Why approve hours before invoicing?
Once an invoice goes out, it’s hard to undo. Issuing a credit note takes time, and if a client spots one mistake, they may start doubting the rest. Catching errors before invoicing only takes a minute.
Approval is also when someone with a broader view looks at the week. An employee sees only their own hours; a manager can spot if a project suddenly doubled its budget, or if someone logged nothing for three workdays. That’s all a manager sees: what someone did on their computer or phone isn’t part of the registered hours.
Who should approve timesheets?
Someone who understands the work: the project lead, team lead, or the owner in a small business. They know if ten hours for a task makes sense and which client requested what.
Use the four-eyes principle: no one approves their own hours. If you work alone or are the only approver, that’s not possible. In that case, set a regular time to review your own week as the next best thing.
What do you check when approving?
You don’t need to recalculate every entry. Look for what a client or accountant would notice.
| Check | What to look for |
|---|---|
| Description | Can the client understand what was done? Send back empty or vague entries like ‘work’. |
| Project and client | Is the work logged to the right client? Assigning hours to the wrong client is the costliest mistake. |
| Billable or not | Internal work marked as billable, or the other way around. |
| Outliers | A fourteen-hour day, or a five-hour task that usually takes thirty minutes. |
| Missing days | Gaps in the week without leave or a sick day. |
| Leave | Open leave requests for that week. |
If you’re not sure about an entry, ask instead of quietly changing it. The employee knows what happened; you don’t.
What rhythm works?
Weekly. A week is short enough to remember what you did, and long enough that it’s not a daily task. Monthly approval may seem efficient, but then people have to dig up mistakes from four weeks ago.
- Employees finish their week before the weekend, with a description on every entry.
- On Monday or Tuesday, the approver reviews the previous week.
- Clean weeks are approved in one go; weeks with questions are declined with a reason.
- The employee fixes the declined hours and resubmits them.
- At the end of the month, only approved hours are invoiced.
How do you decline hours?
Always give a reason that explains what needs to change. ‘Wrong’ doesn’t help; ‘This belongs to the Website project, not Maintenance’ does. A good reason is specific and about the entry, not the person.
Only decline what’s incorrect. If one day is unclear, approve the rest and send back just that day. That way, invoicing for the other hours isn’t delayed.
Which mistakes are easy to make?
Most problems aren’t from bad intent, but from rushing. A few patterns keep coming up.
- Approving your own hours. The check is gone, even if the system allows it.
- Bulk-approving everything without looking. Bulk is fine for weeks without warnings, but not as a substitute for checking.
- Quietly editing hours. The employee doesn’t learn, and the change is hard to explain later.
- Approving late. Unapproved hours can’t be invoiced; a backlog delays your revenue.
- Approving hours logged by an AI assistant without review. They’re just a suggestion; read the description like any other entry. More in logging hours with AI.
How Half5 does it
In Half5, turn on ‘Approve hours before invoicing’ in the organization settings. Entries then have the status ‘Not approved yet’, ‘Approved’, or ‘Declined’. You can only decline with a ‘Reason for declining’ (up to 500 characters), which the employee sees on the entry. An approved hour can still be declined as long as it hasn’t been invoiced. With this setting on, only approved hours go into draft invoices.
Admins approve for the whole organization. A department manager approves for their team and for hours on that department’s projects. Your own entries are approved by another approver; only if there’s no one else do you approve them yourself. The screen shows, per person per week, the registered hours, leave, and trips the customer pays for or that qualify for a mileage allowance. ‘Missing description’ flags empty descriptions, ‘Too few hours’ flags a week well below contract hours. Weeks without warnings are approved with one button (‘Approve 4 clean weeks’). Leave requests are under ‘Open requests’; see registering leave.
An employee’s timeline isn’t shown on this screen or in any report. It’s stored on their own device and end-to-end encrypted between their devices; no approver, admin, or Half5 can access it. Hours logged by an AI assistant through MCP come in as ‘Not approved yet’ and follow the same approval process.
Frequently asked questions
Does a freelancer without staff need to approve hours?
There’s no one else to do it. The main benefit is having a set time to review your week before invoicing; you can do that without formal approval.
What happens to declined hours?
They go back to the employee with the reason attached. The employee fixes the entry, and you review it again. Declined hours aren’t invoiced.
Can a manager edit an employee's hours directly?
Often technically yes, but it’s better to decline with a reason. That way, the employee knows what was wrong, and it’s clear who recorded what.
How often should you approve timesheets?
Weekly works for most teams. Everyone still remembers what happened, and you’re not behind when it’s time to invoice for the month.
Who approves the manager's own hours?
Another approver, like a fellow manager or the owner. If there’s no one else, reviewing your own hours is the only option.
