Timesheet approvals

Timesheet approvals in Sumhour work one week at a time. A person submits their week, a manager approves it or sends it back, and approved weeks lock so the hours cannot change under an invoice. Owners, admins and managers review weeks. Accountants, members and contractors do not.

Week statuses

Status	What it means	Can the person edit?
Open	Not submitted yet	Yes
Submitted	Waiting for a manager	No, until they withdraw it
Sent back	A manager asked for changes	Yes
Approved	Reviewed and locked	No
Locked	Closed without an approval, by hand or by auto-lock	No

Submit your week

Open the Week view of your timesheet and press “Submit week” (or ⌘ Enter, Ctrl+Enter on Windows and Linux). The button is off while the week has no time. If a timer is still running in that week, stop it first.

Owners, admins and managers get a notification that your week is in. While it waits, your entries are read-only. Press “Withdraw submission” to take it back and change something, as long as nobody has approved it yet.

If a manager sends the week back, the Week view shows “Sent back” with their comment. Fix the entries and submit again.

Approve or send back a week

The Approvals page (G then A) has three lists:

“Waiting for approval”: submitted weeks.
“Last week, not submitted”: people who tracked time last week but did not submit it.
“Recently decided”: approved, sent back and locked weeks from the last eight weeks.

Press “Review” on any row to open that person’s week. You see the grid, every entry by day with its notes, and warnings when a timer is still running or entries miss a required note.

Under “Decision”, write an optional “Comment” and press “Approve and lock”, or press “Send back”. Sending back needs a comment, and only works on a submitted week. The person sees the comment on their week and gets a notification either way.

Approving locks every entry in the week, except a timer that is still running. You can also approve a week from “Last week, not submitted” without waiting for the person to submit it.

When a week needs no closer look, press “Approve” on its row in “Waiting for approval”. There is no confirmation: the week is approved and locked at once, and a message offers “Undo” for ten seconds. Undo puts the week back to waiting, unlocks its entries and takes back the “approved” notification the person got. Once any of the week’s time is on an invoice, it can’t be undone this way; open the week to reopen it.

“Approve all waiting” at the top of the page approves every submitted week in one go, without opening them. Sumhour asks you to confirm first.

Reopen a week

On an approved or locked week, press “Reopen week”. The week goes back to Open and its entries become editable again, except entries that are already on an invoice. The person can then edit and submit again.

Let managers approve their own week

By default, a manager can approve their own timesheet. To require a second person, an owner or admin turns off “Managers can approve their own timesheets” under Approvals in workspace settings. After that, anyone who tries to approve their own week is told to ask another manager, so a different manager or an admin has to do it.

Set a timesheet deadline

Workspace settings has a “Timesheet deadline” section, which owners and admins manage. Pick a “Day” and an “Hour” in the workspace timezone, for example Friday at 17:00. Leave the day on “No deadline” to turn it off.

At the deadline, Sumhour looks at everyone who tracked time in the week and has not submitted it. Two boxes decide what happens:

“Remind the whole team at the deadline”, on by default, sends each of those people one notification in the bell, and by email if they allow it.
“Submit open weeks automatically at the deadline”, off by default, submits the week for them as it stands. They are told it went in, and managers see it in Approvals as usual.

A deadline on the first day of your week, such as Monday at 09:00, applies to the week that just ended. If the deadline falls on a workspace holiday, nothing happens that week.

Lock weeks

A locked week is read-only for its owner, submitted or not. There are two ways to lock time besides approving.

Auto-lock

“Auto-lock last week” in workspace settings takes a “Day” and an “Hour”. Every week at that time, in the workspace timezone, the previous week locks for everyone who has time in it. Approved weeks stay approved, and running timers are left alone. It is off until you pick a day.

Lock up to a date

On the Approvals page, “Lock time up to a date” is a one-time lock for month end or after an import. Pick a “Through” date (it starts on the last day of last week) and press “Lock through date”. Every week up to and including the week that holds that date becomes read-only for everyone. Approved weeks stay approved, and running timers are skipped.

Managers, admins and owners can reopen any locked week from its review page. For closing out a whole month, see month end.