Approvals and period locking

Hourseal can turn logged time into final, signed-off hours. People submit their timesheet, a manager approves it, and the period locks so totals stop changing. Both features are optional and are set up by an admin in Settings → Periods & approval.

Timesheet approval

Turning it on

1. Open Settings → Periods & approval.
2. Switch on Timesheet approval and choose the cycle: weekly or monthly.
3. Optionally pick the approvers. If you leave the list empty, managers approve. Admins can always approve.

How it works for a team member

1. Log time during the period as usual.
2. At the end of the period, open the Timesheet view and click Submit week (or Submit month).
3. A submitted period is read-only for you. If your manager sends it back, you can edit it again and resubmit.

How it works for an approver

1. Open the Timesheet view and switch to the Approvals tab. It lists every timesheet waiting for you.
2. Review the hours, then Approve or Return it with a comment.
3. If you return it, the person gets a monday.com notification with your comment, and can fix and resubmit.

Each period has one of four states: Draft, Submitted, Approved or Returned. Reports can include approved time only, which is what most teams send to payroll or invoicing.

Period locking

Locking stops anyone from changing time in past periods, including admins, so reports you have already sent stay correct.

Lock manually. Set Locked through to a date. Entries on or before that day can't be added, edited or deleted.

Lock automatically. Choose a cycle (week or month) and a delay in days, from 0 to 90. For example, *month, 5 days* locks each month on the 5th of the next month.

Reopen for corrections. An admin can click Reopen closed periods for 24 hours. Locks are ignored until then, or until the admin closes them again. Every reopening is recorded in the change log.

Change history

Every create, edit and delete is recorded with who made it, when, and the values before and after. Reopening locked periods is recorded too. The history is kept for as long as the app is installed. Viewing it inside the app is coming soon; until then, write to support@hourseal.app for an entry's history.

Recommended setup for payroll and invoicing

1. Turn on weekly approval, so problems are caught while people still remember the week.
2. Turn on automatic locking: *month, 5 days*.
3. Add a monthly email export on the 6th with approved time only. See Reports and exports.

The finished, approved report then lands in your payroll or finance inbox every month with no manual work.