The payroll week runs Wednesday to the following Tuesday. Two deadlines sit inside it, and they are not the same one. Entry closes when each crew wraps up on Tuesday — that is the foremen's deadline, not yours. Approval is yours, and the screen states it in plain words at the top: Finalize time by 5:00 PM, Wednesday.

So the window you actually have is Tuesday evening through Wednesday morning. If a foreman is still entering time on Wednesday, that is a conversation as well as a delay.

Today it goes well past Wednesday. Hours are still being added and removed, and cost codes and projects still being edited, on the morning of payday — while payroll is trying to pay everyone against time that was supposed to be settled days earlier. Every crew you get clean by Tuesday night is one that stops appearing in that pile.

Late approval is not a neutral event. It either delays people's pay or forces payroll to process an unapproved week and correct it afterwards — and corrections after a pay run are far more work than getting it right the first time.

If a genuine dispute means a week cannot be fully approved in time, tell payroll which records are in question rather than holding the whole week. One person's disputed day should not delay a hundred people's pay.