The fastest way to send a client an awkward credit note is to bill time nobody checked. If your team tracks hours and you push those hours to Xero, you want a gate in between: a step where unreviewed time simply cannot become an invoice. This guide shows how to invoice only approved timesheets.
The short version
Turn on approvals for the members who need it and assign each one an approver who is a Manager or above. Time entries then flow Unsubmitted, then Pending approval, then Approved, or get Rejected with a reason. Entries lock once submitted, and only approved or no-approval-required entries are invoiceable. Unreviewed time can never reach a Xero draft, because it is excluded before the invoice is built.
Why a review gate matters for billing
Billing time is a trust exercise with your client. A mistyped duration, an entry logged against the wrong project, or work that should have been written off can all slip onto an invoice if the only check is the person who sends it. An approval step moves that check upstream, to someone accountable for the work, before the hours are ever eligible to bill. It also gives you a clean record of who approved what, which matters when a client queries a line.
The approval workflow
Every entry from a member who requires approval starts as Unsubmitted. From there it moves through a short, predictable lifecycle:
- Unsubmitted: the entry exists and is still editable by the person who logged it.
- Pending approval: submitted for review. The entry is now locked.
- Approved: the approver has signed it off. It is now invoiceable.
- Rejected: the approver returns it with a reason. The team member can correct and resubmit.
Lifecycle: Unsubmitted → Pending approval → Approved, or → Rejected (with a reason). Only Approved hours can be billed.
Locking: the hours reviewed are the hours billed
The moment an entry is submitted it becomes locked. While pending or approved, it cannot be edited or deleted. This is deliberate: it closes the loophole where an entry is approved at one duration and then quietly changed before invoicing. If a locked entry genuinely needs a change, it has to be sent back through the workflow, so any change is itself reviewed. What the approver saw is what the client gets billed.
Only approved time is invoiceable
This is the rule that makes the gate real. When Hour Cap builds an invoice, it only considers entries that are approved or that do not require approval. Everything that is unsubmitted, pending or rejected is filtered out before the line items are assembled. You do not have to remember to exclude unreviewed time; it is impossible for it to be included.
| Entry state | Editable? | Invoiceable? |
|---|---|---|
| Unsubmitted | Yes | No |
| Pending approval | No (locked) | No |
| Rejected | Yes, to fix and resubmit | No |
| Approved | No (locked) | Yes |
| No approval required | Yes | Yes |
Step 1: Set who needs approval
Approval is configured per member, so you decide who is gated. Turn on the approval requirement for the members whose time you want reviewed before billing. Members without the requirement are treated as no-approval-required, and their entries are invoiceable as soon as they are logged. This lets you, for example, gate junior staff while letting senior billers flow straight through.
Step 2: Assign approvers
Each member who requires approval is given an approver. The approver must be a Manager or above, so sign-off sits with someone who has the standing to release time for billing. Choose approvers who actually oversee the work; an approver rubber-stamping entries they did not supervise defeats the purpose of the gate.
Step 3: Run the weekly review
Team members submit their time, approvers review, and approved entries become eligible to bill. Rejections come back with a reason so the fix is obvious and the entry can be resubmitted. Once the week is approved, you have a pool of clean, locked, billable hours ready for invoicing.
Step 4: Invoice the approved hours to Xero
Now create the invoice as usual. Hour Cap pulls only the invoiceable entries, builds the line items with your chosen grouping, and pushes the invoice to Xero as a draft. Nothing is authorised automatically, so you still get a final look in Xero. The difference is that by the time you reach the draft, the underlying hours have already passed a review you can trust. If you ever need to start over, voiding the draft releases the entries to be invoiced again.
Plans and where this fits
Timesheet approvals are on the Business plan, which also adds scheduled reports and the activity log. The Xero integration you push invoices through is on the Team plan and above. Together they give you a billing chain where unreviewed time has no path to a client.
Approvals sit on top of the core flow where you send tracked time to Xero as draft invoices. They pair with tax-correct invoicing and tracking categories for clean, well-tagged invoices. For the full picture, see the guide to tracking billable hours and invoicing through Xero. To compare plan tiers, see pricing.