Timesheet Approval in Jira: Essential Steps and Typical Mistakes

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Managing employee time efficiently is fundamental to ensuring smooth operations, accurate payroll, and adherence to labor regulations.

A critical element of this process is timesheet approval. In organizations where employees track their hours on a regular basis—weekly or monthly—an approval system helps verify the accuracy and completeness of time logs before they move forward to payroll.

Solutions like ActivityTimeline streamline this process with automated workflows, boosting transparency, consistency, and compliance.

Watch a video on Timesheet Reports in ActivityTimeline >

What Is the Timesheet Approval Process?

The approval workflow typically begins once an employee submits a timesheet and continues through to final validation.

Its purpose is to confirm that logged hours are accurate, overtime is justified, and the entries align with project or legal requirements. Supervisors—such as project managers, team leads, or HR reps—review the submitted timesheets, verify the entries, and decide whether to approve or reject them.

Manual timesheet review can be time-consuming and error-prone, especially in companies without automated tools. This is where having a structured system is crucial.

ActivityTimeline adds automation to the entire process, allowing companies to monitor logged hours more effectively and ensure approved timesheets are locked and ready for payroll.

Once a Jira timesheet is approved, employees cannot modify their entries, which is especially important during payroll cycles. This mechanism safeguards your data and avoids unnecessary administrative issues.

Why Timesheet Approval Matters

One of the most obvious benefits of timesheet approval is the reduction of payroll mistakes. With verified timesheets, HR and finance teams can process payments confidently, knowing that work hours are correct and reflect actual billable time. This reduces disputes and ensures timely, accurate compensation.

Compliance is another major advantage. Labor regulations often demand detailed records of employee work, including breaks and overtime. An approval system helps generate these records and keeps your company audit-ready.

From a project management standpoint, approved timesheets offer visibility into employee workloads, availability, and project timelines. They help managers balance workloads, stay within budget, and detect signs of burnout. When analyzed over time, this data can uncover inefficiencies and help with workforce planning.

Who Approves Timesheets?

Setting up a solid approval workflow starts with assigning the right roles. In ActivityTimeline, responsibilities can be distributed across various roles such as Admins, Managers, Power Team Leads, and Team Leads.

These roles determine who can view, review, and approve timesheets—including whether they can make approvals in bulk or override prior decisions. Having clear permissions in place helps maintain data integrity and ensures the approval process aligns with internal policies.

How to Set Up a Timesheet Approval Flow

Once roles are defined, it’s time to configure the workflow stages: submission, review, and final approval. Employees log their hours and submit timesheets directly within the system.

With ActivityTimeline, approvers can handle timesheet reviews in the same interface. The system offers detailed insights into how hours are allocated across different tasks. A dedicated approvals section allows approvers to filter and review timesheets based on their current status—open, pending, or approved and locked.

You can also choose between weekly or monthly approval cycles, depending on how your team reports time.

During review, approvers should check for completeness, accuracy, and alignment with assigned projects. If something seems off—such as unexpected overtime or missing details—they can reject the timesheet. The employee will then receive feedback and can revise and resubmit.

If necessary, the system allows managers to log time on behalf of team members. This feature can be activated in the configuration settings.

Another useful option is the Time Logging Grace Period, which defines how long employees can still log hours after a reporting period ends. This prevents changes to past data while still allowing a buffer for late submissions.

To help with compliance, the system shows reminders in user dashboards, nudging employees to submit their timesheets on time. Once the grace period ends, the time entries become locked to maintain consistency.

Automating the Approval Workflow

Automation is key to reducing friction in the process. By using tools like ActivityTimeline, teams can introduce recurring tasks and ensure every step is clearly visible and accountable.

Approvers can approve timesheets one by one or in bulk. The Bulk Approve option is especially helpful for managing distributed teams or handling high volumes of entries.

Once a timesheet is approved, it becomes locked and can no longer be edited by the user—ensuring that payroll is based on finalized, validated data.

Another setting—Update approved worklogs if changed in Jira—lets organizations decide whether to allow changes to approved timesheets if entries are updated in Jira. If disabled, the system enforces a strict lock, guaranteeing that approved time entries remain unchanged.

Using a consistent, structured approach helps employees understand what’s expected. And if a timesheet is rejected, fast feedback ensures quick corrections without disrupting payroll cycles.

Turning Off Timesheet Approvals

In some cases, companies may choose to disable timesheet approvals—either temporarily or permanently. This might make sense during internal shifts or in small teams with high trust, where approvals may not be necessary.

In ActivityTimeline, you can do this via the Timesheets Configuration page. Once disabled, all time logs are considered final by default, and no approval step is required.

However, if you go this route, it’s important to communicate the change clearly to your team and update any documentation. Miscommunication can lead to confusion about responsibilities and expectations.

Final Thoughts

A strong timesheet approval process supports accurate payroll, legal compliance, and efficient workforce management. With ActivityTimeline, teams can automate the process, reduce manual effort, and track time more transparently.

Whether you're managing a small department or an international team, a dependable approval system can bring clarity, consistency, and control to your time-tracking workflow.