Replace a departing client’s time approver without stranding submitted hours. Separate future routing, pending reviews and historical decisions, then prove each affected placement has a continuing owner.
A client supervisor leaves on Thursday. The replacement receives next week’s timesheet emails, but this week’s submissions still point to the former supervisor. The staffing agency has changed a contact and still has an approval gap.
A permanent client timesheet approver change is a small transition project across the client, agency and system administrator. It belongs between managing an active placement and reviewing hours for the next financial handoff. The goal is not to approve time during the change; it is to establish who may review which records, make the routing work and preserve decisions already taken.
This guide proposes an operating process, not a universal payroll rule or a product-specific administration manual. Keep the ordinary staffing agency timesheet approval workflow in place while the ownership change is managed.
Decide whether this is replacement or temporary cover
Ask the client’s authorized contact whether the original approver is returning to this responsibility. A permanent departure, role transfer or account reorganization needs a continuing assignment owner. An absence with an expected return belongs in a bounded approval delegation workflow instead.
The distinction has practical support. Weatherby Healthcare’s time-approval FAQ distinguishes its temporary alternate option from a permanent approver change, for which it directs clients to its helpline. That is Weatherby’s process, not a rule for every staffing platform.
Likewise, the Tempus Consultant’s Guide separates choosing another supervisor for a timesheet from asking an administrator to change the contract’s default submit-to party permanently. Changing one pending item and changing the placement default are different actions.
Get the client’s authority decision before changing routing
The agency account manager owns the change case. The client supplies an authorized decision on the replacement; the platform operator implements supported changes. The incoming approver confirms they can review the relevant work, rather than merely accepting an invitation.
Record the departing and incoming people, client entity, affected sites or departments, placement scope, effective date and time zone, and who authorized the replacement. Identify whether the new approver may handle earlier work periods and unresolved disputes. A new job title or a forwarded email is not the same as that decision.
If the request comes from an unfamiliar address, verify it through the established client contact path before acting. Do not ask workers to choose a convenient name solely to clear an overdue timesheet. Unclear authority stays with the account manager for clarification.
Build a two-level cutover ledger
Use one change reference with a placement register and a linked timesheet register. A single row per person will miss workers with multiple placements or periods in different states. Link to restricted records rather than copying unnecessary worker information into the change log.
| Record level | Capture | Owner and acceptance check |
|---|---|---|
| Client decision | Change reference, authorized requester, old/new approver, exact scope, effective boundary and earlier-period authority | Account manager: client decision is clear and traceable |
| Each placement | Placement ID, worker reference, client/site, current default, intended default and operator change reference | Operator: saved assignment/default agrees with approved scope |
| Each affected period | Timesheet ID/version, placement, period, current status, current review owner and intended treatment | Coordinator: every in-flight item has a named disposition |
| Access and receipt | Incoming review access, visibility of required evidence, notification result and outgoing authority disposition | Operator and incoming reviewer: actual access matches the decision |
| Reconciliation | Implemented IDs, failed checks, outstanding item owners, next actions and client acceptance | Account manager: required change checks pass; unresolved work remains explicitly owned |
Take the opening list before implementation and refresh it before closure. New submissions can arrive during the transition. Keep the original submission timestamps and time-period references so that a reassigned item does not appear newly submitted.
Give each timesheet population its own treatment
Future submissions and unsubmitted periods
Update the continuing placement defaults through the system’s authorized administrator. Check every affected placement, including another assignment for the same worker. Confirm what happens when an unsubmitted period is eventually submitted; do not infer its destination from the contact directory.
ClickTime’s approver-assignment documentation, for example, says default changes affect the next submission while already submitted or approved periods retain their original approver of record. This illustrates a behavior to check in your own system, not a guarantee about it.
Submitted, returned and disputed periods
List submitted records individually. Establish whether the supported action is reassignment, an authorized alternative review path or administrator intervention. Record the outcome against the existing timesheet ID; do not create a second time claim to obtain a new destination.
For a returned item, determine where it will go after the worker corrects and resubmits it. For a dispute, identify who can establish the facts about the earlier work. A replacement may have approval authority but still lack the attendance evidence needed to resolve that dispute.
Already approved or financially processed periods
Preserve the original decision, actor and timestamp. Do not relabel old approvals as if the incoming person made them. If an earlier decision needs correction, route that through the existing correction process with its reason and affected downstream records.
Keep the stages separate. Mercury’s agency-approval guidance describes a configuration with client approval followed by agency validation. Replacing the client reviewer should not silently bypass an agency check or mark a time record ready for every later process.
Verify the cutover, including the former approver’s access
The operator should read back the changed assignments and inspect the actual pending queue with the incoming reviewer. Check that the reviewer can see the required worker, placement, period and supporting evidence, and can take only the actions their approved role permits. Receiving an email alone is not a completed access check.
Separately inspect what authority the departing approver retains. Changing a default recipient may not remove wider role-based access or invalidate previously issued approval links. Ask the responsible system owner to establish the actual behavior and perform the authorized removal or restriction needed for this scope.
Do not delete a client user indiscriminately if that person legitimately reviews other assignments. Equally, do not leave this question as “probably disabled.” Record the checked scope, action taken, evidence and any unresolved dependency. Use a supported test procedure; do not approve genuine worker hours just to test a control.
- Wrong queue or missing visibility: the operator investigates against the existing timesheet ID; the coordinator retains ownership.
- New submission during implementation: add it to the ledger and verify its actual destination.
- Old approver acts during cutover: retain the actual chronology and have the authorized owner review that decision against the effective boundary.
- Uncertain platform response: inspect saved settings and affected records before repeating a change. A request acknowledgement is not proof that every item moved.
- Deadline arrives before resolution: escalate to the account manager and responsible payroll/billing owners under their established procedures. This change log does not decide payment obligations or authorize withholding pay.
Reconcile a concrete replacement
Illustrative scenario: a client’s supervisor permanently leaves the approval role. Three agency placements reference that supervisor, and six timesheets are awaiting review. The client authorizes a new manager for those placements and earlier pending periods, with the change effective Thursday at noon in the site’s time zone.
The operator confirms the default on all three placements and accounts for all six pending IDs. Five can enter the new manager’s review path. The sixth is disputed, and its supporting site record has not reached the new manager. It remains an owned exception, not a completed transfer or an approved timesheet.
The account manager obtains the missing evidence from the client. The operator verifies the corrected routing and the former supervisor’s authority disposition; the incoming manager confirms access to the sixth item. The ledger now accounts for six pending reviews under the appropriate owner. The approver change can close even though those reviews have not all been decided.
If one item’s owner or the outgoing access check remains unresolved, keep the change open. Closure means the agreed ownership and control transition is verified—not that a spreadsheet total happens to balance.
Where Workhint fits
Workhint’s Workflow Engine describes defining request steps, routing approvals to roles and requiring details, files or notes before progression. These building blocks are relevant to collecting the client’s replacement decision and assigning implementation and reconciliation responsibilities.
The Staffing Managers solution describes worker hours submission and manager timesheet review. That is the staffing context for the ledger; it does not establish automatic migration of pending approvals, removal of old approval links or synchronization with an external client portal.
Treat this as a workflow design to validate. Identify the system that owns placement defaults, who administers client access and how actual implementation evidence will return to the change case. Keep manual dependencies visible rather than making an internal “approved” status stand in for a change that another system has not confirmed.
FAQ
Can we just replace the email address on the client record?
Not without checking the resulting behavior. The placement default, pending timesheet owner, notification recipient and permitted reviewer may be separate settings. Verify each affected population rather than treating one contact update as proof.
Should the incoming manager reapprove all historical timesheets?
No blanket reapproval is part of this process. Preserve valid historical decisions. Investigate a specific questioned approval through the authorized correction process rather than rewriting the history under the new person’s name.
What if the new approver cannot verify an earlier period?
Keep that period in an explicit exception with a client evidence owner and next action. Authority to review does not supply missing facts. Escalate deadline implications to the responsible teams without inventing approval or payment rules.
When is the permanent change complete?
When the continuing placement defaults, affected in-flight records and outgoing authority have verified dispositions, and the incoming owner accepts the handoff. Individual timesheets may still await a decision; they must no longer lack an accountable review path.
Leave a Reply