Timesheet Approvals in Toggl 2.0

What are Timesheet Approvals?

Timesheet Approvals add a formal submission and review workflow to Toggl 2.0. Members submit their tracked time for a period; an approver reviews it against expected hours and approves it, requests changes, or declines it. Once a period is submitted or approved, it locks, so the numbers behind billing, payroll, and reporting don't shift after the fact.

Timesheet Approvals is available on the Premium plan and above, on the Webapp only.

Each setup is weekly or monthly. A weekly period repeats on the weekday chosen at setup. A monthly period is one calendar month, from the 1st through the last day.

When should you use Timesheet Approvals?

Turn it on if any of this sounds familiar:

You bill clients by the hour. Approval is the checkpoint that catches missing or misattributed time before it turns into an invoice.
Time data feeds payroll. A locked, approved period means payroll runs off numbers everyone has already signed off on, not a moving target.
You need a record for compliance or client audits. Approved and declined timesheets, with comments attached, give you a trail to point to.
People forget to log time until it's too late to remember accurately. A submission deadline and reminders turn tracking from optional into part of the routine.

If you're mainly using Toggl for personal time awareness and nobody downstream depends on the data being locked down, you probably don't need this.

Who's involved?

Admins create one or more approval setups: who's included, who approves, and on what schedule.
Approvers (the assigned team lead, manager, or admin) review submitted timesheets and approve, request changes, or decline them.
Members submit their timesheet for the period and see feedback if changes are requested.

A member can also be their own setup's approver, and a workspace admin can act as approver for any setup.

Setting up Timesheet Approvals (Admins)

Click Approvals in the left sidebar, then + New timesheet setup.
Add the members this setup applies to. A member can belong to only one active setup at a time; members already in another setup are hidden from the picker.
Choose the approver: the person who reviews and approves this group's timesheets. A member can be an approver too.
Set the period to Weekly or Monthly. Weekly repeats from the weekday you pick. The default start is Monday, so a Monday start runs Monday–Sunday, and a Wednesday start runs Wednesday–Tuesday. Monthly is a full calendar month. The calendar only allows the 1st as a start date, and the helper text reads “Each timesheet covers a full calendar month, starting on the 1st.”
Confirm Period starts on. Past or future dates are allowed. Picking a date more than one period back warns you how many overdue periods members will see.

The period and the start date stay as they were on the day the setup was created. To move a team onto monthly approvals, create a new setup and choose Monthly. A member can belong to only one active setup, so take them off the weekly setup first. Setups that already exist stay on their current period.
Optionally turn on Remind members to submit their timesheet. Reminders go out by email and are on by default at 09:00. A weekly setup defaults to Friday. Choosing Monthly sets the reminder to the first day of the month. For a monthly setup, pick First day of the month, Last day of the month, or Custom and enter a day from 1 to 31. For day 29, 30, or 31, shorter months send the reminder on the last day of that month.
Click Add timesheet setup.

From the gear icon on the Approvals page, open Manage timesheet setups to edit a setup, manage its members, discontinue it from a chosen period onward, or delete it outright. The list shows each setup as Weekly or Monthly, with its start date. On a monthly setup, discontinue offers This month rather than This week.

Submitting your timesheet (Members)

Submit from the Timesheet view on the Timer page:

Review your logged time for the period.
Add an optional comment.
Click Submit for approval.

Once submitted, that period becomes read-only, you can't add, edit, or delete time entries in it until your approver takes action. If your approver declines your timesheet, it goes back to Not Submitted with no comment attached. If they request changes, you'll see their comment, and can edit and resubmit.

On a monthly setup the grid is the whole month. The arrows move one month at a time, and This month jumps to the current month. Copy last month offers the same two choices as a weekly sheet: Copy projects and time logs, and Prefill projects and tasks. Week 1–Week 4, or Week 1–Week 5 in a longer month, scroll inside that month. Submit still covers the whole month.

Reviewing timesheets (Approvers)

Open the Approvals page to see everyone in your setup, split into four tabs: Pending review, Changes requested, Approved, and Not submitted.

Each row shows the member, the period, a Weekly or Monthly badge, hours logged against expected hours for that period, and the approver. Expected hours are that member’s working capacity for the week or the month, depending on the setup. Use the ⋮ menu on a row to Approve directly or View in reports.

Click into a member's row to see their full timesheet: total hours and billable percentage for the period (with an Edit expected hours link), and a day-by-day breakdown by task. From there you can:

Approve: you can do this even before the member submits, if you've already reviewed the hours and they're correct.
Decline: sends it back to Not Submitted with no comment attached.
Request changes: add a comment describing what needs fixing; the member sees it and can resubmit.
Withdraw approval: available once a timesheet is approved; moves it back to Not Submitted, and the member is notified they need to resubmit.

A monthly timesheet shows the whole month. Week 1 through Week 4 (or Week 5 in a 29-, 30-, or 31-day month) jump to that part of the month. A 28-day February has four tabs. The last tab of a longer month covers the remaining days, such as the 29th–31st. Opening a monthly timesheet shows the date range on its own. A weekly timesheet still shows the week number with the range, such as W12 · Jun 24–28.

What locking means

Members can't add, edit, or delete time entries in a submitted or approved period.
Admins and roles with approval permissions can still edit entries in a locked period if needed, with a warning that the change affects an already-submitted or approved timesheet.
On the Timer page’s Timesheet view, a weekly setup is labeled Approval week and shows its status, plus “Approval week runs {weekday}–{weekday}” and a Why? link. Why? explains that the admin set that weekday range, and that Calendar and Reports still follow the member’s own week start. A monthly setup is labeled Approval month and shows its status. It does not show the weekday line or Why?.
On the Calendar view, a locked period shows a lock icon on its time blocks. Logging new time there is disabled. Planning ahead is still allowed. On a monthly setup the locked span is the calendar month.

Notifications

Timesheet Approvals send email notifications (in-app notifications are planned for later) for:

A reminder when a submission is due and hasn't happened yet.
A member's timesheet being sent back with requested changes.
A member's timesheet being declined.
An approver withdrawing an approval (the member is told to resubmit).

Reminders and due dates respect each person's own timezone, and the timesheet view always displays in the submitter's timezone, for both the submitter and the approver.

Tips for a good approvals setup

Turn reminders on. It's built in, and it's the difference between chasing people manually and letting Toggl do it.
Pick a submission day and keep it. A weekly reminder on the same weekday, or a monthly reminder on the same day of the month, is easier to build into a routine.
Encourage logging as you go, rather than reconstructing the period at the end. A timesheet is only as accurate as what is in it. Approving a week or a month someone has just tried to remember does not catch much.
Review promptly. The faster an approver acts, the faster a flagged entry gets fixed while it's still fresh for the person who logged it.

FAQ

Can I require monthly instead of weekly approvals? Yes. On a new timesheet setup, choose Monthly. Each period runs from the 1st through the last day of the month. The period stays as it was when the setup was created, so a weekly setup stays weekly. Create a new monthly setup and move members onto it. A member can be in only one active setup at a time.
What if the reminder day is the 31st? Shorter months send it on the last day of that month. The same applies to the 29th and the 30th. Last day of the month does this every month.
Do the Week tabs mean members submit each week? No. Week 1 through Week 4 or Week 5 only move around inside the month. The member submits the month once, and the approver reviews that month.
Can more than one person approve the same timesheet? Not yet. Each setup has a single approver. Multi-layer approval (e.g. manager, then finance) is planned for a later release.
What happens if I need to edit a time entry after it's approved? Members can't. Admins or roles with the approvals permission can edit locked entries, with a warning shown first.
Can I stop using an approval setup? Yes. Discontinue a setup from a chosen period onward if your team no longer needs it.
My team lead should approve, but I don't want to make them a workspace admin. Is that possible? Yes, any member can be assigned as an approver; they don't need admin access.