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Payroll final approval is the third and last tier of the FieldTime approval workflow. After an employee’s timesheet has been approved by both the Project Manager (for each individual entry) and the Supervisor (for the full week), it lands in the Payroll queue for your review. When you give final approval, FieldTime locks the timesheet, records a permanent audit timestamp, and marks the data as ready to export to Deltek Vantagepoint for payroll processing.
Once you give final approval, the timesheet is locked. Employees and managers can no longer edit it. Only an Admin can reopen a locked timesheet — doing so resets the payroll approval and requires the timesheet to travel through the full three-tier workflow again before it can be re-locked.

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Who Can Give Final Approval

Users with the Payroll role and users with the Admin role can access the Payroll approval queue and give final approval. The Supervisor and Project Manager roles cannot finalize timesheets from their own queues.

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What You See in the Payroll Queue

The Payroll queue shows every timesheet that has passed both PM and Supervisor approval, along with a readiness indicator for each one. Timesheets are grouped by pay period so you can process a full payroll cycle at once.

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Readiness Indicators

All PM-level entries are approved, the supervisor has approved the full week, and no blocking issues exist. You can give final approval immediately.

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Giving Final Approval

1

Open the Payroll queue

Navigate to Approvals → Payroll Final Approval in the left sidebar. Filter by pay period if you are processing a specific payroll cycle.
2

Review the timesheets

Check the readiness status for each timesheet. For any timesheet flagged as Blocked — Missing Approver, do not proceed — escalate to your Admin before the payroll deadline.For Ready timesheets, click into any timesheet to review the full week detail, PM line decisions, supervisor notes, and hour totals before approving.
3

Select timesheets for final approval

Use the checkboxes to select one or more Ready timesheets. You can select all timesheets in a pay period at once using the Select All checkbox at the top of the list.
4

Click Final Approve

Click the Final Approve button. FieldTime simultaneously locks each selected timesheet, records your name and the approval timestamp in the permanent audit log, and makes the timesheets available for Vantagepoint export.

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What “Locked” Means

A locked timesheet is read-only across the entire system:
  • Employees cannot edit, add, or delete time entries.
  • Project Managers cannot change PM approval decisions.
  • Supervisors cannot modify their approval or notes.
  • Payroll staff cannot alter hour totals or approval records.
The lock exists to protect the integrity of your payroll run and your California wage-and-hour audit trail. Every locked timesheet carries a final audit timestamp that records who approved it and when.

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Exporting to Vantagepoint

Once a timesheet is final-approved and locked, it is marked ready for export. To send time data to Deltek Vantagepoint:
1

Go to the Export screen

Navigate to Payroll → Vantagepoint Export in the left sidebar.
2

Select the pay period

Choose the pay period you want to export. Only final-approved, locked timesheets are included in the export.
3

Run the export

Click Export to Vantagepoint. FieldTime generates the export file and transmits the approved time data to Vantagepoint for payroll processing. A confirmation and export timestamp are recorded in the audit log.

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Reopening a Locked Timesheet

If a correction is genuinely required after a timesheet has been locked — for example, a discovered data-entry error that affects pay calculations — an Admin can reopen it.
1

Admin navigates to the locked timesheet

In All Timesheets, locate the locked timesheet. Locked timesheets display a padlock icon.
2

Click Reopen

Click Reopen Timesheet and enter a reason for reopening. FieldTime clears the lock, resets the payroll approval status, and writes an audit record documenting the actor, timestamp, and reason.
3

Employee corrects and resubmits

The timesheet returns to the employee for correction. After resubmission, it travels through the complete three-tier workflow — PM approval, Supervisor approval, and Payroll final approval — before it can be locked again.
Reopening a timesheet that has already been exported to Vantagepoint may require a manual correction in Vantagepoint as well. Coordinate with your Vantagepoint administrator before reopening any timesheet that has been included in a completed payroll run.