A self-evident truth is that tracking time is one of the fundamental blocks for your business. But even more obvious is the challenge of ensuring that the tracked time is accurate, adequately organized, and ready for billing.

Today, we’re excited to announce Paymo’s newest feature, Timesheet Approvals, designed to transform how you validate, approve, and leverage your team’s time data for better business outcomes.

Time tracking alone isn’t enough in today’s complex online business environment. Without a structured approval process, you risk inaccurate billing, compliance issues, and missed opportunities for optimization. That’s why timesheet approvals bridge this gap by creating accountability and ensuring data integrity.

Benefits across your organization

A well-implemented timesheet approval process delivers value at every level of your organization:

For employees, the approval workflow provides clarity and structure. Employees can easily track their billable hours (including overtime), submit them for review, and get compensated accurately for their work. No more confusion about whether their time was recorded correctly or whether their contributions are accurately reflected in client billing.

For team leads and project managers, timesheet approvals offer unprecedented visibility. You’ll track hours worked by each team member, identify inefficiencies, and see precisely how long tasks take to complete. This insight is invaluable for resource allocation and future project planning.

Finance and accounting teams gain reliable data for bookkeeping, audits, and compliance with labor regulations. The approval process ensures that all time entries are validated before becoming part of payroll calculations or client invoices, reducing errors and disputes.

For business owners and executives, approved timesheets provide the trustworthy foundation for strategic decisions. You’ll be able to:

• Accurately estimate future projects based on historical data
• Track and manage project profitability by comparing internal costs to billable amounts
• Identify process inefficiencies across your organization
• Maintain compliance with relevant labor laws and regulations

How to setup Timesheet Approvals in Paymo

We’ve designed our timesheet approval workflow to be intuitive yet powerful, balancing ease of use with the robust controls businesses need for the Small Office and Business plans. The functionality is in Beta, so all feedback is welcome as we’re iterating on this much awaited functionality. Here’s how it works:

How to enable Timesheet Approvals for your organization

Getting started is simple. Administrators can enable the feature by navigating to Settings (your Paymo profile, lower left corner) > Company Settings > General > Timesheets. From there, you can select which team members will receive notifications for timesheet approvals.

Next, toggle Incomplete Timesheet Reminder to receive a notification about time entries that need to be submitted. You can set the date (weekly or monthly) and the time. You may also exclude team members from receiving them:

How to submit Time Entries for Approval

For team members, submitting time for approval is straightforward:

1. Track time as usual throughout the work day using any of our tracking methods, be they manually via the stopwatch or timesheet entry forms, or automatically with Paymo Track (download for free).

2. In Timesheets, navigate to My Timesheets. You’ll notice different banners, depending on the status of your time entries:

• • “You have unsubmitted time entries” highlights the time entries that must be submitted for approval.

• • As soon as you submit them for approval, you’ll get the reception banner “Your timesheet entries are pending approval”:

• • “Rejected timesheets require your review”, letting you know the manager rejected your time entries; further editing is needed. (In short, Timesheet rejected)

• • If your timesheets are approved, no banner will be in your timesheet view area. (In short, Timesheet approved)

3. Navigate to the Approvals section after you hit “Submit for Approval”, for an overview of your time entries. You can edit (while pending approval) or delete your time entry submissions here.

For admins (“approvers”), approving or rejecting time entries is quick and easy. Approvers receive notification when timesheets are submitted for their review. Within the Approvals section, they can:

1. View all pending timesheets filtered by status or team member

2. Review individual time entries grouped by project and description
3. To approve timesheets in bulk, go to My Timesheets and select the Agenda view, and Set Status:

4. Reject timesheets with comments explaining needed corrections

The process is easy so that approvers can manage their review responsibilities without getting bogged down in administrative tasks.

Once approved, timesheets transition into your reporting ecosystem, where they power client invoicing (when adding from time outstanding) and project profitability analysis (when comparing billable amounts to internal costs), casting light on resource utilization (see Team Scheduling for optimal team allocation), and establishing compliance documentation for audit trails and labor regulations.

Best Practices for Timesheet Approvals

The approval process creates a foundation of trusted data that flows through your entire business operation.

• Set clear submission schedules

Set consistent weekly deadlines for timesheet submissions – for example, every Friday by 5 PM ensures approvals can be completed by Monday morning. This rhythm creates discipline for the team and accountability that ensures your billing and reporting cycles have fresh, accurate data.

• Encourage daily time tracking

Remind your team to log time daily rather than trying to reconstruct their week retroactively. This approach dramatically improves accuracy and makes the approval process much smoother. Paymo Track is a no-fuss automatic time tracker that’s running in the background as you work through your tasks. At the end of your work day, map timestamps to time entries, which will be automatically stored as time entries to be submitted for approval.

• Leverage multiple tracking methods online

Allow team members to track time manually or automatically in whatever way suits their workflow: mobile, desktop, browser, or straight from the Timesheet module, e.g., adding time in bulk (see below). The flexibility increases adoption and ensures comprehensive time capture.

• Implement regular auditing

Use our reporting features to identify problematic patterns like missing project tasks or incomplete time entries before they reach the approval stage, making it a constructive process of identifying patterns and behaviours, nor singling out team members. Remember that regular auditing is about supporting your team, not policing them.

In Time Reports, you may exclude unapproved time entries from live or static reports:

Note: The goal is to create a culture of accountability and continuous improvement, not one of surveillance. Here’s how to keep your approach healthy:

• Empower, don’t hover: use audit findings to provide helpful feedback, offer training, or clarify expectations—not to question every slight deviation.
• Promote self-correction: encourage team members to review their own timesheets and make corrections before submission.
• Be transparent: Let your team know why audits are in place and how they benefit everyone by ensuring accurate pay, fair client billing, and smoother workflows.

Is Timesheet Approval right for you?

Let’s look at how timesheet approvals solve common business challenges:

For agencies and consultants

Client-facing businesses can ensure all billable hours are captured, approved, and accurately reflected in invoices. When generating invoices, you may include only the approved time entries of a project or user:

With a dedicated timesheet approval workflow, team members can easily submit timesheets for approval, and managers can quickly review and approve or reject entries. The approval of timesheet entries provides essential documentation when clients question billings and helps identify scope creep before it impacts profitability. Using timesheet approval software streamlines the entire process, making it easy to track the status of every timesheet approval request and ensure nothing slips through the cracks.

For internal teams and departments

Department managers benefit from timesheet approval for managers by validating that time allocations match priorities and budgets. The timesheet approval process creates accountability around time spent on different initiatives and helps justify resource requests with solid data. When a timesheet is pending approval, managers receive notifications and can address any discrepancies before finalizing so that each request for timesheet approval is handled efficiently, supporting better decision-making and resource management.

For remote and distributed teams

With remote work now standard, a clear timesheet approval workflow provides structure and visibility regardless of location. Managers can maintain oversight without micromanagement, while team members have a straightforward way to request timesheet approval and document their contributions. The timesheet approval software ensures that every timesheet approval request is tracked and managed, giving everyone confidence that their hours are accurately recorded and approved, no matter where they work.

Conclusion

Timesheet approvals are more than just an administrative process—they’re a fundamental business system that transforms raw time data into actionable intelligence. Every hour tracked becomes part of a verified dataset that drives better decision-making.

Not all timesheet software includes a timesheet approval system. Paymo is a time tracking app with timesheet approval and is available now for all Small Office and Business users. If your team, department, or business needs a timesheet approval system, check out our Help page for detailed tutorials.

Set up your first approval workflow today, and discover the difference verified time data makes across your organization: