Between somebody logging four hours and a client being charged for four hours, there is usually somebody who ought to look.
How it works
An entry can be approved, and it records who approved it and when. Approve is its own permission, separate from creating or editing time.
When you raise an invoice from time you can choose approved entries only. Anything unapproved is left out and stays available for next time.
If there is nothing approved to bill, you are told so plainly rather than given an empty invoice: “There is no approved, unbilled billable time on this project. Approve the entries you want to charge for, then try again.”
Should you use it
| Use approval when | Skip it when |
|---|---|
| Clients scrutinise your invoices. | It is a small team who all know the work. |
| Several people log time to one job. | One person does the work and the billing. |
| Juniors log time on client work. | Everything is fixed-price and time is only for costing. |
| Rates differ by person. |
What to actually check
- Is the description something a client can read without ringing you?
- Is billable right? Rework and internal meetings usually are not.
- Is it on the right task? Wrong task, wrong invoice line.
- Do the hours look real? Nine hours on one small task is either wrong or a conversation worth having.
It is a five-minute job weekly. Done monthly it becomes an hour nobody wants, and gets skipped.
What approval records
Who approved it and when, on the entry itself. So a query about an invoice line six weeks later has an answer that is not somebody’s memory.
Approving weekly beats approving monthly
| Weekly | Monthly |
|---|---|
| Five minutes. | An hour nobody wants. |
| The work is fresh enough to query. | “What was this Tuesday?” |
| Errors are caught before they compound. | The same wrong habit for four weeks. |
| It actually happens. | It gets skipped, and then invoicing is blocked. |
Who should approve
The project owner usually — they know whether four hours on that task is reasonable. Accounts can approve too, and often should for anything going on a client invoice, because they are the ones who will field the query.
The one rule: not the person who logged it. That is why approve is its own permission.
Where to go next
Something missing or wrong here? Tell us. A question that needed asking usually means a page that needed writing.