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Time logging

Whose hours need approval, and how, is decided person by person

For many people approval is not needed: hours count as soon as they are saved. For a new hire, a contractor paid by the hour or someone working in the field, though, somebody has to look at them before they end up in an export. Klokka decides this per person, not per company: no approval, one for every entry, or the whole week submitted in one go.

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Three modes, one per person

The mode is chosen in “Time approval”, when the user is created or later from their card in “Users & Teams”; it takes the “Member management” privilege. With “Every entry” each saved entry starts as pending and lands in the “To approve” queue of an administrator or of anyone with the “Can approve” option. With “Weekly” the person submits the whole week from “Weekly hours”, and an administrator decides it in “Timesheets to approve”. Either way, until the yes arrives those hours stay out of the export and cannot be marked as exported. Anyone on “No approval” sees none of this: their entries count right away.

How it works

  1. Choose the mode for each person

    In the user’s card, under “Time approval”: “No approval”, “Every entry” or “Weekly”. In the same place you give the “Can approve” option to whoever, besides the administrators, has to work through the queue of single entries.

  2. The person logs, and submits if needed

    In weekly mode, at the end of the week they press “Submit for approval” in “Weekly hours”: the week runs Monday to Sunday in the company’s time zone and cannot be submitted while a timer is still running. From Friday at 3 p.m. to Sunday, anyone with hours not yet submitted gets a reminder; there is no automatic submission.

  3. The approver decides, with a reason

    Administrators get a notification and an email for every submitted week. “Approve” closes it; “Send back” asks for a mandatory reason and makes the week editable again. For single entries there is “Reject”, with an optional reason the author reads: once they correct it, the entry goes back into the queue by itself.

An unapproved hour does not end up in an export.

What you can do

  • One mode per person

    The senior partner logs with no extra step, the newcomer has every entry approved, the external contractor submits the week. The three modes live side by side in the same company and can be changed whenever needed.

  • Approvers beyond administrators

    With the “Can approve” option a site manager or a coordinator sees the “To approve” queue and decides on single entries, without becoming an administrator. Weeks, on the other hand, are decided only by administrators.

  • Submitted or approved, the week is closed

    On a submitted or approved week no entry can be created, edited or deleted, no attachments added and nothing imported: this also applies to moving an entry into it, and it applies to the administrator too. “To revise” reopens it to the person; once approved it stays put.

  • Reopening leaves a trace

    To correct a week that is already approved the administrator uses “Reopen”: the week becomes editable again and has to be submitted once more. The reason is optional, the person reads it and it stays in the change log; the entries themselves are not touched.

  • Out of the export until the yes

    Pending entries and those in a week not yet approved are left out of the export and cannot be marked as exported, not even by selecting them by hand: an unchecked hour does not slip out to the accounting system or the invoice by mistake.

  • No approval with notes missing

    If the person has mandatory reporting notes and an entry shows “Notes missing”, that entry — or the week containing it — cannot be approved until the notes are there. Rejecting or sending back, on the other hand, is always possible.

Frequently asked questions

Can we require approval only for some people?

Yes, that is how it normally works: the mode is set on the person. Whoever does not need it stays on “No approval” and notices nothing; it can be changed when needed, for example at the end of a probation period.

I got an entry wrong in a week that is already approved: how do I fix it?

An approved week is closed even for the administrator, on purpose. You ask them to reopen it with “Reopen”: it becomes editable again, you fix the entry and submit it once more. The reopening stays recorded in the change log.

And if someone does not submit the week?

From Friday afternoon they get a reminder, once per week, if they have hours logged and not submitted. Klokka does not submit it on their behalf: until the week is submitted and approved, those hours stay out of the export.

Can a coordinator approve without being an administrator?

For single entries, yes: just give them the “Can approve” option in their card. Weeks submitted in weekly mode, however, remain a decision for administrators.

The other Klokka features

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