Timesheet approval allows Administrators and Managers to review, approve, and lock your team’s weekly submitted time and expense entries.

Enabling and disabling timesheet approval

Timesheet approval is an optional module in your account that is activated by default for plans that have support for timesheet approval. Administrators can enable or disable timesheet approval by taking the following steps:

1. Click on Settings (upper right corner).
2. Click into the Modules tab and click Choose modules.
3. Check or uncheck the box for Timesheet approval.
4. Save modules.

Keep in mind that removing the timesheet approval module will not unlock timesheets that have been approved and locked—if you want to edit any timesheets, you’ll need to manually unlock them while timesheet approval is still enabled.

Submitting time and expenses in a web browser

Timesheets can be submitted on a daily, weekly, or custom schedule. Time and expenses are also always submitted and approved together—it’s not possible to submit or approve only time or only expenses.

This article covers submitting in the web app, but you can also submit timesheets in the Harvest mobile app.

To submit a full week of time and expenses in a web browser:

1. Go to Time > Timesheet or Expenses.
2. From Time > Timesheet click the Submit week for approval button (lower right corner), then click Yes, submit timesheet to confirm. From Expenses, click the Submit for approval link for the expense timeframe (on the right).
   • If you’ve tracked only time, your timesheet will be submitted.
   • If you’ve tracked only expenses, or both time and expenses, you’ll be taken to a review screen and will need to click Submit for approval at the bottom of the page to confirm the submission.
     • If you don’t click the Submit for approval button on the review screen, your timesheet will not be submitted.

To submit a custom date range of time and expenses in the web browser:

1. Go to Time > Timesheet.
2. From Time > Timesheet click the dropdown arrow, to the right of the Submit week for approval button (lower right corner), then click Submit custom range for approval.
   • If you’ve tracked only time, your timesheet will be submitted.
   • If you’ve tracked both time and expenses, you’ll be taken to a review screen and will need to click Submit for approval at the bottom of the page to confirm the submission.
     • If you don’t click the Submit for approval button on the review screen, your timesheet will not be submitted.

Editing submitted timesheets

For full details about editing entries see Editing time entries and Editing expenses.

After submission, timesheets can still be edited until they’re approved. Approvers will always see the most up-to-date entries.

Editing approved timesheets

Approving a timesheet locks the entries for the entire week, so be sure to only approve timesheets once the week is over. If you need to edit an approved timesheet, an Administrator will need to withdraw approval from the timesheet.

Approving and locking time and expenses

Who can approve timesheets?

Administrators can approve all timesheets, while Managers can only approve time and expenses tracked by their assigned people and for projects they manage. 

Approving submitted timesheets

• To approve timesheets once they’ve been submitted:
• Head to Time > Approval.
  • Click Approve visible timesheets and expenses (bottom) if you’re ready to approve all submitted timesheets on the page at once.
  • Or, to approve a specific timesheet, then click Approve on the row you wish to approve.

Request changes to a submitted timesheet

Timesheets cannot be rejected. However, if a timesheet needs to be changed before being approved, you have two choices:

• You can send a message to the timesheet owner asking them to edit and resubmit. To do that, click the Email [teammate name] button at the bottom.
• Administrators and Managers with permission to edit time and expenses can make changes themselves. Click on the column header of the day you’d like to change, and you’ll go directly to that person’s timesheet, where you can make your edits.

Sorting and filtering timesheets for approvals

Harvest offers several organisation tools to simplify approvals:

• Group time entries by Person, Project, or Client.
• Switch between viewing Unsubmitted, Submitted, and Approved timesheets.
• Apply custom date range filters, for flexible approval schedules.

For users who have a large number of teammates, projects, or clients, Harvest also allows you to filter on these variables. This can help to remove noise, and allows you to approve only for specific clients and projects, so that you are not required to have the same approval schedule for each one.

For managers, their filters will be limited to the clients, projects and teammates assigned to them.

Be mindful of the interaction between grouping and filtering. If you group by teammate and filter for a specific client, approving a teammate’s timesheet will only approve time related to projects for that client.

Locking approved timesheets

Approving a timesheet locks the entire week included on that timesheet. This includes days with no time tracked to them. If you’d like to adjust what day of the week your team’s timesheets start on, Administrators can do that under Settings > Preferences > Start week on.

Time and expense entries are always approved and locked simultaneously for the entire week. There’s no way to approve only time or only expenses.

Unlocking approved timesheets

While both Administrators and Managers can lock timesheets through approval, only Administrators can unlock or withdraw approval from timesheets. To unlock an approved timesheet:

1. Head to Time > Approved and click on the timesheet in question.
2. Click the button at the bottom left to Withdraw approval.
3. Confirm by clicking Yes, unlock timesheet.

Timesheets can be locked for more than one reason. For more information on unlocking time and expense entries, check out our article on how to unlock a timesheet.

Enforcing submissions and timesheet locking

Administrators can choose if they would like for timesheets to be automatically submitted or locked upon the timesheet deadline via Settings > Preferences. Both options will ensure that timesheets are promptly submitted on time for approvals, however auto-lock also prevents teammates from continuing to edit their timesheets after the deadline.

Please note these features are currently being released incrementally so may not be available for your Harvest account yet.

View unsubmitted timesheets

Administrators and Managers with assigned people can check on any outstanding timesheets by heading over to Time > Approval, then filter on Status: Unsubmitted. 

Manage timesheet reminders and notifications

Manage timesheet reminders

If you’d like to remind your teammates to fill out and submit their timesheets for approval, you have a few options:

• Administrators can set up recurring timesheet reminders to send automatically to everyone in your account each week. 
• Administrators and Managers can manually send one-time timesheet reminders to specific people.
• Individuals can set up daily reminders for themselves to remember to track time. 

You can learn how to set up these notifications in our article on timesheet reminders.

Manage timesheet submission emails

Administrators and Managers can opt in to notifications when timesheets are submitted for projects they manage or by their assigned people. To enable timesheet submission emails:

1. Click your name in the upper right corner and select Notifications.
2. Select or deselect Email me if timesheets are submitted for projects or people I manage next to Approval. 
3. Update notifications.