Having a proper payroll approval process helps ensure payroll accuracy, monitors labor costs, and offers peace of mind when doing payroll. An important step in a payroll process is approving employees' timesheets. A good approval process will eliminate mistakes when conducting payroll and ensure that you accurately pay your employees for their hours worked.
In this article, we will go over how to set up a timesheet approval process in Connecteam and how to approve timesheets. The topics we will go over include:
How to Set up Timesheets Approval
Setting up a timesheet approval process can be done within a Time Clock's Settings. If you have more than one time clock you will need to enable the timesheet approval for each time clock individually.
To set up timesheet approval, follow these steps:
Access the relevant time clock and click on Settings
Navigate to the Payroll tab and activate the option Timesheets approval
Select which admins should be able to approve and/or reopen timesheets
Here you also have the option to require users to submit their timesheets.
Please note: approving and reopening timesheets are controlled separately. You can assign certain admins permission to approve timesheets and others permission to reopen timesheets. For example, you might give approval permissions to your front-line managers so they can review and approve their employees' hours, but keep the reopening permissions for admins who conduct payroll.
Locking vs Approving: What's the Difference
Inside your timesheets, you have the option to both approve the timesheets and lock individual days let's go over the difference:
Locking - the ability to lock a day or a few days inside a payroll period. It can be a great solution if you see a discrepancy and do not want anyone making changes until you verify them.
Approving - the ability to lock all the days within a payroll cycle, indicated that the timesheets were reviewed and are ready for payroll.
How to Lock Days
Now that you have enabled the approval settings, go to the Timesheets tab and access the relevant employees' timesheets.
To lock specific days, simply hover above the relevant day, a lock symbol will appear and you'll be able to lock that day.
If you would like to lock more than one day at once, you can lock them in bulk. Simply select a few days, use the Actions menu at the bottom, and click on Lock.
Locked days will appear with a lock icon next to them:
How to Unlock Days
If you are an admin with reopening permissions, you can unlock a day by clicking on the grey locked day icon.
To unlock days in bulk, select the relevant days and click on Unlock using the Action menu at the bottom.
How to Approve Timesheets
If you have reviewed your employee's timesheet and it's ready for payroll, you can approve it, automatically locking all the days with the payroll cycle. This can be done from both the admin dashboard and the mobile app.
Admin Dashboard
To approve timesheets from the admin dashboard, click on Approve in the upper right-hand corner. The timesheets will immediately appear as approved. At this point, only an admin who has "reopen permission" can make changes to the timesheets.
Mobile App
To approve timesheets from the mobile app, navigate to the Admin tab on the bottom right corner of the app, access the Time Clock, then the Timesheets, and press on the relevant user to access their timesheets. Then, press the three dots on the top right corner and choose Approve timesheet.
How to Reopen Timesheets
Admin Dashboard
To reopen approved timesheets on the admin dashboard, simply click on the three dots next to the approved icon and click on Reopen.
Mobile App
To approve timesheets from the mobile app, simply press on the three dots next to the in the top right corner of the user's timesheet and choose Reopen.
The Approved Status
When preparing for payroll, you can easily monitor timesheet approval status in the timesheets tab. The Approval Progress Bar provides instant visibility, showing how many employees still need to submit timesheets and how many are already approved, streamlining your payroll process.
For a more focused view, use the filter on the left to see only approved timesheets.
For direct communication with employees who haven't submitted their timesheets, use the Chat icon in the progress bar. You can also use the Filter icon on the right to refine your view of submission status.
How to Approve and Reopen Multiple Timesheets
From the timesheets tab, you can approve or reopen timesheets in bulk by selecting the relevant employees clicking on the actions tab, and clicking on approve or reopen.
How Locked Days and Approved Timesheets Look for Employees?
For your employees, once the current day/payroll period has been locked or approved the employee won't be able to add/edit shifts for that day or any days in the payroll period. If the current day is locked the employee will be unable to clock in.
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