# From shift draft to payroll **For:** Manager | Admin **You'll need:** Nothing. A shift travels through five stages between *pencilled in* and *paid*. The same record carries the data the whole way — there is no hand-off, no separate "payroll system" to sync with. This article walks each transition: what triggers it, what flips, and what locks behind you. ## The flow at a glance ``` Draft │ publish ▼ Published │ clock-in / clock-out → confirm ▼ Confirmed │ manager approve (locks the row) ▼ Approved │ ▼ Payroll export ``` Each arrow is a deliberate action by a specific role. Each transition narrows what's still editable. ## 1. Draft — the planner's sandbox A new shift is **Draft**. Visible to planners and managers; **invisible to shift workers**. Free to move, resize, reassign, or delete. This is where most of your work happens. Bring shifts in from a {doc}`schedule template `, a {doc}`recurring pattern `, or {doc}`Alt+drag `. Validate against your team in the {doc}`coverage grid ` and the {doc}`assignment dropdown `. Iterate until you're happy. Anyone you assign to a draft shift sees nothing yet — an assignment's visibility follows the shift. ## 2. Published — released to the team You promote drafts in bulk from the {doc}`publish horizon `: pick a cutoff date and {{ app_name }} flips every draft shift starting on or before that date to **Published**. The people on each shift see it the moment it publishes — there's no separate assignment to publish. What changes: - Workers see the shifts on their calendar. - If {doc}`shift acceptance ` is on, each assignee is asked to accept or decline. - The shifts feed availability and coverage as committed work. - Managers can still edit, but edits are now visible to assignees. Published the wrong batch? **Unpublish** retracts a shift to draft — as long as nobody has clocked in and it hasn't started. Once a shift has run or its hours are approved, cancel it instead; the worker sees the cancellation but the shift stays on the calendar as a record. See the full state diagram in {doc}`/plan-schedules/shifts/lifecycle`. ## 3. Confirmed — the clock data is in and signed off Once a published shift starts, workers (or a manager on their behalf) clock in and out. When the hours are **confirmed** — recorded and signed off as correct — the assignment is **Confirmed**. Confirmation is what makes the time real. Specifically, it: - Locks in the worked hours that drive overtime tiers and premiums. - Triggers leave accrual for accrual-style policies. - Triggers {doc}`time-comp accrual ` for time-comp policies. Who confirms depends on your company's **time approval mode**. In manager-approval-only mode a manager confirms; in employee-confirmation mode the worker confirms their own hours first (most often just by clocking out at the kiosk). Either way, a confirmed entry is still editable — **Undo confirmation** clears the clock data and reverses the accruals. See {doc}`/track-time/timesheet/how-confirmation-works`. ## 4. Approved — the manager signs off, the row locks A manager reviews confirmed entries on the {doc}`timesheet ` and approves them. **Approved** is the sign-off state — and it's the only lock in the flow. In employee-confirmation mode, a manager can't approve a row until it's confirmed. Approval **locks the underlying shift** — you can't change times, position, or assignment after approval without first unapproving. There's no separate "close the books" step: you approve each row, and an approved row is frozen until someone unapproves it. **Unapprove** clears the audit stamp and re-opens the entry. Approving every row for a pay cycle is your contract with payroll: *the numbers won't move under you.* ## 5. Payroll export The {doc}`payroll summary ` is the final view. It groups time entries by person inside a pay cycle (the cycle length comes from your **payroll frequency** in company settings) and totals regular hours, overtime tiers, premiums, paid and unpaid absence, time-comp, and gross pay. By default the report includes Published, Confirmed, and Approved entries — filter to **Approved-only** for a clean, signed-off export. Export the report to CSV, XLSX, or PDF and hand it to your payroll vendor. Payment itself doesn't have a status — once you've exported, the payroll vendor takes over. ## What locks behind you, in order | State | What you can still change | | --- | --- | | Draft | Everything | | Published | Everything; edits notify workers | | Confirmed | Times, breaks, assignment; confirmation can be undone (editing the times clears it) | | Approved | Nothing, until **unapproved** | When a save is refused, unapprove the entry. See {doc}`/plan-schedules/shifts/locked-period-rejections`. ## The other people in the flow - **Shift worker** — sees the shift only after publish. Can confirm their own hours (most often by clocking out at the kiosk) or have a manager confirm on their behalf. - **Manager** — publishes, approves, exports. - **Admin / Owner** — configures the payroll frequency, leave year, and work rules that the export totals run on. ## Related - {doc}`how-the-data-fits-together` - {doc}`three-ways-to-build-a-schedule` - {doc}`/plan-schedules/shifts/lifecycle` - {doc}`/plan-schedules/publish-horizon/index` - {doc}`/track-time/timesheet/index` - {doc}`/reports-and-payroll/payroll-summary`