---
title: "Review and approve time — Clock Clerk user guide"
description: "How managers, Finance and administrators review submitted weeks in Clock Clerk: who reviews whose time, approving, sending a week back with a reason, reminding, older weeks, and the rule on your own week."
url: "https://clockclerk.com/guide/workflows/review-and-approve-time"
---

Workflows

# Review and approve time

Once people submit their weeks, someone signs each one off or sends it back with a reason. That happens under **Approvals**, a queue of the weeks waiting on you. **Team** beside it shows the same people's weeks, read-only.

## Who reviews whose time

**Team** and **Approvals** are in the menu of every Manager, Finance user and administrator. A User has neither. How far each reaches depends on the role (see [Roles](https://clockclerk.com/guide/roles.md)):

- **A Manager** sees the people on the teams of the projects they manage, and only the hours those people booked to those projects. Which projects a manager manages comes from their [grants](https://clockclerk.com/guide/roles.md): a Manager grant on a client covers its projects, and a project's own override can add or hold back one project. So a manager sees the people on Atlas Freight's projects if they were granted Atlas Freight, and nobody who only works for other clients.
- **Finance** and **administrators** see everyone in the organization, and every hour, without a grant.

If someone is missing from your queue, they are not on the team of any project you manage, or your grant on that client or project is not **Manager**. An administrator changes both on the person's page under **Settings → People**.

Someone on one of your projects may also have hours on projects you do not manage. Their week still comes to you, but you cannot decide it alone. The week says *1 line on projects you don’t manage is not shown, and its hours are not in these totals.* Approving, sending back or reopening it is refused with *Part of this period is booked to projects you do not oversee, so it is not yours alone to decide. Somebody who oversees all of it — or an administrator — has to.*

Nobody decides their own week, except an administrator: see Your own week.

## Approvals or Team

|   | Approvals | Team |
| --- | --- | --- |
| For | Deciding: what is waiting on you, week by week. | Reading: your people's weeks, including the ones still in draft. |
| Lists | Submitted weeks to decide, weeks you have decided, and people who have not submitted. | Everyone you reach, with their hours for the week and whether they have submitted. |
| Buttons | **Approve week**, **Send back…**, **Reopen week**, reminders. | None that change a week. **Message** opens a conversation with the person. |
| Reference | [Approvals](https://clockclerk.com/guide/screens/approvals.md) | [Team](https://clockclerk.com/guide/screens/team.md) |

## 1. Open the queue

1. Choose **Approvals** in the menu. The number beside it counts the submitted weeks waiting on you over the last eight weeks.
2. Approvals opens on the most recent week that still has something waiting, or on last week when nothing does. The row of weeks under the title shows each recent week with how many are waiting in it. Choose one, or step with **‹** and **›**.
3. The **Review queue** on the left lists the week's people, cut by the tabs above it: **Pending** (submitted and waiting on you), **Decided**, **Missing** (not submitted) and **All**.
4. Choose a person. Their week opens beside the queue.

Each row shows the person's hours for the week and their status: **Awaiting review**, with **· late** when it was submitted after the Monday that follows it; **Approval blocked**; **Approved**; **Sent back**; or **Not submitted**. Small marks beside the hours count the week's review flags, and a row with expenses shows how many claims and their total, with **Receipt missing** where one has no receipt.

## 2. Read the week

![Approvals for the week of Oct 12 – Oct 18 as a Manager. The row of recent weeks shows Oct 12 with 3 waiting, and 1 of 4 weeks cleared, 50.50 hours awaiting me. The Review queue's Pending tab lists Alex Moreau, Jordan Ellis and Ken Osei, all Awaiting review. Jordan Ellis is open: Awaiting review, Send back… and Approve week, then 42.00 total hours, 42.00 billable, 0.00 non-billable, +10.00 against a 32-hour target and $7,304 billed value. Review flags: Over target and Missing daily comments. Below, the submitted lines by project.](https://clockclerk.com/guide/img/approvals-queue.webp)

A manager's queue for last week, with one person's week open beside it.

From the top, the open week shows:

- Who filed it, when it was submitted, its status and the buttons to decide it.
- Its figures: **Total hours**, **Billable**, **Non-billable**, the difference from the person's target, and the **Billed value** at the client's rates.
- **Review flags**, the things worth checking before you approve. *Blocking* flags stop the approval; the others are for you to judge.

  - **Billing rate missing** (blocking): billable hours that neither the client's contract nor the standard rates price.
  - **Under target**, more than two hours short; **Over target**, more than four hours over; **Missing daily comments**, days with hours and no description; **No time recorded**, a week submitted empty.
  - Notes: **Non-billable time**, **Weekend hours** and **Long day logged** (more than ten hours in a day).
- **Submitted lines**: each line's project, task, billing role, activity and hours per day. Open a line to read its daily comments; a day with hours and no comment is marked with a corner. **NB** marks time not billed to the client. A public holiday's column is shaded from its header down to the daily total, and striped for a half day, with a **Holiday** or **Half-day holiday** badge in the header; point at the badge or any day in the column for the holiday's name. Weekends are dimmed but never shaded, so the two don't look alike.
- **Expenses** dated in the week, if there are any. Approving the week approves them too, so they are shown here; a single claim can be declined with a reason without sending the week back. That is covered in [Expenses and reimbursements](https://clockclerk.com/guide/workflows/expenses-and-reimbursements.md).
- **Submission history**: every submission, reopening and send-back, with its reason.

## 3. Approve it

1. Choose **Approve week**.
2. The app says *Approved … ’s week.* and opens the next person's week waiting on you.

What happens next:

- The week stays submitted and is now locked for good, unless a reviewer reopens it. The person's **My Week** says **Approved by … on … — this week is closed.** No email is sent.
- Where a client is billed for approved time only (**Bill approved time only** in the invoice settings), approving is what lets the hours onto an invoice. If your organization exports to an ERP, the week shows **· posted to …** beside its status once it has gone.

**When Approve week is disabled.** A week with a **Billing rate missing** flag shows **Approval blocked** and says *Blocked by 1 missing billing rate.* under the button, with the project and billing role that need a rate. An administrator or a Finance user sees **Edit billing rate**, **Price for this project** and **Client contract** beside each one, to add it from there. A manager cannot set rates and is told *Only an administrator or finance user can price … Ask one to add the rate, or send the week back if the project or the billing role is the thing that is wrong.*

## 4. Or send it back

Send a week back when the person has to change something: hours on the wrong task, missing days, a wrong billing role.

1. Choose **Send back…**.
2. In the **Send back for changes** dialog, write under **Reason sent to …** what needs to change. The four buttons above it fill in common reasons, which you can then edit. The reason is required, up to 1,000 characters.
3. Choose **Send back**. The app says *Sent … ’s week back.*

![The Send back for changes dialog for Jordan Ellis, Oct 12 – Oct 18. It reads: The week reopens for editing and the reason goes with it. Four ready-made reasons: Add comments to the days that have none; Hours look short for the week — please check for missing days; Move the internal time off the client project; The billing role is wrong for this work. The first fills the box Reason sent to Jordan, above the note Kept on this week’s history, alongside who sent it back and when. Cancel and Send back below.](https://clockclerk.com/guide/img/approvals-send-back.webp)

Sending a week back. The reason goes to the person and stays on the week's history.

The week reopens for the person to edit: its status becomes **Sent back for changes**, with your reason above their sheet (see [A week sent back to you](https://clockclerk.com/guide/workflows/record-your-week.md)). When they submit it again, it comes back to **Pending** in your queue. Until then it stays under **Decided** as **Sent back**, where **Edit reason** changes what you wrote; the person is sent the new reason.

You cannot send back a week whose hours are on an invoice or on a contractor's acceptance protocol; the app names the document, as in When something goes wrong.

## Approving clean weeks together

Weeks with nothing flagged can be approved in one go.

1. On the **Pending** tab, the foot of the queue says how many weeks have nothing flagged, for example *3 of 5 with nothing flagged*, or how many are blocked.
2. Choose **Approve 3 clean weeks**. The dialog lists the people it covers and says that weeks carrying a flag stay in the queue for you to open.
3. Choose **Approve 3 weeks**.

Only weeks with no flag at all are included, not even a note, so the button often reads **Approve 0 clean weeks** and is disabled. Any week the app will not approve stays with you and is named: *Still with you: …*, followed by the reason.

## Changing your mind

A decision can be undone from the **Decided** tab. Open the person and choose **Reopen week**. The app says *… ’s week is back in your queue.*

- **An approved week** goes back to **Awaiting review**. It stays submitted, so the person still cannot change it. Send it back if they need to. If the week was already exported to your ERP, the app warns first: *These hours are already in … Changes post as corrections when the week is approved again.*
- **A week you sent back** is submitted again as it stands, and the history says *Send-back withdrawn by …*. If the person had already resubmitted it, it is simply waiting on you again.

A week whose hours are on an invoice or a contractor's acceptance protocol cannot be reopened until the invoice is voided or the protocol is withdrawn or returned. Hours on a protocol that is approved for payment or paid are final (see [What the contractor lock freezes](https://clockclerk.com/guide/workflows/pay-contractors.md)).

## Reminding someone who has not submitted

![The Missing tab of a manager's queue for Oct 12 – Oct 18, listing Demo User, Marcus Iyer and Tomas Lindqvist as Not submitted, with 3 of 3 not reminded yet and a Remind all button at its foot. Marcus Iyer is open: Not submitted and an Email reminder button, then Nothing submitted: Marcus Iyer has not filed a week for Oct 12 – Oct 18. A reminder is usually enough — payroll closes the Monday after. No reminder sent yet.](https://clockclerk.com/guide/img/approvals-missing.webp)

The Missing tab: who has not submitted, and the reminder for each.

1. Open the **Missing** tab and choose the person. The week says **Nothing submitted**, and whether they have been reminded.
2. Choose **Email reminder**. The person is emailed a reminder to submit that week, and the button becomes **Reminder emailed**. Their row reads **Not submitted · reminded**.
3. To remind everyone on the tab at once, choose **Remind all** at its foot. It skips anyone already reminded about this week.

- If your deployment of Clock Clerk cannot send email, the button reads **Mark as reminded** and only records that you asked, for example after a word in person.
- If the email bounces, the week says so, so you know to reach the person another way.
- Someone added to the organization who has not signed in yet shows **Not signed in yet** and has no reminder button. Nobody is asked for weeks before they started or after they left, which an administrator sets on their page as their start and end dates.

Clock Clerk also sends reminders on its own, except on the Free plan: on Friday, at a month end, and on Monday morning a list of anything still not submitted. Everyone gets all three unless they turn them off on their profile. An administrator can switch them all off on the Organization tab. That switch does not stop the reminders you send from here, because somebody presses a button for those.

## Older weeks

A week submitted late is in no queue anyone happens to have open, so the row of weeks at the top of Approvals keeps the last eight in view, each with the number still waiting on you. A week with nothing waiting stays in the row with no number, so you can see it is done. The count beside **Approvals** in the menu adds them up. Choose a week to open its queue, or use **‹** and **›** to step back further.

## Weeks that run into a new month

Time is submitted a month at a time, so a week that runs into a new month is two submissions, decided separately. Such a person is listed once in the queue with a row for each month, and the open week has a switch between the two months. The buttons name the month: **Approve Sep 28 – Sep 30**, **Reopen Oct 1 – Oct 4**. Everything shown is cut to that month's days, and a note says the other part was filed separately and is decided on its own. You can approve one month while the other is still in draft.

## Your own week

Nobody reviews their own work, with one exception: an administrator has nobody above them, so they approve their own week.

| Your role | Your own week in your queue | Approve and reopen it | Send it back or remind yourself |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Manager | Not shown. Your own reviewer decides it. | No | No |
| Finance | Shown, marked **Your week**. | No. The app refuses with *You cannot review your own week.* Another reviewer decides it: someone else in Finance, an administrator, or a manager over all of its projects. | No |
| Admin | Shown, marked **Your week**. | Yes. The week records that you approved it. | No |

**Send back…**, **Edit reason** and the reminder button are never shown on your own week, at any role. If one is used anyway, the app says *You cannot send your own week back — withdraw the submission from your own sheet instead.* or *You cannot remind yourself about your own week.* **Remind all** leaves you out. To change a week you submitted, reopen it from **My Week** if you have the permission (see [Reopening a week yourself](https://clockclerk.com/guide/workflows/record-your-week.md)), or ask your reviewer to send it back.

![An administrator's queue for Oct 12 – Oct 18, scoped to Every project, with 5 pending. Their own row, Alex Moreau, is marked Your week and is open: Awaiting review and Approve week, with no Send back button. The rest of the queue lists Jordan Ellis, Ken Osei, Priya Raghavan and Sofia Bianchi.](https://clockclerk.com/guide/img/approvals-own-week.webp)

An administrator's own week in their queue: Approve week, and no Send back.

## What the person is told

| You | Their week | Email |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Approve | **Approved**, locked, with who approved it and when. | None. |
| Send back | **Sent back for changes**, open to edit, with your reason above the sheet and on its history. | Your reason, quoted, where your organization sends email. |
| Edit reason | The new reason replaces the old one. | The new reason. |
| Reopen an approved week | **Submitted for approval** again, still locked. | None. |
| Reopen a week you sent back | **Submitted for approval** again, locked, with *Send-back withdrawn by …* on its history. | None. |
| Remind | Unchanged. | A reminder to submit the week, unless your deployment cannot send email. |

## When something goes wrong

- ***Part of this period is booked to projects you do not oversee, so it is not yours alone to decide. Somebody who oversees all of it — or an administrator — has to.*** The person also worked on projects you do not manage. Ask an administrator, Finance, or a manager of all of them.
- ***You cannot review your own week.*** Only an administrator decides their own week. See Your own week.
- ***Say what needs to change — the reason is what the week is sent back with.*** or ***Keep the reason to 1,000 characters or fewer.*** The send-back reason is empty or too long.
- ***There is nothing to approve — this week has not been submitted.*** or ***There is nothing to send back — this week has not been submitted.*** The person reopened the week before you decided it.
- ***This week has already been decided somewhere else.*** Another reviewer decided it while you were reading it. The queue refreshes.
- ***This week has hours or expenses on invoice … Void the invoice first — reopening it afterwards is the right order.*** Reopening or sending back the week would unlock billed hours. Finance or an administrator voids the invoice first.
- ***This week has hours on acceptance protocol … Withdraw or return the protocol first — reopening it afterwards is the right order.*** The hours are on a contractor's month. Once that month is approved for payment or paid, the app says *They are final.* and the week cannot be reopened.
- ***There is nothing to remind about — this week has been submitted.*** or ***… has not signed in yet, so there is nothing to remind them about.*** The person submitted in the meantime, or has not signed in for the first time.
- **Someone is missing from your queue.** See Who reviews whose time: they need to be on the team of a project you manage.
- **Approve week is disabled.** The week has a missing billing rate. See Approve it.