Unlocking time and expenses

Time and expense entries are locked when hours or expenses are invoiced and/or approved, or when items are archived. This prevents those entries from being edited.

If you’re an Administrator or Manager and need information on how to view another person’s timesheet, you can find it in our article on How to view or edit another person's timesheet.

Determining why time or expenses are locked

If a time or expense is gray and a lock icon appears to the right of the entry, it’s locked. Administrators will see one of the following messages when they hover over the lock icon. Managers and Members will see a message that says Only an Administrator can unlock this entry no matter why the time or expense is locked.

If you need to make changes to locked time or expenses, ask an Administrator to unlock these entries.

Entry invoiced

If your plan supports invoicing, you'll see the entry invoiced message for time or expenses that are invoiced but not approved.

Pulling time and/or expense entries onto an invoice locks the invoiced entries and the invoiced project(s) from the date of the first entry pulled onto the invoice through the date of the last entry pulled onto the invoice (not necessarily the full timeframe you invoiced for). However, time and expenses are locked separately.

Here is more information and some examples of timesheet locking behavior based on different invoicing scenarios:

If only time entries are included on an invoice, your team will still be able to add expenses for the invoiced timeframe and vice versa.
If both time and expenses are included on an invoice, the project will lock for time and expenses separately, dependent upon the dates of the time and expense entries pulled onto the invoice.
If a project is invoiced for the month of April and includes only time entries for April 1 and April 20, the project will be locked for time entries from April 1 through April 20. It will not be locked for expense tracking.
If a project is invoiced for the month of April and there is only one time entry for April 15 and one expense entry for April 17, the project will be locked for time entries only on April 15 and expense entries only on April 17.

Entry approved

If your plan supports timesheet approval, you'll see the entry approved message for time or expenses that are approved but not invoiced. Approval in Harvest is on a weekly basis; approving a week locks the entire week, including days with no time tracked to them.

Entry invoiced and approved

If your plan supports both timesheet approval and invoicing, you'll see the entry invoiced and approved message for time or expenses that have been both invoiced and approved. Note that for the entry to be unlocked, you must withdraw approval and mark the entry as uninvoiced in order to edit it.

Entry archived

For time or expenses that are locked because the project, task, or person is archived. These hours or expenses aren’t necessarily invoiced or approved. However, if you have a time entry that’s locked but hasn’t been approved or invoiced, it’s very likely that some element of the entry has been archived.