# How to choose the time approval mode

**For:** Admin
**You'll need:** Owner or Admin role.

You'll choose how worked hours get signed off in your company: a manager approves them alone, the employee confirms their own hours first and then a manager approves, or {{ app_name }} records and approves them on its own. The setting applies to everyone.

## Open the company settings

1. Open the account dropdown (top-right) and click **'Settings'**.
2. In the right column, find the **'Attendance'** section.

## Choose a mode

Open the **'Time approval mode'** dropdown and pick one:

- **'Manager approval only'** — a manager confirms the hours and approves them. One person signs off.
- **'Employee confirmation + manager approval'** — the employee confirms their own hours first, then a manager approves. A manager can't approve a row until it's confirmed. This is the two-step (four-eyes) control.
- **'Automatic'** — nobody signs off by hand. See below.

## Save

Click **'Save'**.

```{note}
New companies start in the mode that fits their country: Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and France default to **employee confirmation + manager approval**; Italy, the UK, and the US default to **manager approval only**. Changing the mode takes effect immediately and doesn't alter rows that are already approved.
```

```{tip}
In the two-step mode, employees most often confirm by clocking out at the kiosk — that clock-out **is** their confirmation. A manager can always confirm on someone's behalf for an absent or departed worker. See {doc}`/track-time/timesheet/how-confirmation-works`.
```

## The Automatic mode

In **'Automatic'**, {{ app_name }} owns the whole positive workflow. Every hour it:

- Records the **scheduled** hours for shifts that have ended and that nobody punched, confirms them, and runs the usual accruals.
- Approves those rows, and approves rows where both a clock-in and a clock-out were punched.

Use it where the schedule *is* the record — salaried teams, or small companies where a manager signing off every row buys nothing.

```{warning}
While Automatic is on, **confirming and approving by hand are refused** — on the web, in the mobile app, and over the public API. That's the point of the mode: one authority decides, so there's never a question about who signed off.
```

The undo actions stay available and are your escape hatch: **'Unapprove'** and **'Undo confirmation'** work exactly as before, so you can always pull a row back, fix it, and let the next sweep pick it up.

Two more things to know:

- **Your history is safe.** Automatic only looks at shifts that ended *after* you switched the mode on. Turning it on never sweeps through and approves your back catalogue.
- **Guessed clock-outs are still held back.** A row carrying the **'Auto clock-out — verify'** badge is left out of automatic approval, exactly as it's refused for manual approval. A person still has to verify or correct that time. See {doc}`/track-time/set-up-automatic-clock-out`.

## Verify it worked

Open **Planning → Management → Timesheet**.

- In the two-step mode, unconfirmed rows show **'Awaiting confirmation'** and the **'Approve'** action is disabled until they're confirmed.
- In manager-only mode the timesheet looks exactly as before.
- In **Automatic**, the **'Confirm'** and **'Approve'** actions are refused, and within an hour the rows for ended shifts read **'Approved'** on their own.

## Related

- {doc}`/track-time/timesheet/how-confirmation-works`
- {doc}`/track-time/timesheet/confirm-a-time-entry`
- {doc}`/track-time/timesheet/approve-a-time-entry`
- {doc}`/track-time/set-up-automatic-clock-out`