> ## 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 planning settings: configuring time entry
> Configure the Beebole timesheet for your team: period and auto-submit, entry restrictions, time entry unit and timer, categories, and reminders.
Timesheet settings control how everyone in your Beebole account records time: the period they fill and submit, the unit and format for entries, what they can track time on, which restrictions apply, and when Beebole sends reminders. While people use the timesheet itself from the sidebar (see [Timesheets](/help/documentation/timesheets)), you configure it from the **Timesheet and Planning Settings** panel.
Every change in the **Timesheet and Planning Settings** panel is saved automatically — there is no save button.
***
## Opening Timesheet and Planning Settings
Click the button with your initials at the bottom of the left sidebar.
Click **Account Settings** to open your organization's settings.
Open the **Timesheet and Planning Settings** panel. Its options are grouped into five tabs: **Period & submission**, **Categories**, **Time entry**, **Reminders**, and **Auto Timesheet from Planning**.
Settings made here apply account-wide. The same panel also exists on each person's profile and on tags, so you can override any setting for one team or one person — see [Different settings for different teams](#different-settings-for-different-teams).
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## Period & submission
### Timesheet period
The **Timesheet period** defines the stretch of time a timesheet covers — the period people fill in, submit, and have approved as one unit. It is not just a display preference: each period is one timesheet.
| Period | The timesheet covers |
| ---------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Daily** | A single day. The grid shows one day with each row's full entry form inline. |
| **Weekly** | One week, starting on your account's first day of the week. This is the default. |
| **Bi-weekly** | Two consecutive weeks. |
| **Semi-monthly** | Half a month: the 1st through the 15th, then the 16th through the end of the month. |
| **Monthly** | A calendar month. |
Weekly and bi-weekly periods start on the day set as **First day of the week** in the **Localization** panel of **Account Settings**.
### Auto-submit
**Auto-submit timesheets after X days** submits unsubmitted timesheets automatically once the configured number of days has passed since the period ended. The auto-submitted timesheet enters the [approval workflow](/help/documentation/approval) like a manual submission. Leave the value at 0 to disable auto-submit. It does not apply when the timesheet period is **Daily**.
### Lock date
The **Lock date** freezes every time record on or before the chosen day. Locked records can no longer be created, edited, moved, or deleted — by anyone, administrators included. Attempts are refused with the message **Timesheet and Planning Settings prevent any change to the locked date**.
Use it to close accounting periods: once payroll or invoicing for a month is done, set the lock date to the end of that month and the underlying data can't drift. The freeze applies everywhere time records change hands, including the [BambooHR time-off sync](/help/integrations/bamboohr).
To correct data in a locked period, move the **Lock date** back first, make the fix, then restore it. Like every timesheet setting, the lock date can also be set per person, team, or project — see [Different settings for different teams](#different-settings-for-different-teams).
### Restrictions
The **Restrictions** list controls what time entries the timesheet accepts. By default there are none — the panel shows **No restrictions configured**. Pick a rule from the **Add restriction** menu to activate it; click the × on a restriction's chip to remove it.
| Restriction | What it does |
| ----------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **No overtime beyond the schedule** | Blocks time beyond the hours in the person's [work schedule](/help/documentation/work-schedule). Available in a **daily** variant (per day) and a **period** variant (per timesheet period). |
| **Require filling the whole schedule to submit** | The timesheet can only be submitted once all scheduled time is filled — per day (**daily**) or across the period (**period**). |
| **Don't allow time entries in the future** | Blocks time entries on future dates. Future entries are limited to time off requests, so people can still plan vacation ahead. |
| **Only allow time entries on scheduled working time** | Blocks entries on scheduled days off and public holidays — time off entries are exempt. |
| **Keep start/end times within the scheduled hours** | When start and end times are recorded, an entry's times must fall within the person's scheduled working hours. Available as a **warning** (the entry form warns but allows saving) or a **block** (the entry is refused, including when copying entries to other days). |
| **An absence can't be longer than a day** | Caps a single time off entry at one day. |
| **Only the owner or an admin can edit entries** | Only the person the timesheet belongs to, or an admin, can add or edit its entries. |
Restrictions with variants — **daily** and **period**, or **warning** and **block** — show each active variant as a tag on the chip, and you can activate one or both.
Independently of any restriction, a submitted or approved period is always locked while it waits in the [approval workflow](/help/documentation/approval), and records on or before the [**Lock date**](#lock-date) can't change at all.
***
## Time entry
The **Time entry** tab defines what people type into a timesheet cell.
### Unit for time entry
**Unit for time entry** sets the unit for every timesheet cell:
| Unit | People enter |
| -------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------- |
| **Hours** | A duration in hours, in the format set below. |
| **Day or fraction of day** | Full or partial workdays, such as `1` or `0.5`. |
| **% of schedule** | A percentage of their scheduled time for that day. |
### Duration format
When the unit is **Hours**, two more options appear:
* **Duration format** — how hour values are displayed and typed: **3:15** (hours and minutes), **3.25** (decimal hours), or **3h15** (compact hours-and-minutes notation).
* **Minimum time interval accepted** — the smallest increment the timesheet accepts. Durations are rounded up to the nearest multiple of this interval; new accounts start at 15 minutes.
### Timer, start and end times, and comments
* **Enable timer** adds a timer button to each timesheet row so people can time their work as it happens — see [Using the timer](/help/documentation/timesheets#using-the-timer). Check **Mandatory** next to it to require the timer: durations can then only be recorded by running it.
* **Record start and end times** adds **Start time** and **End time** fields to each entry's details, and Beebole calculates the duration. Check **Mandatory** next to it to require start and end times on every entry.
* **Require comments for submission** requires a note on time entries before the timesheet can be submitted.
Checking **Mandatory** switches its parent option on automatically, and disabling a parent option clears its **Mandatory** checkbox.
***
## Categories
The **Categories** tab decides what people can track time on. Each choice becomes a section of rows in everyone's timesheet.
### Project categories
**Record time on these project categories** lists the [project](/help/documentation/projects) categories available in the timesheet. Each row of the list is one timesheet section:
* A row with a single category — for example **Clients** — lets people pick one project from that category per timesheet row.
* A row with chained categories — **First** **Clients**, **then** **Activities** — makes people pick one entry for each level: first a client project, then an activity.
* Click **Add a row** to offer an alternative section, and pick its categories with **Pick a category**.
### Plannings
**Record time on these plannings** does the same for [tasks](/help/documentation/planning): people can add timesheet rows for tasks in the selected plannings (task categories). Add one with **Pick a planning**.
### Time off
**Allow recording time off** controls whether a **Time Off** section appears in the timesheet, where people add rows for absence types. See [Time off](/help/documentation/timeoff).
Removing a category here does not delete any time entries. Existing entries remain visible in timesheets and reports — people just can't add new rows for that category.
***
## Reminders
The **Reminders** tab configures two kinds of follow-up.
### Reminding people to submit
**Remind to submit** sends a reminder — by email or push notification, following each person's [notification settings](/help/documentation/notifications) — to anyone who hasn't submitted their timesheet. Choose when it goes out:
* **Start of next period** — on the first day of the new period, about the period that just ended.
* **End of current period** — on the last day of the period being filled.
Then pick the hour. The reminder is sent at that hour in each person's time zone, includes a summary of their timesheet, and lets them submit directly from the email. People who already submitted are skipped, and reminders don't apply when the timesheet period is **Daily**.
### Reminding approvers
**Remind approvers after** a number of **days if not yet approved** follows up on submitted timesheets that are still waiting for review. The first reminder goes out the configured number of days after the approver's initial notification; while the timesheet stays pending, Beebole keeps following up at increasing intervals. Leave the value at 0 to disable approver reminders.
### Warning about unassigned tasks
**Notify everyone involved** a number of **days before an unassigned task starts** warns about planned work nobody has picked up. The task manager and the people assigned to the task are notified — the admins when the task has no manager. This setting exists account-wide only, and 0 disables it.
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## Auto Timesheet from Planning
The **Auto Timesheet from Planning** tab turns work planned on [tasks](/help/documentation/planning) into timesheet entries, so people who did what was planned don't have to fill their timesheet by hand.
Check **Enable Auto Timesheet from planning**.
Add a planning with **Pick a planning**, then choose its **Start** and **End** statuses from the planning's [Kanban workflow](/help/documentation/kanban). Moving a task to the start status starts its clock; moving it to the end status generates the time entries. Remove a planning with the × on its row.
By default, generated entries arrive as [suggestions](/help/documentation/ai) the person reviews and accepts. Check **Fill timesheet directly** on a planning's row to write the records straight into the timesheet instead.
When several tasks finish the same day, the day is split between them. Entries the person logged manually are never touched — automatic entries rebalance around them.
***
## Different settings for different teams
Timesheet settings cascade. Values set on **Account Settings** apply to everyone, but the same **Timesheet and Planning Settings** panel appears on every [tag](/help/documentation/tags) and on every person's profile:
* Set a value on a **tag** to override the account default for everyone under that tag — for example, a monthly **Timesheet period** for one department.
* Set a value on a **person** to override both the tag and the account default for that one person.
Next to each setting, an icon shows where its current value is inherited from. After overriding a value, you can reset it to fall back to the inherited one.
***
## Related content
How your team uses the timesheet: adding rows, entering time, the timer, and submitting.
Submission, multi-stage approval workflows, and reviewing your team's timesheets.
Define the expected hours that schedule-based restrictions check against.
Organization-wide settings, including localization and the first day of the week.
***
## Frequently asked questions
Open **Account Settings** from the button with your initials at the bottom of the sidebar, open the **Timesheet and Planning Settings** panel, and on the **Period & submission** tab set **Timesheet period** to **Monthly**. The change applies account-wide unless a tag or person overrides it.
In Beebole's **Timesheet and Planning Settings**, on the **Period & submission** tab, open **Add restriction** and pick **Don't allow time entries in the future**. Work entries on future dates are then blocked, while time off can still be requested ahead of time.
Yes. The **Timesheet and Planning Settings** panel also appears on tags and on each person's profile in Beebole. A value set on a tag overrides the account default for everyone under that tag, and a value set on a person overrides both. Everything else stays inherited.
Two Beebole settings cover this. **Remind to submit** emails anyone who hasn't submitted, at the hour you choose, with a link to submit directly from the email. **Auto-submit timesheets after X days** then submits the timesheet automatically once the configured number of days has passed since the period ended.
The first day of the week is a regional setting, not a timesheet setting. In **Account Settings**, open the **Localization** panel and set **First day of the week**. Weekly and bi-weekly timesheet periods in Beebole start on that day.