Plan availability: this feature depends on your subscription. If you don't see projects and timesheets in your menu, your plan may not include them — see Subscriptions & billing, or ask your workspace owner.
When you bill time to a customer's project, you can ask the customer to sign off on each time entry before it is invoiced. The customer gets a secure link by email — no account or sign-in needed.
When it applies
Customer approval is a per-project choice. On projects that require it, a time entry goes through two approvals:
- Internal approval — your own manager approves the entry first.
- Customer approval — the customer then confirms it is ready for billing.
Until the customer responds, the entry shows as Pending Customer Approval and is not billed.
What the customer receives
An email with a secure link to a Time Approval page: "Review the billed work entry below and confirm whether it is ready for billing." The page shows the project, task, team member, date, duration, description, and the billable amount.
The customer can:
- Approve for billing — optionally adding their name or role and an approval note.
- Reject and send back — with a reason for rejection, so your team knows what to fix.
The decision is final for that link — it cannot be reused to change the answer. If a decision needs to be revisited, your project team resets the entry internally.
Link expiry
The approval link is valid for 14 days. An expired link shows a "Link expired" page — "The secure link you used to review time entries has expired. No changes were made to the time entry or the project." — and asks the customer to contact the project team for a refreshed link. Nothing in your books changes when an expired link is opened.
Common problems
- Customer never received the email. Check the customer's email address on their record, and ask them to check spam.
- Customer clicked but the page says the entry can't be decided. The entry was probably already decided, or it hasn't been internally approved yet.
- Approval option is missing on your side. The project may not require customer approval, or your user isn't allowed to manage it — ask your workspace administrator.