A foreman should not have to chase down hours on Friday afternoon, and the office should not have to guess whether a crew member worked at Job A or Job B. So, who approves timesheets in a subcontracting business? Usually, the person closest to the work reviews the time first, while someone in the office gives the final payroll approval. The exact setup depends on your crew size and how your company runs, but the goal stays the same: accurate labor records without slowing down the job.
Who Approves Timesheets in Construction?
For most subcontractors, timesheet approval works best as a two-step process. The foreman, crew leader, or field manager reviews the crew's hours because they know who was on site, what work was completed, and whether anyone moved between jobs. An office administrator, payroll clerk, project manager, or owner then gives final approval before payroll is processed.
That division matters. Field leaders can confirm the facts from the jobsite. Office staff can catch payroll, cost code, overtime, and documentation issues before money goes out the door.
On a small crew, the owner may handle both steps. That can work when you have five employees and one or two active jobs. Once crews are spread across several jobsites, though, having one person approve every detail becomes a bottleneck. The owner ends up spending evenings sorting handwritten cards, calling foremen, and trying to remember why a worker logged eight hours to the wrong project.
A clear approval chain keeps that from becoming normal.
Start With the Person Who Saw the Work
The first approval should usually come from the foreman or crew leader. They are in the best position to verify start and end times, breaks, job assignments, and equipment or material activity tied to the day's work.
A foreman reviewing time should be asking practical questions: Was everyone on this crew actually here? Did anyone leave early? Did the crew split between two jobs? Were the hours assigned to the correct cost code? Did a worker perform a task that should be tracked separately, such as concrete finishing, trenching, framing, or service work?
This review does more than protect payroll. It protects job costing. If all labor lands in one general bucket because nobody checks the entries, you cannot see which jobs are making money or which activities are eating labor hours. By the time the owner sees the problem, the job may already be over budget.
Foremen should approve timesheets daily when possible, not at the end of the week. A Tuesday time entry is easy to verify on Tuesday. By Friday, people have moved on to another job, worked a long week, and forgotten the details. Daily review takes a few minutes. Rebuilding a week of bad time takes far longer.
Final Approval Belongs With Payroll Control
After field approval, final approval should go to the person responsible for payroll accuracy. Depending on your company, that might be an office administrator, payroll manager, operations manager, project manager, or owner.
This person is not there to second-guess every minute from the field. Their job is to make sure the approved time can be paid correctly and recorded correctly. That means checking for missing entries, duplicate submissions, overtime, unusual hours, wrong employee classifications, and time assigned to the wrong job or cost category.
Final approval is also where companies should catch exceptions. Maybe a crew member logged time while assigned to a different project. Maybe a foreman approved 10 hours for a weather delay, but the office needs a note for the customer or general contractor. Maybe an employee was clocked in but did not have a required break recorded under company policy or local rules.
The office should be able to send a timesheet back for correction instead of silently changing it. That creates a clean record and prevents arguments later. If a correction is needed, the person who entered or approved the time should know why.
Set a Simple Timesheet Approval Workflow
The best workflow is the one your crews will actually follow. It does not need layers of approvals or complicated forms. For many subcontractors, a practical process looks like this:
- Crew members clock in, clock out, and select the job and work activity from their phones.
- The foreman reviews and approves the crew's time at the end of each day or shift.
- The office reviews approved time on a set schedule, usually before the payroll cutoff.
- Errors are returned to the foreman or employee for correction and documented before final approval.
- Finalized hours move into payroll and job-cost reporting.
The important part is consistency. Everyone should know when time must be entered, who reviews it first, and when the office locks the pay period. If the rules change every week, crews will treat timesheets as optional paperwork instead of part of the job.
Set a payroll cutoff that gives the office enough time to review exceptions. For example, if payroll runs on Monday morning, do not wait until Monday at 8:00 a.m. for foremen to submit Friday's hours. Require field approval by Friday afternoon or early Monday, then give the office a defined window to review and finalize.
Avoid Giving One Person Too Much Control
A single approver can be fast, but it creates risk. If a foreman enters time, approves it, and sends it directly to payroll with no review, honest mistakes can become expensive. So can intentional time padding, incorrect job charging, or missed overtime.
On the other hand, too many approvers create their own problem. A timesheet that needs sign-off from a foreman, superintendent, project manager, office administrator, and owner will sit in limbo. Crews get frustrated, payroll gets delayed, and people find workarounds.
Two levels of review are usually enough for a growing subcontractor: field verification and payroll finalization. You may add a project manager or owner review for unusual items, such as major overtime, change-order work, prevailing wage jobs, or labor hours that exceed the estimate. That should be the exception, not the everyday process.
Make Approval Match Your Crew Structure
There is no single job title that must approve timesheets. The right person depends on how your business is organized.
If you run independent crews, each foreman may approve their own crew's time, while one office administrator handles final approval. If multiple crews report to a superintendent, the superintendent may review time before it reaches payroll. On smaller jobs, a working foreman may submit hours directly to the owner. On larger commercial work, a project manager may need visibility into labor coding before the office finalizes payroll.
What should not change is accountability. Every timesheet needs a clear first reviewer and a clear final approver. Avoid vague instructions like, "Someone in the office will check it." When nobody owns the approval, errors stay uncorrected until payroll day.
Use Mobile Time Tracking to Remove the Paper Chase
Paper timecards make approval harder than it needs to be. Handwriting gets missed, cards get lost in truck consoles, and the office often receives them after the details are already fuzzy. Spreadsheets are not much better when multiple people can edit them without a clear approval history.
A field-friendly time tracking system gives foremen a current view of their crew's hours while the office sees the same information in real time. The key is not adding another complicated app that crews avoid. It is giving them a simple workflow that works from the jobsite.
With a system such as SimplySub, a foreman can review crew time by job and activity from a phone, while the office can see what has been approved, what is missing, and what needs attention before payroll. That reduces back-and-forth without taking control away from the people responsible for the work.
Technology does not replace approval. It makes approval easier to do on time and easier to prove later.
Handle Disputes Before Payroll Runs
Employees should have a clear way to flag a missing or incorrect time entry. Foremen should know they are responsible for resolving the issue quickly, and the office should document any adjustment that happens after initial approval.
Do not wait for a worker to notice a short paycheck before investigating. A simple review step, where employees can see their logged hours before the pay period closes, prevents many disputes. It also shows your crew that accurate time matters both ways: the company expects honest reporting, and it is committed to paying people correctly.
For union, prevailing wage, government, or other regulated projects, approval may require extra documentation. Your normal workflow can still apply, but check the contract requirements, payroll rules, and recordkeeping obligations for that job. Those projects often need more detailed classifications and a tighter review process.
The right timesheet approval process should feel boring in the best way. Crew members log time, foremen confirm what happened, the office checks payroll details, and everyone knows where the record stands. When that routine is clear, you spend less time chasing hours and more time keeping jobs moving. To see how SimplySub can simplify time tracking and approval for your crews, schedule a demo or review pricing.
