# Approve a timesheet

Check an engineer's week, then approve it so it's locked for payroll, or send it back with what needs changing.

Do this once a week, after your engineers submit their time. By default Sustainable ERP reminds engineers with an open week at 15:00 on Friday.

1. Open **People → Timesheets**. Each row is one engineer's week, with **Paid time**, **Overtime**, **Flags** and **Cost**.
2. Use **Previous week** and **Next week** to change week, and the status filter to show only **Submitted** weeks.
3. Select an engineer to see their week day by day.
4. Look at anything with a flag:
   - **Overlaps other time**: two entries cover the same minutes.
   - **No end time**: a visit or entry was never finished.
   - **Unusually long**: by default, an entry over 12 hours.
   - **Outside working hours**: outside your business hours.
5. Put right anything that's wrong. See [Add or correct time](/people/add-or-correct-time/).
6. Select **Approve**, then **Approve** again to confirm.

The week is locked from then on. Nobody can change it, so put any later correction in the next open week.

You can't approve your own timesheet. That needs **timesheets.approve** and someone else's week.

## Send a week back

1. Select **Send back**.
2. Under **What needs changing?**, write what's wrong.
3. Select **Send back**.

The engineer is told why. The week shows as **Sent back** until it's changed and submitted again.

## What the totals mean

- **Paid time** is work plus holiday and sick, without unpaid breaks.
- **Breaks** come from pauses with a reason marked as a break. See [Labour settings](/settings/labour-settings/).
- **Overtime** is work beyond your weekly limit, 40 hours by default. Holiday and sick don't count towards it.
- **Labour cost** uses each person's [cost rate](/settings/cost-rates/).

## Read next

- [Export time for payroll](/people/export-for-payroll/)
- [Job costing](/jobs/job-costing/)