Methods for approving and reporting ready

This table provides you with an overview of possible actions for the approval and reporting ready process. Depending on whether or not you approve for Profit Payroll, you also see four methods for approving and reporting ready.

	Approve the actual costing	Report the actual costing ready	Approve for Payroll
Actual costing lines	Block actual costing lines so they can no longer be changed or deleted.	Channel actual costing lines to project invoicing.	Channel actual costing lines to Payroll. Only applies to those lines for which the hour, cost, or work type has been configured for integration with Payroll.
Leave accrual on the basis of actual costing (time off in lieu excluded)	Update the period balances (accrual only!) of the employees in question, if this has been configured for the leave type. If not, the period balances are updated when the actual costing lines are entered. Taking up leave is done from Profit HR.	n/a	n/a
Time off in lieu	Update period balances (accrual and taking up) of the employees in question, if this has been configured for the leave type. If not, the period balances are updated when the declaration lines are entered.	n/a	n/a
Comment	Profit performs this step automatically if the Approve immediately check box has been selected in the project settings. This will make Profit block the lines immediately after they have been entered.	If the Approve immediately check box has been selected, you can also select the Close immediately check box. This will make Profit approve the actual costing lines immediately and make them invoiceable automatically.	Profit performs this step automatically if the Approve for Payroll check box has not been selected in the HR settings. This makes Profit channel the lines automatically to Payroll after they have been entered or approved.

The steps for approving and reporting ready follow each other in a logical way. Both steps are necessary in order to invoice the actual costing lines. The Approve for Payroll step is independent from this. This is why you can perform the Approve for Payroll step at two moments in time:

Consecutive approval of the actual costing and the approval for Profit Payroll.
Separate approval of the actual costing and the approval for Profit Payroll.

Method 1: Consecutive approval of the actual costing and the approval for Payroll

You first approve the actual costing. Only expense lines that have been approved in the actual costing can be approved for Payroll. This gives you more control over the expenses entered.

As you can see from the diagram, you can also undo an approval:

If you undo Approve actual costing, Profit will unblock the declaration lines in question. This allows your employees to change or delete these lines again.
Because the approval results in an update of the period balances, undoing the approval will result in another update (reversal) of these period balances.
If you undo Approve for Payroll, while the lines in question have already been processed, this will lead to an RAE entry.

Method 2: Separate approval of the actual costing and the approval for Payroll

You approve the actual costing, but cost lines that have not been approved, can still be approved for Payroll. In this setup the approval processes are performed independently of each other. This means that you may only review a cost entry after it has already been channelled to Payroll.

In the below setup, Profit will update the period balances based on time off in lieu, after you have approved the time off in lieu entries. The approval therefore has two effects: the time off in lieu lines are blocked and the time off in lieu balances are updated. This way you keep optimum control over the time off in lieu balances.

Using this method, you can also update the time off in lieu balances while approving the actual costing, or immediately after entering. This is not different from method 1. Undoing an approval is not shown in this diagram.

Method 3: Approve for Payroll only

You do not use approval of the actual costing. This means that you do not review the actual costing lines regarding time off in lieu. This is why the time off in lieu leave balances need to be updated immediately after the actual costing lines have been entered. This should be configured in the properties of the Time off in lieu leave type.

Note:

If you do not use Approve actual costing, the actual costing lines remain available for processing. This means that employees can change entries afterwards without your approval.

Method 4: No approval

You do not approve the actual costing lines:

This means that you do not review the actual costing lines regarding time off in lieu. See also method 3.
You also do not review the actual costing lines that need to be processed. Profit will approve these lines automatically after they have been entered.