Reviewing hours and the audit trail

What you are reviewing

Employees log hours with timers and manual entries (see PGB 201). Every week those hours land in the HR Suite under Hours & Timesheets so a manager can review them. The central rule of the screen is shown as the Preserved Audit Rule: original tracked or added hours remain exactly as entered. A reviewer does not edit the employee's entries; instead the reviewer sets the approved hours that count for payroll and client reporting.

Weekly Hours Review & Approvals

Open Hours & Timesheets. The first sub-tab, Weekly Hours Review & Approvals, lists one row per employee per Week Starting, with Tracked Hours, Approved Hours, Status, Reviewer Notes and a Review Action column. Weeks awaiting a decision are shown as awaiting review.

To review a week:

1. Choose Review Hours on the row.
2. Read the Tracked / Added Hours and the entries behind them.
3. In Approved Hours (Set by Manager) type the figure to approve. Shortcuts fill it for you: Match Tracked copies the tracked total, and Standard 40.0h enters a full week.
4. Add Reviewer Notes to explain any difference.
5. Choose Approve & Set Hours, or Reject Timesheet if the week needs correction.

The decision, your notes and the date are recorded against that week.

Approval Audit Trail

The Approval Audit Trail tab holds the "Hours Approval Audit Trail": an immutable record of reviews and approved-hours decisions, with the original tracked hours preserved permanently as entered. Each entry shows the Employee, Period Week, Tracked Hours, Approved Hours, Status, Reviewer Notes, Reviewed By and Logged At. Choose Refresh to reload it.

This is your evidence if hours are ever questioned. Because the original figures are never changed, you can always show what was logged, what was approved, who decided and when.

Note: The audit trail is a record, not a lock you switch on. The app preserves the originals and logs every decision; there is no separate payroll-lock setting.

Limits on tracked hours

The second sub-tab, Limits, sets Maximum Trackable Hours. You can configure caps globally, per project or per user. Each limit has:

• Scope & Target: Global Default, Per Project or Per User.
• Daily Limit (an optional daily cap) and Weekly Limit (the weekly payroll threshold).
• Total Cap, the overall hours allowed for a project or contractor.
• Enforcement: Strict (Block) blocks timers and manual logging at the limit. Warning Only lets people continue while flagging it, so it appears as Flags in timesheets.

Use Strict for fixed-price contractors with a budget, and Warning Only for employees where you simply want visibility.

A weekly routine

1. Monday morning: open Hours & Timesheets and sort out weeks awaiting review.
2. Approve normal weeks quickly with Match Tracked.
3. For outliers, ask the employee, then use Reviewer Notes.
4. Check the Approval Audit Trail before you export figures for payroll.