Timesheets capture how time is spent, and that data is valuable, but only if the time is genuinely recorded and the recording can be trusted. This piece is about recording and approving time in Odoo Timesheets.
Recording time
Recording time, in Odoo Timesheets, is employees logging the hours they spend, against the work, the project tasks, they spent them on. The recorded time builds up a picture of where time genuinely went. This recorded time is the valuable thing timesheets produce: it is what feeds project cost, project profitability, and time-based billing. So recording time is the foundation of everything timesheets are for.
The challenge of recording: honesty and promptness
The real challenge of recording time is not the mechanics but the discipline: time being recorded honestly and promptly. Time recorded honestly, genuinely reflecting how the time was spent, and promptly, recorded soon after the work rather than reconstructed from memory days later, is time data that can be trusted. Time recorded carelessly, late, roughly, is time data that cannot. And everything timesheets are for depends on the time data being trustworthy. So a business that wants the value of timesheets has to make recording time quick and easy, so it is not a burden, and establish it as a normal, prompt habit, so the recorded time is genuine.
Approving time
Approval is a check on the recorded time. Recorded time can be routed for approval, so that, before the recorded time is treated as final, someone, typically a manager, reviews it. Approval is the point at which the recorded time is checked: does it look right, is it genuine, is it reasonable. Approved time is recorded time that has been reviewed and confirmed.
Why approval matters
Approval matters because the recorded time feeds consequential things, project cost, profitability, and especially billing, where time is billed to customers. Time that feeds those should be right, and approval is the check that it is. Approval catches errors and gives the recorded time a confirmation before it is used. For time that will be billed to a customer in particular, approval matters: the customer should be billed for genuine, reviewed time, and approval is the check that ensures the time billed has been confirmed as right.
Approval should be a genuine check
An honest note. Approval is worth having only if it is a genuine check. An approver who simply approves all recorded time without genuinely reviewing it provides the form of a check without the substance. Approving time well means the approver genuinely reviews the recorded time, that it is genuine, reasonable, right, before confirming it. The approval is where the recorded time is genuinely checked before it is relied on, and that check should be real.
The takeaway
Recording and approving time in Odoo Timesheets are the capturing and checking of how time is spent. Recording time, employees logging hours against the work, is the foundation of everything timesheets are for, and its real challenge is the discipline of recording honestly and promptly, which a business supports by making recording easy and a normal habit. Approving time is the check that the recorded time is right, which matters because the time feeds cost, profitability, and billing, and approval should be a genuine review, not a rubber stamp. For how we approach Odoo, see our ERP practice.