Approvals are an important feature for project managers or account managers. It allows you to review all the time and activities logged against a job, make any important adjustments and then "approve" a portion of work for invoicing. This is very handy when you want to filter out any unapproved work for Invoicing.
Using this guide, you can:
Access the Approval Tool
From the View screen, select Tools from the gray toolbars, and from the drop-down select Approve Work. In the following examples, we'll be providing screenshots for approving a Project, but Ticket/Issue approvals will share the same functionality.
From the insight section, you can actually confirm how much time has already been approved for this job. The advantage of approving time is you can produce an invoice with an amount specific to the approved time; this is great for progress invoicing.
Once approved time has been invoiced, then it will no longer show in the Approved time section but will instead show under the Invoices tab.
Learn more about Accelo's Invoicing Feature
Understanding the Approval Screen
The Approval screen is incredibly simple. It actually has a lot of function and power beneath its modest appearance. With a quick look, you can easily see amounts you've Invoiced, a breakdown between approved/unapproved time, and statuses of all objects.
You'll notice there are a lot of segmented 'blocks' which Activities are listed under to approve. It's broken down under the Project and its various milestones. Whether it is a Project or Milestone block, it'll function similarly, so we'll be going into detail on an example Milestone block below.
This block provides several features for tidying up the work logged which we'll go into detail below broken down by sections.
Overview
The first part of the Approval blocks is the Overview. This breaks down where the work under each section (Milestone/Project) is currently sitting.
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Usage - How much Work is currently logged against your Budget for this Block. In this case, $880 has been used out of a $1,400 budget on the Milestone.
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Approved/Unapproved - How many hours have been approved, and how many are unapproved. In this case, roughly 2 hours have been approved, and roughly 8 is unapproved, for a total of 10 logged hours.
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Invoiced - How much of the work has been invoiced. In this case, $0 of the logged work as been invoiced.
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Status - To the right of your Overview, you can see the Object Status. This is to keep track of where the Milestone/Project currently stands in relationship to completion.
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Bulk Approve - Located to the left of your Status, is the Approval button. This will appear if there's any unapproved work on the block you're on. It will approve ALL unapproved activities on the block.
Rows
Each row will hold the same information and options consistently through each Block.
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Owner - The owner of the Task/Activity.
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Against - What the activity was logged against.
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Activity/Task Title - The name of the Task/Activity.
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Status - The Status of the Task will show here, if applicable.
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Non-Billable - How many Non-billable Hours are logged on the Activity.
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Billable - How many Billable hours are logged on the Activity.
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Rate $/h - What is the Rate of the logged work.
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Amount - The total value of the work logged.
Sections
These sections breakdown where the Activities/Work is currently logged.
-
Unapproved - Though not labeled with its own section, all work is by default logged as unapproved. So anything not sitting in the defined sections below will be unapproved.
-
Approved - Activities that have been approved will be sitting here. If they are invoiced, they will be pulled into the next section.
-
Invoiced - A list of your invoiced work. If you create a new Invoice, the newer Invoice will display here instead, and the previously invoiced work will appear in the next section.
-
Previous Invoices - Work that has been invoiced are archived here if there is a newer invoice with logged work present.
Managing your logged Work
So now that you've learned how to read the screens, time to see what you can do to manage the work.
Approve/Unapproved
There are three methods to marking activities as Approved, or Unapproved.
-
Bulk Approval - Is an available option at the top right of the screen of the block (if there are any unapproved activities present).
-
Drag and Drop - You can drag and drop any activities with the icon to the left (screenshot above) to the Approval section.
-
Edit Activity - Using the icon on the right in the screenshot, you can utilize a checkbox to Approve/Unapproved an activity.
Editing an Activity
Instead of utilizing the Approval Screen to manage your activities, you can also dig into each entry on a more micro level of management. Simply click on the Edit Icon to get access to each activity, which will give you a summary of the Parent Object, Owner, and Date of Creation along with some configuration options.
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Billable Time - Notate how much time is logged as Billable.
-
Non-Billable Time - Notate how much time is logged as Non-Billable.
-
Rate - Identify a Base Rate in the drop-down, and an override/manual rate in the next box.
-
Approve Time? - If this box is checked, it is approved. If not, it is unapproved.
Be sure to save your changes!
Bulk Change to Billable/Non-Billable
In each row, you can change all Activities under a Task to be Billable or Non-Billable by utilizing the icons between the two columns for them. The icon appears on hover over for each option.
Approvals are an important feature for project managers or account managers. It allows you to review all the time and activities logged against a job, make any important adjustments and then "approve" a portion of work for invoicing. This is very handy when you want to filter out any unapproved work for Invoicing.
Using this guide, you can:
Access the Approval Tool
From the Project View screen, select Tools then Approve.
From the insight section, you can actually confirm how much time has already been approved for this job. The advantage of approving time is you can produce an invoice with an amount specific to the approved time; this is great for progress invoicing.
Once approved time has been invoiced, then it will no longer show in the Approved time section but will instead show under the Invoices tab.
Learn more about Accelo's Invoicing Feature
Understanding the Approval Screen
The Approval screen is incredibly simple. It actually has a lot of function and power beneath its modest appearance. With a quick look, you can easily see amounts you've Invoiced, a breakdown between approved/unapproved time, and statuses of all objects.
You'll notice there are a lot of segmented 'blocks' which Activities are listed under to approve. It's broken down under the Project and its various milestones. Whether it is a Project or Milestone block, it'll function similarly, so we'll be going into detail on an example Milestone block below.
This block provides several features for tidying up the work logged which we'll go into detail below broken down by sections.
Overview
The first part of the Approval blocks is the Overview. This breaks down where the work under each section (Milestone/Project) is currently sitting.
-
Usage - How much Work is currently logged against your Budget for this Block. In this case, $880 has been used out of a $1,400 budget on the Milestone.
-
Approved/Unapproved - How many hours have been approved, and how many are unapproved. In this case, roughly 2 hours have been approved, and roughly 8 is unapproved, for a total of 10 logged hours.
-
Invoiced - How much of the work has been invoiced. In this case, $0 of the logged work as been invoiced.
-
Status - To the right of your Overview, you can see the Object Status. This is to keep track of where the Milestone/Project currently stands in relationship to completion.
-
Bulk Approve - Located to the left of your Status, is the Approval button. This will appear if there's any unapproved work on the block you're on. It will approve ALL unapproved activities on the block.
Rows
Each row will hold the same information and options consistently through each Block.
-
Owner - The owner of the Task/Activity.
-
Against - What the activity was logged against.
-
Activity/Task Title - The name of the Task/Activity.
-
Status - The Status of the Task will show here, if applicable.
-
Non-Billable - How many Non-billable Hours are logged on the Activity.
-
Billable - How many Billable hours are logged on the Activity.
-
Rate $/h - What is the Rate of the logged work.
-
Amount - The total value of the work logged.
Sections
These sections breakdown where the Activities/Work is currently logged.
-
Unapproved - Though not labeled with its own section, all work is by default logged as unapproved. So anything not sitting in the defined sections below will be unapproved.
-
Approved - Activities that have been approved will be sitting here. If they are invoiced, they will be pulled into the next section.
-
Invoiced - A list of your invoiced work. If you create a new Invoice, the newer Invoice will display here instead, and the previously invoiced work will appear in the next section.
-
Previous Invoices - Work that has been invoiced are archived here if there is a newer invoice with logged work present.
Managing your logged Work
So now that you've learned how to read the screens, time to see what you can do to manage the work.
Approve/Unapproved
There are three methods to marking activities as Approved, or Unapproved.
-
Bulk Approval - Is an available option at the top right of the screen of the block (if there are any unapproved activities present).
-
Drag and Drop - You can drag and drop any activities with the icon to the left (screenshot above) to the Approval section.
-
Edit Activity - Using the icon on the right in the screenshot, you can utilize a checkbox to Approve/Unapproved an activity.
Editing an Activity
Instead of utilizing the Approval Screen to manage your activities, you can also dig into each entry on a more micro level of management. Simply click on the Edit Icon to get access to each activity, which will give you a summary of the Parent Object, Owner, and Date of Creation along with some configuration options.
-
Billable Time - Notate how much time is logged as Billable.
-
Non-Billable Time - Notate how much time is logged as Non-Billable.
-
Rate - Identify a Base Rate in the drop-down, and an override/manual rate in the next box.
-
Approve Time? - If this box is checked, it is approved. If not, it is unapproved.
Be sure to save your changes!
Bulk Change to Billable/Non-Billable
In each row, you can change all Activities under a Task to be Billable or Non-Billable by utilizing the icons between the two columns for them. The icon appears on hover over for each option.
