Review every hour
before it hits a client invoice
Members submit weekly timesheets. Managers approve or reject with a reason. Only approved hours are invoiceable. The audit trail is complete.
Approvals included on the Business plan.
Unreviewed timesheets are billing accidents waiting to happen
Every team has the story. A junior logged a 12-hour day that was actually 4 hours. A contractor's "Worked on Acme" entry made it onto the invoice. A description that looked fine at the time read terribly when the client got the PDF.
- Junior descriptions go straight to clients with no editing pass.
- Contractors forget to log time and the manager doesn't know until invoice day.
- Non-billable hours sneak onto billable invoices.
- Errors are caught after the invoice has been sent. Awkward.
A weekly approval step takes minutes per manager and prevents almost every billing error before it happens.
How approvals work in Hour Cap
Approvals only where you need them
Mark which members require approval and who their approver is. Senior staff submit and ship; juniors and contractors get a review pass. No one has to be in a workflow that doesn't fit them.
- Per-member `requires approval` flag
- Assign an approver (manager or above)
- New entries auto-marked Unsubmitted, ready for the next weekly submit
Acme Corp · Rebuilt the checkout flow; tested across browsers.
Startup Inc · Migration planning meeting.
Acme Corp · "Worked on stuff". Needs detail.
Approve or reject with a reason
The review screen shows every entry for the week. Approve in bulk or one at a time. Reject with a written reason and the submitter sees what to fix.
- Approve, reject, or comment on individual entries
- Rejection reason visible to the submitter
- Fix and resubmit in the same flow
Only approved hours get billed
Entries in PendingApproval and Approved status are locked. The invoice wizard only includes Approved entries (and entries that don't require approval). Nothing in-flight ends up on a client invoice by accident.
- Submitted entries lock automatically (no further edits)
- Invoice wizard scopes to invoiceable (Approved or no-approval-needed) entries
- Full audit trail: who approved, who rejected, what reason, when
Set up timesheet approvals in four steps
Pick who needs approvals
Usually juniors and contractors. Seniors can be left off.
Assign approvers
Each submitter maps to a manager. One approver can cover many people.
Submit weekly
Friday afternoon submit, Monday morning review. The cycle takes minutes.
Invoice with confidence
Only approved entries are eligible. Nothing in review can be pushed to Xero.
Catch errors before clients do
A weekly review pass is the cheapest QA you can run. Start your trial and turn approvals on for the people who need them.
What an approval step actually changes
Cleaner client invoices
Cryptic descriptions get rewritten before they leave the building.
Fewer write-offs
Errors are corrected internally, not credited back to a client.
Audit trail by default
Who approved, who rejected, what reason, on every entry.
Junior staff improve faster
Weekly feedback on descriptions and durations beats a year-end review.
Common questions
What is a timesheet approval workflow?
A timesheet approval workflow is a structured review step between time being tracked and time being billed. Team members submit their weekly timesheet, an assigned approver (typically a manager) reviews each entry, and only approved time becomes invoiceable. Rejected entries are returned with a reason so the submitter can fix and resubmit.
Why do agencies and service teams need timesheet approvals?
Two reasons. First, accuracy: junior staff and contractors benefit from a second pair of eyes on the description and duration before that line item lands on a client invoice. Second, control: managers want to make sure cryptic, missing, or non-billable entries aren't being charged out by mistake.
Does every team member need approvals?
No. Each member has a `requires approval` flag. Senior people whose entries are already trusted can be left off the workflow; juniors and contractors who need a review pass through it. New entries for members requiring approval are automatically marked Unsubmitted.
Can rejected timesheets be resubmitted?
Yes. When an approver rejects with a reason, the submitter sees the reason on the entry, fixes the issue (clarifying a description, splitting a long block, correcting a duration), and resubmits. The full audit trail of who approved or rejected what stays on the record.
What stops approved time from being edited later?
Entries with status PendingApproval or Approved are locked. The policy layer prevents edits or deletes by anyone. If something genuinely needs to change post-approval, the entry has to be rejected first, which puts the audit trail back in motion.
Approve before you invoice
Weekly timesheet review, audit trail by default. Try the Business plan free.