> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://beebole.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Timesheet and time off approval workflows
> Set up multi-stage timesheet approval in Beebole: configure approval stages and quorum, approve or reject submissions, and follow up with reminders.
Beebole's approval workflow lets you review and lock your team's timesheets — work time and time off alike — before they feed reports, billing, and payroll. Approvers check each submitted period and either **Approve** it or **Reject** it with a comment, stage by stage, following the workflow you configure.
Approval workflows are part of Beebole's paid plans. If no workflow is configured, timesheets are approved automatically the moment they are submitted.
***
## How approval works
1. A person completes their [timesheet](/help/documentation/timesheets) and clicks **Submit** at the top of the page. The timesheet locks and enters the first approval stage.
2. The stage's approvers are notified. Depending on the stage's quorum, either any one of them or all of them must approve.
3. Once the stage is complete, the timesheet advances to the next stage. When the last stage approves, the timesheet is **Approved**.
4. If any approver rejects — a comment is always required — the timesheet becomes **Rejected** and returns to its owner, who can correct it and click **Resubmit**.
The timesheet's status badge shows where a period stands:
| Status | Meaning |
| ------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Draft** | Time entries can still be edited. The period has not been submitted. |
| **Submitted** | The timesheet is locked and waiting in the approval workflow. |
| **Approved** | Every stage has approved. The timesheet stays locked. |
| **Rejected** | An approver rejected the timesheet. The owner can edit and resubmit. |
Click the status badge to open the stage breakdown: each stage shows its approver type, who has already approved and when, and who is still pending on the current stage. A stage with no eligible approver — for example, **People managers** when the person has no manager — shows **No manager found** and is skipped.
***
## Configuring the approval workflow
The workflow is a list of sequential stages. It lives in the **Approval workflow** panel, which exists at three levels: your organization's **Account Settings**, every tag, and every person's profile. Like other cascading settings, the most specific level wins — a workflow set on a person overrides one set on their tags, which overrides the account default. An icon next to the panel shows where the current workflow is inherited from.
Click the button with your initials at the bottom of the left sidebar.
Click **Account Settings** to open your organization's settings. To define a workflow for one team or one person instead, open the same panel on a tag or on a person's profile.
If no workflow exists yet, the panel explains that timesheets are automatically approved when submitted.
Click **Add**. A new stage appears with **Project managers** as its type and **Any** as its quorum.
Pick who approves at this stage (see the table below) and whether **All** approvers or **Any** single approver completes it. For **Specific people**, pick each approver with **Select person**; for **Tagged people**, pick one or more tags with **Select tag**.
Repeat **Add** for each additional stage. Stages run in the order listed — use **Move up** and **Move down** to reorder them, or **Remove stage** to delete one.
Every change in the panel is saved automatically — there is no save button.
### Approver types
| Type | Who approves |
| -------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Admins** | People with admin access. |
| **Project managers** | The managers of the projects in the timesheet. A manager of a parent project also approves time logged on its subprojects. |
| **People managers** | The managers of the person who submitted the timesheet. |
| **Task managers** | The managers of the tasks in the timesheet. |
| **Tagged people** | All people tagged with the selected tag. |
| **Specific people** | The named people you select. |
Beebole resolves approvers when the timesheet is submitted, based on its content. If a period contains entries on three projects, a **Project managers** stage includes the managers of all three.
***
## Reviewing and approving your team's timesheets
Approvers can act from three places: the **Timesheet** page, the **Journal**, or directly from email.
### From the Timesheet page
Managers and administrators see an approval button (**Approval**) in the cluster at the top-left corner of the timesheet grid, with a red badge counting submissions waiting for them. It opens the **Pending** pane:
* The pane lists each timesheet waiting for your approval, with **Late** submissions grouped at the top. Turn on **Show all** to include every pending submission you are allowed to see, not just those waiting for you.
* Click a person to open their timesheet for the submitted period. **Approve** and **Reject** buttons appear at the top of the timesheet whenever you are a pending approver — or an administrator.
* Select several submissions with the checkboxes to act in bulk with **Approve** and **Reject**.
The neighboring team button (**Team**) opens the **Team** pane, which lists your team members with their status for the period. People who haven't submitted yet have a **Remind** button (**Send reminder**) that emails them on the spot.
In the **Team** pane, hold **⌘** while clicking the select-all checkbox to alternate between selecting everyone to remind and everyone to approve.
### From the Journal
Click **Journal** in the left sidebar. Approvers see a banner at the top of the feed — **1 timesheet to approve**, or the total count — or **All caught up** when nothing is waiting. Expand the banner to review without leaving the page:
* Each pending submission shows its total **Hours** and **Billing** amount — plus **Cost**, if your role can see costs.
* Click a person's name to split their total by project, task, and absence type, or click **View records** for the day-by-day entries with their comments.
* Approve or reject one row, or select several and act in bulk.
Totals reflect timesheet entries you can see. Approve and reject act on the whole timesheet.
### From your email
Approval notification emails include a summary of the submitted timesheet and approve and reject links that work straight from your inbox, without signing in. Timesheet reminder emails likewise include a **Submit now** link, so your team can submit a completed period directly from the reminder.
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## Rejecting a timesheet
Rejecting always requires an explanation. When you click **Reject**, a dialog opens with a comment box (**Enter a reason for rejection…**) — the **Reject** button stays disabled until you write one. The reason is delivered to the person and recorded in their Journal.
A rejected timesheet unlocks for its owner. After correcting the entries, they click **Resubmit** and the workflow starts again from the first stage. Beebole records which entries were added, modified, or deleted since the previous submission, and uses that to spare approvers unnecessary work: a project or task manager who had already approved is only asked again if entries on their own projects or tasks changed.
***
## Time off approval
Time off goes through the same workflow as work time. When someone records an absence on their timesheet and submits the period, the configured approval stages review it along with the rest of the timesheet. The absence counts against the person's allowance as soon as it is recorded — approval reviews and locks the entry but does not gate the balance. See [Time off](/help/documentation/timeoff) for absence types and allowances.
***
## Editing a submitted or approved timesheet
Submitting locks a timesheet for its owner, but it doesn't have to be rejected to be corrected:
| Status | Owner | Current-stage approver | Administrator |
| ------------- | -------- | ----------------------------------------------------- | ------------- |
| **Draft** | Can edit | — | Can edit |
| **Submitted** | Locked | Can edit — the workflow restarts from the first stage | Can edit |
| **Approved** | Locked | — | Can edit |
| **Rejected** | Can edit | The rejecting approver can correct entries in place | Can edit |
To edit on someone's behalf, open the **Pending** or **Team** pane and click the edit button (**Edit timesheet**) on the person's row. Their grid unlocks for you; the override switches off when you move to another person. Administrator edits never restart the workflow.
The restriction **Only the owner or an admin can edit entries** in [Timesheet and Planning Settings](/help/documentation/timesheetSettings) removes the approver column above — only the owner and administrators can then change entries.
### Force approve and reject Admin only
Administrators can unblock the pipeline without reconfiguring it: they can **Approve** or **Reject** any submitted timesheet, even when they are not approvers for the current stage. An already-approved timesheet can also be rejected — by an administrator, or by someone who was an approver on its last stage — which sends it back to its owner.
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## Reminders and notifications
* **Remind approvers after** a number of **days if not yet approved** — found in the **Reminders** tab of the **Timesheet and Planning Settings** panel — automatically follows up on submissions still waiting for review. Set it account-wide in **Account Settings**, or override it on a tag or a person, just like the approval workflow itself.
* The **Remind** button in the **Team** pane sends a one-off reminder to anyone who hasn't submitted.
* Each person controls how they receive **Approval updates** — by email or push notification, instantly or as a digest — in their notification settings. See [Notifications](/help/documentation/notifications).
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## Approval history
Every approval action is logged in the person's [Journal](/help/documentation/journal) feed: **Submitted for approval**, **Approved by** and **Rejected by** entries with the approver's name and the rejection reason, plus **Auto-submitted** and **Auto-approved** events, each tagged with its stage. For who approved what on the current submission, click the timesheet's status badge to open the stage breakdown.
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## Related content
Track time, submit your period, and review your team from the timesheet grid.
Configure the timesheet period, auto-submit, entry restrictions, and reminders.
Set up absence types and allowances, and record time off on the timesheet.
Follow your team's activity feed, messages, and approval events.
***
## Frequently asked questions
It depends on the approval workflow your administrator configured. Each stage names an approver type — admins, project managers, people managers, task managers, tagged people, or specific people — and Beebole resolves the actual approvers from your timesheet's content when you submit. Click the status badge on your timesheet to see each stage and who is pending.
The approver must enter a reason, which Beebole sends to you and records in your Journal. Your timesheet unlocks so you can correct the entries, then click **Resubmit**. The workflow runs again from the first stage, but approvers unaffected by your changes are not asked to re-approve.
Yes. The **Approval workflow** panel exists on the organization's **Account Settings**, on every tag, and on every person's profile. A workflow defined on a tag applies to everyone under that tag, and a workflow on a person overrides everything else — so each team can follow its own sign-off process.
Beebole approves timesheets automatically the moment they are submitted. Add at least one approval stage in the **Approval workflow** panel to require a review before timesheets are locked.
Yes. Absences recorded on the timesheet are submitted and approved together with the rest of the period, through the same approval stages. The time off counts against the person's allowance as soon as it is recorded, even before it is approved.