Approve time (and what gets written to Autotask)
When someone submits their week, an approver approves it. Approval is the moment time leaves ProjectSmith: each approved entry becomes an Autotask time entry, and from then on Autotask handles billing and invoicing exactly as it does for time entered there.
Who can approve: anyone with a Planner seat, for anyone’s time. A Member seat is for keeping track of your own time, so a project manager needs a Planner seat to approve time, including on their own projects.
Nobody approves their own time. A Planner’s own week is approved by another Planner; in a workspace with a single Planner, give a second person a Planner seat.
Approve or reject a week
Section titled “Approve or reject a week”- Go to Approvals. Waiting lists each person’s submitted week, with its hours against their weekly capacity.
- Each week opens to its entries: day, project and task, hours, billable setting and note. Open week shows the person’s whole week as they see it.
- Check the entries. Things worth a second look: missing or vague notes, billable time against internal work, days well over the standard hours.
- Then either:
- Approve the week. Every submitted entry you can approve in it is approved and locked; or
- Reject the week, with a short reason. The entries go back to the person as Rejected, showing your reason, for them to fix and submit again.
If a week has time on projects you don’t manage, you decide only your projects’ entries; the rest wait for their own approver.
Screenshot placeholder: a submitted week open for approval, with Approve and Reject.
Approved and Sent back list the weeks you decided in the last eight weeks.
What gets written to Autotask
Section titled “What gets written to Autotask”For each approved entry, ProjectSmith creates one Autotask time entry:
| Autotask field | Comes from |
|---|---|
| Project task | The task the person logged against (ProjectSmith timesheets are for project tasks; ticket time stays in Autotask) |
| Resource | The person who logged the time, as their own Autotask resource |
| Role | The person’s Autotask role |
| Date and hours | The day and hours logged |
| Summary notes | The entry’s note |
| Billable | The entry’s billable setting |
Then:
- ProjectSmith stores the Autotask time entry’s ID and locks the entry. It can no longer be edited in ProjectSmith.
- Billable time is picked up by Autotask’s own billing, the same as time entered in Autotask. Invoicing happens in Autotask.
- The task’s hours logged go up, in both systems.
Approved entries are written to Autotask in batches every few minutes. If Autotask doesn’t answer, ProjectSmith tries again on its next runs. If Autotask refuses the entry (for example, a required field in your Autotask is missing, or the person isn’t linked to an Autotask resource), the entry shows the reason and waits for a Planner to fix the cause and retry. It is never silently dropped. While the write-scope guard is on, time against a project task outside the scope is refused and the entry says why.
Undoing an approval
Section titled “Undoing an approval”Sometimes time is approved by mistake. A Planner can reopen an approved entry: in Approvals, open the Approved tab, open the week and choose Reopen on the entry. It goes back to the person as a Draft so they can fix it and submit again. But:
- ProjectSmith does not delete the time entry in Autotask. It never deletes time in Autotask.
- The reopen is recorded in the audit log, with who did it and when.
- If the entry was already in Autotask, an inbox item is raised for a manager to correct or remove the entry in Autotask itself.
This keeps Autotask and ProjectSmith honest with each other: nothing disappears from Autotask without a person deciding it should.
Common questions
Section titled “Common questions”Who approves whose time? Anyone with a Planner seat can approve anyone’s time. Most teams give each project manager a Planner seat and have them approve the time on their own projects.
Can I approve my own time? No. Another Planner, or the project’s manager, approves it, so every entry has a second pair of eyes.
The time is in Autotask but the invoice is wrong. Check the entry’s billable setting and the Autotask contract on the task. ProjectSmith sends the time; Autotask applies rates and contracts.