---
title: "Approvals — Clock Clerk user guide"
description: "The Approvals screen in Clock Clerk: the queue of submitted weeks waiting on a reviewer, the open week with its flags and lines, and every button with who gets it."
url: "https://clockclerk.com/guide/screens/approvals"
---

Screens

# Approvals

The reviewer's queue: the submitted weeks waiting on you, the ones you have decided, and the people who have not submitted, one week at a time. The steps for deciding a week are in [Review and approve time](https://clockclerk.com/guide/workflows/review-and-approve-time.md).

![Approvals for the week of Oct 12 – Oct 18 as a Manager, titled Weeks to approve. The row of recent weeks runs from Aug 31 to Oct 12, each with a count, then This week. 1 of 4 weeks cleared, 3 still with me, 50.50 hours awaiting me, and the tag My projects · 3 engagements. The Review queue has the tabs Pending 3, Decided 1, Missing 3 and All 7, and lists Alex Moreau, Jordan Ellis and Ken Osei, with Approve 0 clean weeks at its foot. Jordan Ellis's week is open beside it, with Send back… and Approve week, its figures, two review flags and the submitted lines.](https://clockclerk.com/guide/img/approvals-queue.webp)

Approvals for a Manager, with one person's week open.

## Who sees it

Managers, Finance users and administrators: it is **Approvals** in the menu, with the number of submitted weeks waiting on you over the last eight weeks beside it. A User does not have it; opening its address says *You don't have access to this area*.

- A **Manager** sees the people on the teams of the projects their grants let them manage, and only those people's hours on those projects. Their own week is not in their queue.
- **Finance** and an **administrator** see everyone. Their own week is in the queue, marked **Your week**; only an administrator can approve it.

The address names the week by its Monday, and the person you opened (`/approvals/2026-10-12?person=2`), so a link opens on the same week and person. `/approvals` on its own opens the most recent week that still has something waiting, or last week.

## The top bar

- The week's dates, and a row of recent weeks: the last eight, each with the number of submitted weeks still waiting on you, the week on screen marked. **‹** and **›** step along it and beyond.
- How many of the week's submissions are cleared, for example *1 / 4 weeks cleared · 3 still with me*, with a bar. A week that runs into a new month counts *filings* instead.
- **Hours awaiting me**: the hours on the weeks still waiting.
- Your reach: **Every project** for an administrator, **My projects** for everyone else, and how many projects it covers.

## The review queue

- **Tabs**, with a count each: **Pending**, submitted and waiting on you; **Decided**, approved or sent back; **Missing**, people who have not submitted (counted as people); and **All**.
- **A row per person**, with their hours for the week and a status: **Awaiting review** (with **· late** when submitted after the following Monday), **Approval blocked**, **Approved**, **Sent back**, **Not submitted** (with **· reminded** once reminded) or **Not signed in yet**. Small marks beside the hours count the week's review flags.
- Expenses dated in the week, as a count and a total, with **Receipt missing** and **… declined** tags where they apply.
- A week that runs into a new month has a row for each month under the person's name, with the month's dates on each.
- At the foot of **Pending**, how many weeks have nothing flagged and **Approve … clean weeks**. At the foot of **Missing**, how many people have not been reminded yet and **Remind all**.

The arrow keys move up and down the rows. On a narrow screen the queue folds behind a **Review queue · … pending** button above the week.

## The open week

- **The person**: name, job title and when they submitted, the status, and the buttons for deciding. Where they submitted two months of a week, a switch picks which month you are deciding.
- **Approval blocked**: on a week with billable hours that have no billing rate, which projects and billing roles need one, and who can add it.
- The reason, with who sent the week back and when, on a week that was sent back.
- A note when some of the person's lines are on projects you do not manage, which are not shown or counted.
- **Figures**: **Total hours**, **Billable**, **Non-billable**, the difference from their target, and **Billed value**.
- **Review flags**, each marked **Blocking**, **Review** or **Note**. The list is in [Read the week](https://clockclerk.com/guide/workflows/review-and-approve-time.md).
- **Submitted lines**, grouped by project: task, **Billing role**, **Activity**, the hours per day and the **Total**. Choose a line to show its daily comments. A line whose project doesn't ask for an activity leaves **Activity** empty, as the person's own week does, and the column is left out when no line in the filing shows one (see [Activities](https://clockclerk.com/guide/screens/admin-activities.md)).
- **Expenses**: the claims dated in the week, with their receipts. See [Review the claims](https://clockclerk.com/guide/workflows/expenses-and-reimbursements.md).
- **Submission history**.
- On the **Missing** tab, **Nothing submitted** instead of the figures and lines, with whether the person was reminded and what became of the email.

## Buttons and when they appear

| Button | What it does | When you have it |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Approve week | Approves the week. Reads **Approve** and the month's dates on one month of a week that runs into a new month. | On a week awaiting review. Disabled while it has a **Billing rate missing** flag. Shown on your own week too, but only an administrator's own approval goes through. |
| Send back… | Opens **Send back for changes**, for a reason the person is sent. The dialog's **Send back** is disabled until there is one. | On a week awaiting review that is not yours. |
| Edit reason | Changes the reason on a week you sent back. | On a sent-back week that is not yours. |
| Reopen week | Undoes the decision: an approved week waits on you again, and a sent-back week is submitted again. | On an approved or sent-back week. On your own week, only an administrator's goes through. |
| Email reminder | Emails the person to submit the week. Becomes **Reminder emailed**, disabled. Reads **Mark as reminded** (then **Reminder recorded**) where your deployment cannot send email. | On a missing week, except your own and that of someone who has not signed in yet. |
| Remind all | Reminds everyone on the **Missing** tab who has not been reminded about this week, leaving out you and anyone who has not signed in yet. | On the **Missing** tab. Disabled when there is nobody left to remind. |
| Approve … clean weeks | Approves, after a confirmation that lists them, every waiting week with no review flag at all. | On the **Pending** tab when anything is waiting. Disabled when no week is clean. |
| Edit billing rate, Price for this project, Client contract | Open the rate to add for a week blocked by a missing billing rate: **Edit billing rate** opens the person's rates on the [project's page](https://clockclerk.com/guide/screens/projects.md), **Price for this project** its **Billing rates**, and **Client contract** the client's rates under [Billing rates](https://clockclerk.com/guide/screens/finance.md). | Finance and administrators only, on any project, whether or not they manage it. A manager is told to ask one of them. |
| Decline, Allow | Decline one expense claim with a reason, or allow it again. | On claims the app lets you decide: not on one already on an invoice, a contractor's protocol, a reimbursement or in your ERP, nor while your organization is read-only. |

Whether the button goes through is checked again when you press it: the week has to be yours to decide (see [Who reviews whose time](https://clockclerk.com/guide/workflows/review-and-approve-time.md)), and nobody but an administrator decides their own week. Nobody can send back or remind themselves at any role.