Timecard Approvals Overview Follow
Timecard Approvals provide a flexible, multi-level process for verifying employee hours before payroll, involving employees, supervisors, and administrators. Once approved, timecards are locked and require unapproval for edits. Settings can be configured at account, department, or employee levels, ensuring a clear audit trail and reducing payroll disputes.
Timecard Approvals help ensure employee hours are reviewed, confirmed, and finalized before payroll is processed. By requiring employees, supervisors, and/or administrators to approve timecards, you create a clear review process and a digital record that shows when hours were verified.
This feature is flexible and can be applied at different levels of your account, making it easy to match your internal approval workflow, whether approvals are handled by employees, supervisors, administrators, or a combination of roles.
In this article:
- How Timecard Approvals Work
- When to Use Timecard Approvals
- Who Can Approve Timecards
- Configuring Timecard Approvals
- Understanding Timecard Approval Statuses
- Approval Order and Timecard Locking
- Approving Timecards
- Unapproving Timecards and Making Corrections
How Timecard Approvals Work
When Timecard Approvals are enabled, a timecard must be reviewed and approved before it is considered final. Each approval adds a digital timestamp to the timecard, confirming that the hours were reviewed and accepted.
Once a timecard is approved:
- It becomes locked and cannot be edited
- The approval status is visible on the timecard
If a correction is needed after approval, the timecard can be unapproved, updated, and approved again.
When to Use Timecard Approvals
Timecard Approvals are especially helpful when you want to:
- Give employees visibility into their recorded hours
- Reduce payroll disputes and corrections
- Require supervisor sign‑off before payroll
- Create a clear audit trail for timecard reviews
Who Can Approve Timecards
Timecard Approvals can involve one or more of the following roles:
Employees
Employees can review their own hours and approve their timecards to confirm accuracy. This is commonly used to reduce payroll questions and give employees visibility into their recorded time.
Supervisors
Supervisors can approve timecards for employees they oversee. Permissions can be limited by department, ensuring supervisors only see and approve timecards for employees in their responsible departments.
Administrators
Administrators have full approval control and can approve or unapprove timecards across the account. This role is often used as the final approval step before payroll.
Configuring Timecard Approvals
Timecard Approvals can be configured at multiple levels, giving you flexibility over how and when approvals are required.
Enable the feature at the Account-Level
To use Timecard Approvals, approvals must be enabled at the account level. Account administrators can turn the Timecard Approval feature on in the Settings tab and choose which roles are required to approve timecards. This sets the overall approval structure for the account.
See Configure Timecard Approval Settings for more exact steps.
Department-Level Settings
Departments can have their own approval rules. For example, one department may require supervisor approval, while another requires both supervisor and administrator approval.
Department settings are inherited by employees assigned to that department unless overridden at the employee level.
See Timecard Approvals at the Department Level for more information and exact steps.
Employee-Level Settings
Approval requirements can also be set for individual employees. This is useful when certain employees need different approval rules than the rest of their department.
See Enable Timecard Approvals on the Employee Profile for exact steps.
Understanding Timecard Approval Statuses
When Timecard Approvals are enabled, the Timecards tab provides a high‑level view of approval progress for each employee within the selected pay period.
At the top of the page, administrators and supervisors can filter timecards by:
- Pay Period
- Department
- Approval Status (for example, Pending Approval)
When the Pending Approval filter is selected, only timecards that still require at least one level of approval will be displayed.
Timecard Approval Columns Explained
Each employee row displays up to three approval columns, depending on how approvals are configured on the account:
- Employee Approval
- Supervisor Approval
- Administrator Approval
These columns show the current approval status for each role.
Approval Status Definitions
The following statuses may appear in the approval columns:
Pending
- The timecard has not yet been approved at this approval level.
- Additional approvals are still be required before the timecard is fully approved.
- Pending statuses appear in red to clearly indicate action is needed.
This status is visible in all three approval columns when no approvals have been completed.
Approved
- The timecard has been approved at that level.
- The approval timestamp is displayed, showing the date and time the approval occurred.
- Approved statuses appear in green.
A timecard may show a mix of Approved and Pending statuses if approvals occur in stages.
No Time Card
- The employee does not have any timecard data for the selected pay period.
- No approval action is required for this employee.
- This status appears in black.
Mixed Approval States
It is normal for timecards to display different approval statuses across columns.
For example:
- An employee may approve their own timecard.
- A supervisor may approve it afterward.
- The administrator approval may still be pending.
In this case, the timecard will still appear when filtering by Pending Approval, since at least one required approval has not yet been completed.
Approving Timecards from the Timecards Page
Administrators and supervisors with approval permissions can approve timecards directly from this page:
- Select one or more employees using the checkbox column.
- Click Approve Selected Time Cards.
- The approval status updates immediately, and timestamps are recorded.
Once all required approval levels are complete, the timecard will no longer appear when filtering by Pending Approval.
Approval Order and Timecard Locking
When multiple approval levels are enabled, timecards follow a specific approval order:
Employee → Supervisor → Administrator
Once a timecard is approved at any level, the timecard is locked. No changes can be made until it is unapproved in reverse order.
To make changes to an approved timecards:
Approvals must be removed starting with the highest role approved (Administrator, then Supervisor, then Employee).
See Approving/Unapproving Timecards for more information.
Approving Timecards
Once approvals are enabled and permissions are in place, Employees, Supervisors, and Administrators can approve timecards from the web portal or mobile app.
Employees must be granted permissions to view their timecard as well as permission to log in to the web portal or smartphone app.
For more information see:
Supervisors must be provided login information in order to access the web portal or smartphone app. If they will use the smartphone app, be sure to enable the Smartphone Access Permission in their profile.
For more information see:
Unapproving Timecards and Making Corrections
If a timecard needs to be corrected after approval, the timecard must be unapproved before edits can be made.
- Unapproving timecards l follows the reverse order of approval: Administrator → Supervisor → Employee
- After corrections, the timecard must be approved again.
This ensures all parties re‑confirm the updated hours before payroll.