Timesheet approval process: a 10-minute weekly routine

A timesheet approval process is a fixed step where a manager checks submitted hours before they reach payroll or an invoice. Keep it weekly, give it one owner and one deadline, and review by exception: read the odd entries, skim the rest. Done that way, a team of ten takes about 10 minutes a week. This guide gives you the routine, a checklist and a fix table. It works with any tool, or with a spreadsheet.

Why approve timesheets at all?

Because hours turn into money. They become pay, or a client invoice, or both. A person who reads them before that happens catches the mistakes while they are cheap to fix.

The mistakes are common. In an Ernst & Young survey of 508 payroll professionals, reported in January 2023, one in five US payrolls contained errors. Time and attendance errors, grouped with expense errors, ran at 1,139 per 1,000 workers a year. Fixing a missing or wrong time punch took 26 minutes per employee, the slowest correction on the list (HRD Canada on the EY survey, checked October 2026).

Approval also leaves a record. The US Department of Labor says employers must keep accurate daily and weekly hours for each non-exempt worker, and may use any timekeeping method as long as it is complete and accurate (DOL Fact Sheet 21, checked October 2026). A dated approval shows someone looked.

This is general information, not legal advice. Rules differ by state and by role, so check yours.

Should you approve timesheets weekly or monthly?

Weekly, for most teams. Overtime in the US is counted per workweek, a fixed period of 168 hours, and hours cannot be averaged across weeks (DOL overtime page, checked October 2026). A weekly review matches that unit. It also means you are fixing something people remember from days ago, not last month.

Monthly approval can work in two cases. Everyone is salaried and exempt, or a client is billed once a month. Even then, many managers glance at the week every Friday so the month-end pile is small.

As a guide:

• Hourly staff, shifts or overtime: weekly.
• Client billing by the hour: weekly, or at least before each invoice.
• Salaried, no overtime, no client billing: monthly is fine.

Whatever you pick, set the deadlines in advance. One published example has people submit by Monday morning and managers approve by end of day Tuesday (HiveDesk, checked October 2026). Pick your own, write them down and stick to them.

What is a 10-minute weekly review routine?

Run this once a week, at the same time. Block it on your calendar.

1. Confirm who is in. List the people whose timesheets are due. Count them. Note anyone on leave this week, so you do not chase them.
2. Chase what is missing. Message anyone who has not submitted. One line is enough: “Your week is due by 3 pm today.”
3. Sort by exception. Open the long days, the overtime and the manual entries first. These are where nearly all problems live.
4. Run the checklist on each flagged item. Use the list in the next section. Ask a question or fix the entry.
5. Skim the rest. Look at each remaining week as a shape: five normal days, hours in the usual range, the right projects.
6. Approve, edit or send back. Approve clean weeks. If you correct an entry, say why in a note. If a week needs real changes, send it back with one specific instruction.
7. Note the pattern. If the same person or the same problem shows up three weeks running, fix the cause, not the entry.

Read the flagged items first, while you’re fresh. Bulk-approve only after that pass.

What should you check on a timesheet?

Use this list on every flagged week, and a quick version of it on the rest.

• Total hours. Is the total in the range you expect for this person? Ask about a sudden jump or drop before you call it an error.
• Long days. Any day past 10 or 12 hours deserves a look. It might be a forgotten timer or a real crunch.
• Overtime. For non-exempt staff in the US, hours over 40 in a workweek are paid at 1.5 times the regular rate (DOL, checked October 2026). Check whether the overtime was approved before the work, and that it is paid.
• Projects and clients. Do the hours sit on the right project? Wrong codes become wrong invoices.
• Gaps. Missing days that are not leave. Check them against the schedule and the time-off calendar.
• Breaks. Are they recorded the way your policy says?
• Manual entries. Added time should have a reason and a date. These are the entries most worth a second look.
• Rounding. Federal rules accept recorded times rounded to the nearest 5 minutes, tenth or quarter hour, but only if it does not shortchange people over time (29 CFR 785.48, checked October 2026).
• Notes. If you changed something, your note should say what and why.

How do you handle missing, late or wrong timesheets?

Decide the rule before the first late one. Then apply it the same way to everyone.

Problem	Likely cause	Fix
Timesheet not submitted	Forgot, or on leave	Reminder at the deadline. Check the time-off calendar first.
Submitted after the deadline	Busy week, unclear deadline	Approve it, then restate the deadline. Late pay is worse than a late sheet.
Missing hours on a workday	Forgot to clock in	Employee adds the time with a note. Manager approves the addition.
12-hour day	Timer left running, or a real long day	Ask. Edit the entry if it was a mistake. Record the answer.
Overtime nobody expected	Unplanned work, or a timer error	Confirm with the employee. Approve, and set the rule for next time.
Hours on the wrong project	Hurry, similar project names	Edit the project and add a note.
Total far below schedule	Unlogged leave, or work not recorded	Compare with the schedule and time off. Ask before you change it.
Error found after approval	Missed in review	Reopen, correct and re-approve, with the change logged.

On that last row: a good process lets an authorized person reopen an approved timesheet, and records who changed what and when. That log is your audit trail. Without it, “approved” means little.

Ask for overtime to be approved before it’s worked. When it happens anyway, approve it and pay it, then talk about it. Time that was worked is owed, whatever the policy says.

What makes the process easier to run?

Four habits do most of the work.

• One approver per person. Two approvers means each assumes the other looked.
• Reminders on both sides. People need a nudge to submit, and managers need one to approve.
• Rules for what needs a second look. A threshold for long days or overtime keeps routine weeks out of your way.
• Entries that are right on arrival. The more hours are recorded as they happen, the less there is to reconstruct. Manual entry from memory on Friday is where most mistakes start.

The same advice shows up in vendor guides: review during the week as well as at the deadline, so forgotten timers and odd totals show up early (HiveDesk, checked October 2026).

How does Ruam handle approvals?

Ruam is automatic time tracking for remote teams, with no screenshots and one flat price per plan. On the Team plan and up, approvals live in one list. You see weekly or monthly timesheets, manual time entries, time off requests and schedule change requests in the same place. Details are on the approvals page.

The parts that match the routine above:

• You choose weekly or monthly timesheets.
• Approve one item at a time, or select several and approve them together.
• Rules decide what needs a second look. Anything past 12 hours in a day waits for a quick review before it counts.
• A manager digest lists what is waiting, and a reminder goes out when a timesheet is due.
• Time added by hand goes to the approvals list, so the record stays honest.

Automatic time tracking puts hours on the right project as people work, so there is little to rebuild on Friday. Ruam does not take screenshots or record keystrokes. Time off sits next to hours, so you can tell a gap from a day off. If you run a team, the manager page shows how the pieces fit.

Team is $99 a month for unlimited people, and teams get 7 days free with no card.

What to do next

Pick the day. Block 10 minutes. Write the deadline where everyone can see it, and run the seven steps this week. After a month, look at what you keep fixing. That list tells you where the process, or the tool, needs work. Any tool will do, as long as the habit sticks.