Certification and approval are two different controls
DCAA guidance says employees should sign their timesheets at the end of each work period, certifying that the hours reflect the work performed and the appropriate cost objectives. The supervisor should then approve and cosign the timesheet.
In an electronic system, the two actions can be clicks, but they should remain distinct events. Employee certification says ‘this is my record of my work.’ Supervisor approval says ‘I reviewed this record against the information available to me.’ Neither action transfers responsibility for entry from the employee to the manager.
What the employee should certify
The certification text should be understandable and specific. It should cover the recorded hours and the cost objectives selected for the period. Avoid a long legal paragraph that employees accept without reading.
Before certification, show incomplete days, total hours, direct and indirect charges, and any unresolved correction. Require the employee to resolve the exceptions rather than certifying a record the system already knows is incomplete.
- The employee entered or reviewed the time personally.
- The hours reflect all work performed during the period under company policy.
- The selected direct and indirect objectives reflect the nature of the work.
- Known errors have been corrected through the documented process.
What the supervisor should review
Approval is not a rubber stamp on the total. The supervisor should review whether the employee was authorized for the selected work, whether hours are complete, whether unusual entries are explained, and whether the recorded activity is consistent with assignments and observable work.
The manager should not approve simply because the project has budget. Funding does not determine the charge. A funding warning belongs in the operational review, while the timesheet continues to reflect the work actually performed.
- Missing or late days and unexplained deviations from the expected schedule
- Use of a code outside the employee's work authorization or effective dates
- Unexpected direct-versus-indirect activity
- Large, duplicate, zero, or negative entries that require explanation
- Corrections made after initial submission
- Conflicts between the recorded labor category and assigned work
Choose an approval period that supports the rest of the system
Daily entry does not require daily supervisor approval. Many contractors certify and approve on a weekly, biweekly, semimonthly, or payroll-aligned period. Choose a cadence that supports timely exception resolution, payroll, billing, labor distribution, and accounting close.
Define a submission deadline, supervisor deadline, escalation path, and final lock. If payroll runs before time is approved, document how preliminary and final labor records are reconciled. Avoid a schedule that makes accurate review impossible because every manager receives dozens of periods minutes before payroll closes.
Assign the right approver and a documented delegate
The approver needs knowledge of the employee's work and authorization. A finance administrator may know the codes but not what the employee performed. A project manager may know the work but lack responsibility for indirect time. Define the primary approver, escalation owner, and delegation rule for each population.
Temporary delegation should have start and end dates and remain visible in the approval record. A shared administrator account or universal approval queue weakens accountability.
Do not let approval hide unresolved exceptions
A system may allow approval with a warning, block approval, or require an explanation. Decide which rule applies to missing time, unauthorized codes, open corrections, and unusual hours. The policy should explain when an exception can proceed and who accepts the risk.
Use overrides sparingly and report them. A manager who approves around the same warning every period is not resolving the control problem; the warning has become decoration.
Invalidate or repeat approval after a material change
If approved hours or cost objectives change, the old certification and approval no longer describe the current record. Route the correction for employee concurrence or recertification and supervisor reapproval. Preserve the previous attestations as historical events linked to the superseded version.
Define whether non-labor metadata changes require the same workflow. The rule should be based on whether the change affects what the employee certified or what the manager approved, not merely on which database field changed.
Evidence to retain for each approved period
For a selected employee and period, retrieve the timecard version certified, certification text, employee identity, timestamp, supervisor identity, approval timestamp, exceptions visible at approval, later corrections, and replacement attestations.
Also retain the policy version and work authorization that applied. The evidence should be understandable without reconstructing events from notification emails, screenshots, or an administrator's memory.
Measure whether approval is working
Track late certifications, late approvals, rejected periods, overrides, post-approval corrections, and repeat exceptions by team. A fast approval rate is not necessarily good if managers approve everything without review. Look for patterns that show unclear codes, unrealistic deadlines, poor training, or managers with too many direct reports to review properly.
Use the findings in refresher training and mock floor checks. The goal is an approval control people can explain and operate, not a collection of green status icons.