlines and reminders, late changes, how approved hours reach the invoice, a weekly checklist, and how it works in PLYNTUM. To choose a tool, see our guide to timesheet software.

Why approve timesheets

Unchecked hours drift. Time lands on the wrong client, a day goes unlogged, a morning is rounded up to a full day. Approval catches it while people still remember the week, and it matters in three places:

• Billing. On hourly work, the invoice is hours multiplied by the rate. Hours logged to the wrong client end up on the wrong invoice, and a missing day is revenue you never ask for.
• Payroll inputs. Where pay depends on hours, such as overtime or hourly contractors, payroll should use the approved week, not a draft.
• Cost and capacity data. Estimates, project margins and capacity plans all start from recorded hours. If the hours are wrong, every number built on them is wrong too.

Hours that have passed this check are approved time: a settled record, not raw tracked activity.

The six steps of timesheet approval

1. Submit. Each person completes their week, puts every entry on a client, project and task, and submits it. Submitting means “this week is complete and correct”, not “this is what I remember”.
2. Review. The approver opens the week and checks the points listed below: the right client and project, billable or not, hours against the plan, and missing days.
3. Approve or reject. If the week is right, approve it. If not, reject it with a note that says exactly what to fix, for example “Thursday’s 3 hours belong to the brand project, not the retainer”.
4. Correct and resubmit. The person fixes their own entries and submits again. The approver does not edit someone else’s week silently: the note shows what changed and why, and it is what builds the habit.
5. Lock. An approved week is closed for edits, so the hours an invoice or a pay run was based on cannot change afterwards without anyone noticing.
6. Send on. Approved billable hours go to invoicing, approved hours of hourly staff go to payroll, and all approved hours feed project cost and the next capacity plan.

Who approves: project manager or line manager

There are two common models. A project manager approves the hours logged on their projects: they know whether 12 hours on one landing page is plausible. A line manager approves each person’s whole week: they know whether the person was in, on leave or on internal work. Small teams usually pick one approver per team who checks both. Larger firms sometimes approve by project first and by person second, which is more accurate but slower.

Whichever model you choose, name a backup approver. When the approver is away, weeks wait, and a week approved ten days late is approved from memory. Write down who covers, and make sure that person has the right to approve.

What to check in a timesheet

• Client, project and task. Is every entry on the right client, project and task? This is the most common error and the most expensive one, because it moves money from one client to another.
• Billable or not. Is internal work marked non-billable, and client work billable where the agreement allows it? Look closely at the borderline cases: fixing your own mistake, sales calls, travel.
• Hours against the plan. Compare the week with what was planned or estimated. A large gap is not wrong by itself, but it needs a reason, and it can be the first sign of scope creep.
• Missing days. A working day with no hours and no leave or absence recorded usually means the time was not logged, not that the work was not done. See why hours never reach the timesheet.
• Descriptions. Would someone who was not there understand what each entry was for? The client may ask.

Deadlines and reminders

Approval works on a fixed rhythm. A common pattern: people submit by the end of their last working day, and the approver approves by noon on the first working day of the next week. Month end needs a firmer deadline, because invoices and payroll wait for the approved hours.

Reminders keep the rhythm when people are busy. Some timesheet tools send them automatically on certain plans. On their pricing pages, Clockify lists “Targets & reminders” on Standard, Toggl Track team reminders on Premium, My Hours tracking reminders on Pro, and Teamwork.com reminders to log time from Accelerate (checked on 24 October 2026). Without automatic reminders, the approver sends one message on the deadline day to everyone who has not submitted. It takes a minute, and it works best as the same message at the same time every week.

Locking approved weeks, and late changes

An approved week should not change quietly. If it can, the invoice you sent and the hours it was based on stop matching, and nobody can say which one is right. Locking closes the week once it is approved. A tool can also lock the week as soon as it is submitted, so nothing changes while it is under review.

Late changes still happen: a client questions an invoice, someone remembers a forgotten afternoon. Agree one rule in advance and keep to it:

• A small correction that does not affect a sent invoice goes into the next open week, with a note naming the original date.
• A correction that changes a sent invoice or a finished pay run goes through the approver, who decides whether to issue a correcting invoice or adjust the next one.
• Every late change is recorded: who made it and why.

From approved hours to the invoice

On hourly work, an invoice line is approved billable hours multiplied by the agreed rate, so approve the last week of the month before you write invoices. On fixed-fee work the client does not see the hours, but the same approved hours, valued at each person’s cost, show whether the project made money. On a retainer, they show how much of the month’s allowance was used. Our guide to time and billing software follows one client’s month from hours to invoice.

A weekly timesheet approval checklist

1. Everyone has submitted, or you know why not (leave, sick day).
2. Every entry has a client, a project and a task.
3. Internal work is non-billable; client work is billable where the agreement allows it.
4. No working day is empty without leave or an absence to explain it.
5. Hours on each project are in line with the plan, or the gap has a reason.
6. Retainer hours are checked against the month’s allowance.
7. Descriptions make sense to someone who was not there.
8. Every rejected week has a note that says exactly what to fix.
9. Corrected weeks are resubmitted and approved before the deadline.
10. In the last week of the month, approved billable hours are ready for invoicing.

Still on paper or a spreadsheet? The free weekly timesheet template has the minimum fields: client, project, task, hours per day, and billable or non-billable.

How timesheet approval works in PLYNTUM

PLYNTUM is business management software for agencies and service companies. On every plan, people log time with a start/stop timer on a task or by hand in the weekly grid. Each entry belongs to a task, and each task to a project and a client, and hours can be marked billable or non-billable. From the Core plan, approval is built in:

1. Each person submits their own week.
2. A manager, or anyone with a higher role, approves it or rejects it with a note.
3. A rejected week opens again for the person to correct and resubmit.
4. Submitted and approved weeks are locked against edits.

Approval is a single step. Any manager in the workspace can approve any person’s week, so another manager can cover when the usual approver is away, and there is no routing by project or reporting line to set up. Core costs $150 a month for up to 10 members, or $120 a month billed annually.

What it does not do: PLYNTUM sends no reminders for missing timesheets, so the deadline message is yours to send. It has no hours export and no payroll export from timesheets. It does not issue invoices for you: from Core, approved, billable hours can be drafted into an invoice, which you check, edit and issue yourself. Project cost counts every logged hour, approved or not, so approving every week keeps cost and approved time the same. A worked week and a price comparison are on the timesheet approval software page.