Approve timesheets and close a month for payroll

Employees record their working time in Employee AZ and send it to you for approval. In Management AZ you approve it or send it back, a person at a time. Once a month is over, you prepare its summaries, which total each person's approved time, and finalise them. A finalised month is closed for payroll: nobody can add, change or decide time dated in it until you reopen it.

Before you start

• Time reaches you once the employee sends it. What employees see and do is described in Clock in and out and send your time.
• Summaries cover calendar months only. A month can be prepared once it is over, and Prepare offers the last 12 months that are over.
• Safety AZ does not calculate pay and has no export to a payroll system. Finalising locks the month's time; your payroll team reads the totals on this page.

Open the timesheets

1. In the menu, under People, select Time & leave.

2. Select the Timesheets tab. The number on the tab is how many submitted time entries wait for a decision.

The Timesheets card under Approvals, in Overview, counts the same entries and opens this page; see Work through the Approvals inbox. The two tiles at the top count the Pending entries and the Employees they belong to.

Approve or send back submitted time

Under Submitted time, awaiting approval, the waiting time is grouped by employee, in name order. Each group shows how many entries the employee sent, their total duration and any overtime, then one row per entry: the Date, the Activity and its description, the Time from start to end, and the Duration. An entry the employee marked as overtime shows Overtime.

1. Check the employee's entries.

2. To send the time back, write what the employee should correct in Reason, if you send it back. The reason is required to send time back and takes up to 500 characters. It is not needed to approve.

3. Select Approve all or Reject all.

The decision covers all of the employee's waiting time: you cannot approve some entries and send back others. It covers the time that waits when you press the button, including entries the employee sent after you opened the page. The page confirms how many entries were approved or rejected.

• Approve all: the time is approved. If the month it is dated in was already prepared, its summary is brought up to date, and an employee who had no summary for that month gets one. The page says when it added one.
• Reject all: the reason is saved against each entry. In Employee AZ, on their Time page, the employee sees it on each entry, can correct the time and send it again. Without a reason nothing is recorded and the page says: Say why the time is being sent back, so the employee knows what to correct.

Approved and rejected entries leave this page. Each person's entries are on their profile, under Time & leave.

Prepare a month's summaries

A summary totals one employee's approved time for one month: the total, the overtime, the breaks, the number of entries and the days worked. Prepare the month once its time is approved.

1. Under Period summaries, choose the month in Month. The list starts with last month.

2. Select Prepare a period.

Everyone with approved time in that month gets a summary, and the page lists the month and says how many summaries were prepared. Preparing the same month again updates the summaries that are not finalised and leaves the finalised ones as they are. One press prepares up to 200 summaries; when more remain, the page says so and you press Prepare a period again.

If nobody has approved time in the month, nothing is prepared and the page asks you to approve the submitted time first. Time still waiting for a decision is not counted in a summary.

Read the summaries

To look at a month without preparing it, choose it in Month and select Show, or use the arrows beside the month's name. The panel lists every summary of that month, with a count of how many are open and how many finalised:

• Employee and Period, marked Monthly;
• Total, with the number of entries and the breaks, Overtime and Days worked;
• Status: Open with the date it was last calculated, or Finalised and Closed for payroll.

An open summary follows the time: when you approve more time dated in its month, its totals are recalculated. A finalised summary is never recalculated.

Finalise a month for payroll

1. Show the month under Period summaries.

2. Select Finalise all to finalise every open summary of the month, or Finalise on one row to finalise only that employee's month.

For one row, the page confirms Period finalised. Time dated in it can no longer be added, changed or decided until it is reopened. For the whole month, it says how many summaries were finalised. Each finalised summary shows Finalised and Closed for payroll. From then on:

• the employee cannot add, change or remove time dated in that month in Employee AZ;
• Approve all and Reject all skip time dated in it;
• Prepare and later approvals leave its totals as they are.

Finalising does not wait for the queue to be empty. If submitted time dated in the month still waits for a decision, the page says how many entries; they stay undecided until you reopen the month. Approve or send back the month's time before you finalise it.

A month that is still running cannot be finalised: its rows show Not over yet. One press of Finalise all changes up to 200 summaries; when more remain, the page says so and you press it again.

Reopen a month

Select Reopen on one row, or Reopen all for every finalised summary of the month shown. For one row, the page confirms Period reopened. Time dated in it can be recorded and decided again. For the whole month, it says how many summaries were reopened. The employee can change their time dated in that month again, and you can decide it.

A reopened summary keeps the totals it had. It is recalculated the next time you approve time dated in that month, or when you prepare the month again. Then finalise it again.

Older months

You can show any month back to January ten years ago. Prepare a period, Finalise all and Reopen all are offered only for the last 12 months that are over. In an older month you can still finalise or reopen its summaries one row at a time; when it has none, the page says A month this far back can no longer be prepared.

If something goes wrong

• No submitted time entries are awaiting approval. Nothing is waiting.
• This month is still running. It can be prepared once it is over. You showed the current month. Prepare it once it is over.
• Period summaries are temporarily unavailable. It is not known which time is closed for payroll, so decisions, Prepare, Finalise and Reopen are disabled until they can be loaded. No decision, preparation, finalising or reopening is offered until the summaries can be read. Refresh the page after a moment.
• Submitted time entries are temporarily unavailable. Counts may be incomplete; refresh this page before making a decision. The submitted time could not be read, so the queue is not shown and no decision is offered. Refresh the page after a moment.
• Some employee or activity details are temporarily unavailable. Entry decisions are disabled until the required details can be verified. The names or activities could not be read. Refresh the page after a moment.
• None of this employee's time is waiting for a decision any more. Nothing was changed. The time was decided from another window or by a colleague, or the employee took it back, after you opened the page.
• When some entries could not be updated, the page says how many. They are still waiting, and the reason you typed is put back in the box, so you can press the button again.

To decide leave requests, see Decide leave requests.