This section provides an overview of the process for approving a timesheet in OnTarget Clinical.

In order to approve a timesheet, the approver logged into the system will need to be listed as the supervisor of the employee whose timesheet is being reviewed.  This association occurs in the employee record.  Under the Demographics tab, there is a Reports To field.  The person listed there is the only person who will have the ability to approve the staff’s timesheet.  The Reports To person and the employee themselves are the only 2 users that will see the timesheet. 

Once that link has been made, back at the Timesheets Desktop, all of the employees whom the approver is the Reports To person for will be visible in two different places.  First, by clicking on Add Timesheet, the approver's name and all of the associated staff will be visible.  This allows the approver to create timesheets for any staff in the event that they are not able to do so themselves.  Second, once timesheets have been created, the approver will see each employees timesheet listed on the left hand side of the screen.

Timesheets are ready to be approved once they have been signed by the staff.  The status of the timesheet is visible under the pay period (Signed or Unsigned). 

Staff typically should not sign their timesheet until they have verified all of their time.  This is because once they have signed it, they are not able to make any edits unless they unsign it.  Typically a signed timesheet is ready to be reviewed for approval.

To begin reviewing, click on the timesheet of the pay period intended to be approved.  The total hours per day and the grand total are at the bottom of the screen.  It is recommended to open up the daily summary in order to view the details.  Click the expand button at the top of the column to do so.

Pay close attention to the icons under the Type column.  Hovering the mouse pointer over the icon will reveal a tool tip that indicates how the time was entered on the timesheet. The three options are notes, schedules, or manually entered time.

If it is required that billable time be generated from approved notes or even schedules, then the review process should check for any manually entered billable time.  For the example below, there are two records for the same time and date (9/28) and it is easily differentiated by the type icon.  One record comes from a note and one was manually entered.

In this case, the staff would have received an overlapping time message, which can be verified by clicking on the Validate Timesheet button; they chose to override that message.  While securities can assist in managing whether overlapping time can be overridden, which would enforce the staff to manage their own time, a supervisor would want to remove the time since it is duplicate.

As the Reports To person for a particular employee, supervisors have the authority to remove time from the timesheet, even when it is signed.  Likewise, time can be added if it is discovered there is missing time.  The staff will receive an automatic task notification on their dashboard that their timesheet was edited.  Timesheet approvers may also choose to open up a time record and send a personalized task if that is necessary.

Another point of queuing that is important to incorporate into the timesheet approval routine is to click on the import into timesheet button. 

While the caregiver should be responsible for managing this in order to establish their billable time, there could be circumstances, mainly time related, that arise where notes become approved for payroll after the timesheet has been signed.  If any notes display and it is determined they should in fact get considered on the timesheet, then select the notes and import.  Otherwise, the notes will remain eligible for import into the next pay period’s timesheet.

In the example below, there is a note record highlighted pink.  By hovering the mouse pointer over the record, it is indicated that the particular service on the note is not eligible for billing or payroll.  The note is still carried through the system life cycle, but the time is not included in the total.  This note is simply for reference and to acknowledge how employee time was spent in the pay period.

Timesheet approvers have the option of opening up each time record to add a task.  Other options include opening the note directly for review or uploading a document to support the time record (DMS).

There are a few other buttons found at the top of the timesheet.  The Validate Timesheet button will present any warning messages that were displayed at the time the entries were made.  This is usually most helpful when the supervisor is ready to approve the timesheet and would like to understand where any entries may be out of compliance before they approve the time.  There are controls in security for what warning messages are allowed to be overridden.  For example, input of any overlapping time may not be allowed if the security administrator has enforced that rule.

When clicked on, the Late Notes Report button will show notes that occurred before the date range of the timesheet selected, but are not found on any other timesheet.  It will also show notes that occurred before or during the date range of the selected timesheet, but were signed after the date range of the selected timesheet.

Export timesheet allows for printing of the report or exporting to another file type, such as excel, PDF, etc.

The last step, once all time is verified, is to approve the timesheet.  Click the approve button (bottom right corner) and enter in the login password.  This is the same password used to sign into the program. 

Once the timesheet has been successfully approved, the status of the timesheet will move from signed to approved.  Approved timesheets are ready to be pulled for payroll purposes.  If any edits need to occur at this point prior to the payroll run, then un-approve to unlock the timesheet and edit accordingly.  Remember to re-approve it.  Only approved timesheets are eligible for to be pulled for payroll.

Name and date filters are available and can be useful for timesheet supervisors to focus on one pay period at a time and/or a particular caregiver's timesheet(s).