This is our complete guide to setting up timesheet approvals in Hubstaff.

What are timesheet approvals, and how do they help your organization?

Timesheet approvals provide organizations with an opportunity to review and verify employee time entries prior to processing payroll. Beyond this, timesheet approvals also offer several additional benefits, including the following:

• Ensures that employees report their hours correctly.
• Gives managers visibility into what their team is working on and helps identify inefficiencies or time sinks.
• Helps avoid payroll mistakes by preventing errors, intentional or accidental (e.g., incorrect clock-ins, double entries).
• Helps monitor how much time (and cost) is being spent on specific projects or tasks.
• Approvals ensure compliance with labor laws, such as overtime rules and minimum wage laws, and serve as a formal record of agreed-upon work hours.
• Protects the organization during audits or disputes with employees.
• Helps inform decisions about hiring, staffing, and workload distribution.

How to enable timesheet approvals for your organization

To enable timesheet approvals:

Step 1

Navigate to Settings > All settings > Enable/disable features.

Step 2

Click Enable under the Approve timesheets section.

Enable timesheet approvals for each team member

To enable timesheet approvals for individual users:

Navigate to People > Members.

Click Actions > Edit payment details next to the user’s name on the far right.

Enable the Timesheet generation & approval toggle, then hit Save Changes.

Timesheets are automatically generated based on the selected pay period for each team member.

Reviewing timesheets as a team member

To view your timesheets, navigate to Time tracked > Approvals. On that page, you see each timesheet broken down by pay period. To learn more about timesheet approvals for team members, see the Team Member’s Guide to Timesheet Approvals. If you don’t see a timesheet created for you, even when a pay period is set, contact your organization owner or manager to enable the timesheet approvals feature.

Reviewing timesheets as a manager

To review your team’s timesheets:

Navigate to Time tracked > Approvals.

Select a status tab: Open, Submitted, Approved, Denied, or All. Use the column picker at the top right of the table to choose which columns to show.

The page opens on the Submitted tab, so timesheets waiting for your review appear first.

Step 3

To view the contents of a timesheet, either click the Pay period link or click Actions > View.

The timesheet shows total hours, manual time, activity percentages, overtime, PTO, holidays, and amounts owed. Use the Daily and Weekly buttons at the top of the page to switch views.

Approving timesheets

To approve a timesheet:

Navigate to Time tracked > Approvals.

Click on Actions > Approve next to the timesheet you wish to approve.

Editing timesheets

To edit your team member’s timesheets:

Navigate to Time tracked > Approvals.

Click the Actions button to decide what to do with each time segment. You can edit, split, or delete time entries. This is only available when the Modify time setting is enabled for you.

Denying timesheets

To deny timesheets:

Navigate to Time tracked > Approvals.

Click on Actions > Deny.

FAQs

What happens if I submit my timesheet early?

For example, if your pay period is January 15 – January 30th, and you submit your timesheet on January 18, you will no longer be able to track time, and you will receive an error when attempting to track time telling you that you cannot start the timer for the project because the timesheet is locked.

What happens if I don’t submit my timesheet?

If you don’t submit your timesheet, and your organization has the Timesheet generation & approval setting enabled, you will not be paid when the pay period ends. Please contact your organization owner in case this occurs.

I can see a member’s time on the Timesheets page, but they don’t appear in Approvals. Why?

This usually means timesheet approvals haven’t been enabled for that member. To fix it:

1. Navigate to People > Members.
2. Click Actions > Edit payment details next to their name.
3. Check that Timesheet generation & approval is enabled, then click Save Changes.

Once enabled, their timesheet appears on the Approvals page. If this setting is already on and they still don’t appear, see Adding and Editing Past Timesheets. The member’s timesheet records may need to be created or corrected.