ℹ️ Note: Timesheet approval needs to be turned on for your Account. Email team@minutedock.com and we'll turn it on, along with the Team tab if you don't have it, and manager supervision if you want team leads to approve their own team's time. There's no extra cost.
⚠️ Important: Timesheet approval is in beta. For most teams, we recommend reviewing time in Reports or on the Team tab, then locking those dates so they can't be edited. See Locking and Unlocking Time Entries.
Timesheet approval lets someone sign off a person's week of time before it's invoiced. Weeks run Monday to Sunday.
You'll find approvals on the Team tab in the main navigation, under Approval. It appears for anyone with Edit & manage others' time (including Account Admins), and for anyone who manages at least one User or Role. Read more in See your team's time on the Team tab.
Who can approve time
Anyone with Edit & manage others' time. Account Admins always have this permission.
A User set to manage others (Manages other users), for the people they manage. They can't approve their own time.
See & report on others' time on its own doesn't let someone approve time.
Request approval for a week
Go to the Time screen.
On the week's heading, click Request Approval.
The week now shows Pending Approval. Requesting approval doesn't lock anything, so you can keep editing. To withdraw the request, click Cancel Request while it's still pending.
Someone who can approve your time can also click Request Approval on your week. That takes them straight to the review.
Review and approve a week
Click Team in the main navigation, then Approval.
Team Overview shows a grid of people by week. The legend marks each week as Approved, Pending or Time Logged.
Click a pending week (an orange ! icon). It opens that person's week on the Time screen.
In the Pending Approval panel, click Begin Review.
On Reviewing {name}'s Time, every day and entry is ticked to start. Untick anything you're not approving, then click Approve.
There's no Reject option, and MinuteDock doesn't send approval emails. If something needs changing, edit the entry or let the person know before you approve.
What happens after approval
The week locks for that person. A red lock appears at the start of the week heading, and a tick at the end. Hover over the tick to see Time approved!
The person can't edit their approved entries. Anyone who can approve their time can still edit through the lock. See Locking and Unlocking Time Entries.
An entry you left unticked during the review shows "Entry not approved". It's approved when it's next edited and saved, or when you click the week's tick and Approve again.
Time saved into an approved week later, such as a late entry, is approved automatically.
Approval and invoicing
On the Invoices screen, Ready to Invoice counts approved time only.
When you create an invoice, the first step, Choose Entries, shows unapproved time under each shortcut, for example "+7.5h unapproved". Hover over it to see how many entries aren't included. If all of a shortcut's time is unapproved, you can't select it.
You can still choose Custom Invoice, but unapproved time won't be included. MinuteDock shows an "Unapproved time" warning with a Review Time link.
Adding time to an invoice doesn't approve it.
In Reports, the Options filter lets you include approved and unapproved time, approved time only, or unapproved time only.
Can an approval be undone?
No. Once a week is approved, it can't be unapproved. Cancel Request only works while a request is pending, and unlocking the week with the lock icon doesn't remove the approval.
If an approved entry needs correcting, anyone who can approve that person's time can still edit it.