Monthly close
With the monthly close, each person hands in their finished month, a responsible person checks it and approves or returns it. An approved month is locked for that person, for Admins and Owners too. The feature is switched on per workspace.
Step by step
- 01
Switch it on
Settings → Workspace settings: switch on “Monthly close with approval” (Owner or “Manage settings”). The switch requires “Use target working time” and is off by default. While it is off there is no status and no lock; approvals, history and responsibilities stay stored and apply again once you switch it back on.
- 02
Set who is responsible
Who approves whose months is set on the person who approves: Team → open the person → tab “Approvals”, on the phone “More settings” → “Approvals”. Under “Approves months for” choose groups and individual people, mixed if you like, or “All members”; the preview names who this covers. Owners and members allowed to manage members can do this. Responsibility is not a role: Admins and Owners, too, can only approve what they are responsible for.
- 03
Hand in a month
Under Time accounts → Balance, open your row and pick the month. Once it is over, “Hand in month” is available; before that, the text names the first possible day. You confirm the month’s figures, and after that you cannot change anything in it. Until it is approved, “Withdraw submission” takes the month back. If nobody is responsible for you yet, you can still hand it in; a note says that an Admin sets this under Team.
- 04
The “Months” tab
Responsible people, Admins and Owners find the “Months” tab under Time accounts in the “Approvals” group, on the phone as the third segment. It shows one month: “Waiting for your approval” first, then “Not submitted yet” and “Approved”, filterable by status and group. Submitted months you are responsible for can be ticked and approved together; the result is reported per person. Admins and Owners also see the card “Without a responsible person”, where “Manage responsible people” explains the way.
- 05
Check and decide
Clicking a row opens the person’s month read-only: a head card with owed, worked, absent and “of which vacation”, every day below it and the history on the right. “Approve” locks the month and stores its figures. “Return” requires a comment, which the person reads on their own month; they correct it and hand it in again. “Approve without submission” is for past months nobody handed in, say when someone has left, and reads that way in the history.
- 06
Submissions waiting in other months
The list always opens on the previous month and does not jump by itself. The orange number on the month selector tells you what waits for you in other months; clicking it opens “Choose month” with the number per month. The note above the list leads to those months in one click, on the phone the card below the month selector. Orange counts only what you are responsible for; without responsibility the number stays grey. An earlier month still open shows as a note on the row but does not block the approval.
- 07
The lock has no exceptions
While a month is submitted or approved, the person’s times and absences in it cannot be changed. For an approved month there is no “save anyway” for Admins and Owners either: corrections go only through “Reopen”. That is stricter than the period lock, which applies to a whole workspace and allows logged single corrections.
- 08
Reopen
Only Admins and Owners can reopen an approved month, always with a reason. It is then open again, the person sees the reason and the name, corrects it and hands it in again. The earlier approval stays in the history with its figures. If the month lies before an account close, the Owner must reopen that first. The dialog names a running period lock: the person can only correct once it is lifted.
- 09
Changed afterwards
Some things change an approved month’s figures from outside: a new holiday, a day exception, a retroactive work model, a changed opening balance. iXTime then asks before saving, names the affected months and saves only with “Save anyway”. The month stays approved and locked, but shows “changed since approval” with the figures at approval and now. The history reads “Changed afterwards” with the cause, the person and the values. If the new figures should count, the month is reopened.
- 10
“All members” and self-approval
“All members” replaces the person’s other entries and stays current: whoever joins later is included without another step. It includes the person themself, but not members without a time account. Groups work alike: whoever belongs to a group they are responsible for approves their own months too, and the preview warns about it. Anyone responsible for themself sees “Approve myself” on their own month. The history marks it as approved by themself, the lock applies as for any approved month, and here too only an Admin or Owner can reopen it. Nobody can return their own month.
Your own month
Above the days stands the status with the action that fits it. Once the month is over, the text names who approves it. A returned month highlights the comment, a locked one shows a lock on every day.
The review
The decision on the right with “Approve” and “Return”, the history below it. “Previous” and “Next” move from person to person without going back to the list.
Choose month
The list shows the current month, the eleven before it and any older month in which something still waits, each with its number. The filters stay when you switch.
Who approves whose months
The person who approves carries the chosen groups and people, with the preview below. It also names what responsibility lets them read: times, absences including their reason and the balance of these people. It does not widen Reports, calendars or the planner, and they may only change what their role allows.
Changed since approval
The panel sets the figures at approval against the current ones. The history names the cause, here a day exception, and clicking an approval shows the figures stored back then. It appears only when this month’s owed, worked or vacation change; a balance moving because of an earlier month does not raise it.
Is this a leave approval?
No. What gets approved is the finished month, after the fact. Leave requests and an approval of leave still do not exist in iXTime: a recorded absence applies as soon as it is saved.
Can Admins change an approved month directly?
No. Admins and Owners, too, must first reopen the month, with a reason. The person then hands it in again and it is approved again.
Does anyone get an email when a month is waiting?
No, the monthly close sends no automatic emails. What is waiting shows as a number on the “Months” tab.
Why can’t I approve as an Owner?
Because approving requires responsibility, not a role. Add yourself on your own member under “Approvals” for the people you want. The review names who can approve.
Do months have to be handed in in order?
No. If an earlier month is still open, the row shows it as a note; the later month can still be approved.
What happens to the months of people who have left?
Deactivated members stay in “Months” whenever they have entries in that month, and can be approved “without submission”. They can no longer be responsible themselves and are not listed under “Without a responsible person”.
What is the difference between monthly close, period lock and account close?
The monthly close applies per person and month and comes from an approval. The period lock applies to the whole workspace up to a date. The account close settles the balances on a set date. Whatever an account close has closed can only be reopened once the Owner takes it back.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. Handing in, checking, approving, returning and reopening work on the phone just the same; responsibility is set there under “More settings”.