Time tracking¶
Time tracking records who worked on what, on which day, and for how long. Hours are entered on a weekly grid, submitted as a week, and approved by somebody else — and once approved they are priced from the rate card that applied on the day the work was done.
Entering your hours¶
Open Timesheet in the workspace menu.
- The grid opens on the current week, Monday to Sunday.
- Each row is one thing you worked on. Pick the project or the task; picking a task fills in its project for you.
- Type hours into the day columns. Half hours are fine —
3.5. - Add a description if the row needs one. It is what an approver reads.
- Save.
Rows can be added and removed freely while the week is a draft. Use Previous and Next to move between weeks; the grid loads whichever week the date falls in.
Note: The timesheet always shows your hours. There is no way to open somebody else's week from here — that is what the approvals screen is for.
Submitting a week¶
Submit hands the whole week to an approver. From that moment the week is locked to you: entries cannot be edited, added or deleted while they are waiting on a decision.
A week that is sent back returns to draft on the same rows, so you correct and resubmit rather than starting again.
Approving somebody's week¶
Open Approvals in the workspace menu. It lists every submitted week that has not been decided, oldest first, with the person, the period and the total.
- Click a week to see the entries behind the total.
- Approve or Reject, with an optional comment.
Rejecting returns the entries to draft for their owner. Approving locks them permanently.
Note: You cannot approve your own timesheet, whatever permissions you hold. The point of approval is a second person.
The Approvals menu entry only appears if you hold the Approve timesheets grant, so most people never see it.
Correcting approved hours¶
Approved entries are never edited or deleted. A correction is a new entry carrying negative hours and pointing at the one it reverses, so the record shows what was claimed, what was corrected, and when.
This is deliberate: approved hours are what cost reports and billing are built on, and a figure that could be quietly edited afterwards would make every report a snapshot of the moment it was run.
Hour rates¶
An Hour Rate is a Library item that says what one hour costs and what it sells for, from a given date.
| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Rate Person | Whose rate this is. Leave it empty for the workspace default rate |
| Effective From | The date these rates start applying |
| Cost Rate | What the hour costs the business |
| Sales Rate | What the hour is billed at |
| Rate Currency | The currency both figures are in |
| Rate Note | Why this rate, agreed with whom |
Changing a rate¶
Do not edit a rate card to change it. Save a new version with a new Effective From — the version history of the card is the rate history, and that is what lets last month's hours keep the rate they were costed at.
A rate card only applies once it is Approved. A draft card prices nothing.
Which rate applies¶
When a week is approved, each entry is priced from the rate card version whose Effective From is the latest one on or before the day that entry was worked. Because a week can straddle a rate rise, Monday and Thursday can legitimately cost different amounts.
The person's own card is used when they have one. When they do not — or when their card starts after the day in question — the workspace default card is used instead.
The cost, the sale price, the currency and the exact rate version are copied onto each entry at approval. Editing a rate card next year cannot restate what last year's hours cost.
Note: If no rate applies, the hours are approved with no cost rather than a cost of zero. Unknown and free are different things, and a report that showed nought for both would be misleading.
Business rules¶
- One timesheet per person per period. A rejected week is corrected on the same rows rather than becoming a second submission.
- A day cannot hold negative hours unless the entry is a reversal.
- Entering your own hours needs no permission beyond an Editor seat. Everything about somebody else's time is gated.
- Approval and rejection are recorded with the deciding user, the time and the comment.
Permissions¶
| Grant | Effect |
|---|---|
| (none) | Enter, edit and submit your own hours |
| Approve timesheets | See the Approvals screen; approve and reject other people's weeks |
| View all time | See the hours-by-project report, which aggregates everybody's hours |
Known limitations¶
- There is no screen for editing somebody else's hours. An approver reads and decides; correcting is the owner's job.
- Rate cards are managed as ordinary Library items. There is no dedicated rate administration screen.
- A rate card's property-level permissions are not configured by the setup template, so cost rates are readable by anyone who can open the Library until an administrator restricts them.