Approve a Timesheet
How do I approve a timesheet?
Purpose: There are multiple ways to approve timesheets in BambooHR. This guide will show you how to approve a timesheet for an individual employee and approve multiple timesheets in bulk.
A manager or a specific person can do timesheet approvals if allowed access. If you are getting started with BambooHR Time Tracking, have you set up your Time Tracking approvals yet?
A timesheet becomes available for approval based on the date and time selected under the Timesheets must be approved by... section of Time Tracking settings. The timesheet opens for approval 24 hours before the due date unless an employee is in a conflicting timezone (i.e., midnight in the admin's timezone is still working hours in their timezone). In that case, the timesheet would open for approval at midnight in the employee's timezone. A timesheet's due date is the day by which the approver must approve it. If the due date is after the pay period ends (which would happen if your pay schedule signifies that the pay date occurs after the pay period ends), then the timesheet will be open for approval at midnight on the last day of the pay period.
Email notification for an approver
If you are the assigned approver for a group of employees, you will receive an email notification for the specific group of employees after all of their timesheets are available for approval. (The availability is based on the employee's timezone.) The email will summarize hours worked, including holiday hours, shift differentials, project/tasks, and overtime. The approver can click the link within the email notification to go to their inbox within BambooHR to approve hours.
Once an employee's hours have been approved, they will not be able to make edits to their timesheet. Only a Full Admin user is able to make edits to an approved timesheet.
Please note if an employee gets terminated during a pay period, you will still need to approve any hours worked by the terminated employee during the pay period.
In addition to an email notification, you will see a notification in your What's Happening widget on Home that lets you know of any timesheets awaiting your approval.
Please note that this notification will not show up until all employees' timesheets in the group become available for approval. However, if you log in before that time and view one of the employees whose pay period has ended, you will be able to approve via the Timesheet tab or your inbox.
Click on the notification within the What's Happening widget or navigate to Timesheets under Approvals within your inbox (see below).
Click on the approval task to review the hours.
Once you finish reviewing the hours, click Approve All Hours.
Once a timesheet is ready for approval, it will go to the employee's current manager (if the manager is chosen as the approver in time tracking settings). If the employee's manager changes, the timesheet will remain in the previous manager's inbox for approval.
To review and approve an employee's hours, navigate to the employee's Timesheet tab. Once you review the employee's hours for the pay period, click Approve.
When hours are approved, it will show who approved the hours and when they were approved.
If there are newly-added hours while you are in the process of approving, you will receive a pop-up box to refresh the hours before you approve them.
The Full Admin(s) and custom access level user(s) who can access timesheet approvals and the Payroll Hours report can approve hours within the report.
Navigate to the Payroll Hours report in the Standard Reports folder within the Reports tab. Select the corresponding Pay Schedule and Pay Period, then hover over an employee to see the Approve option on the right side. If you need to approve in bulk, click Approve All in the top right corner of the report.
The Full Admin(s) and custom access level user(s) who can access timesheet approvals and the Payroll Hours Detail report can approve hours within the report.
Navigate to the Payroll Hours Detail report in the Standard Reports folder within the Reports tab. Select the corresponding Pay Schedule and Pay Period, then hover over an employee to see the Approve option on the right side. If you need to approve in bulk, click Approve All in the top right corner of the report.
If you have filtered your report to show only specific hour types, and any employees are excluded from the report, you will not have the ability to approve in bulk until you remove the filter.
Your company might need to approve hours while your employees are still clocked-in. For example, your payday is on the last day of the pay period, and you need to run payroll by 4 p.m., but your employees do not clock out until 6 p.m. Also, you may have an employee who forgot to clock out, and you need to enter a clock-out time for them.
If you approve an employee's hours while they are clocked-in, you will see a pop-up box that requires you to enter the employee's clock-out time before you can approve their hours.
If you are approving from the Payroll Hours report, you will see a timer icon next to an employee's total time if they are clocked-in. When you choose to approve all timesheets, you will receive a similar pop-up box that requires you to enter clock-out details for all employees who are currently clocked-in.
If your employees accrue based on hours worked, the accruals will not run correctly until an approver approves the hours. If the accrual runs before the hours are approved, then a "0" will show up for the accrual period. Once the hours are approved, BambooHR will automatically replace the "0" with the correct accrual amount based on hours worked.