Weekly Timesheets & Approvals (7:17)
Intervals follows a Monday – Sunday submission and approval workflow where people are prompted to submit their weekly timesheets for approval by an administrator. When a timesheet is approved the week in question is locked and the user who owns the timesheet will no longer be able to add time.
If a user needs to add time to an approved timesheet, the timesheet will need to be unapproved, which allows time to be added again. See this help article on how to unapprove a timesheet. Once the time is added, the timesheet can be resubmitted for approval.
Timesheet submission and approval process
Intervals’ time tracking process was built out of our struggle to track time and after trying a variety of systems. We found that if you never have to “submit” your time you were more likely not to review your time. As you’ve seen by the lost time calculator, the little pieces can really add up.
We also found that it’s human nature to not like tracking time separately from you are working on. That’s why Intervals is built around tracking time on tasks. If you work on something add time to the task you are working on. Timesheets with Intervals track your productivity as opposed to a timeclock where you punch in and out.
Timesheet submissions and approvals are a deliberate, friendly nag to submit time weekly and approve it to help keep you and us organized.
- Reminders
- Timing of reminders
- Approval of timesheets – why is that required?
When you first start using Intervals you will notice reminders popping up in the header to submit your timesheets. For Administrators you will be prompted to “approve” timesheets.
Reminders are there to help us remember to review our time and submit it, since it’s something that can easily be forgotten until it becomes second nature.
Intervals uses a Monday through Sunday work week (and is ISO 8601 compliant). If you have logged time for the previous week, come Monday you will be prompted to submit your timesheet.
We originally did not want to approve time, but we found that the weekly approval process is the best way to keep the time information clean and correct. If you don’t do it weekly you can fall behind and find yourself approving and/or entering a ton of time at once.
The approval process is there to deliberately have Administrators get a final look over the time. This is especially helpful if you bill for your time. Taking a few moments to make sure time is approved and locked can prevent billable work from suddenly changing.
Although Intervals has built in notifications and integrated processes around timesheet approval, we make it easy to work around this, if time tracking isn’t part of your everyday process. Note: We do encourage all teams to track their time….view some of our blog posts on this topic to learn why we believe so deeply in tracking time.
If it’s not part of your process to have team members submit timesheets and have them approved, or if you don’t review timesheets in great detail, Intervals provides bulk submitting and approving of timesheets.