The Approval Inbox is where you review everything that’s waiting for your approval: time entries, expenses, and absence requests. Instead of checking each budget, deal, or person separately, you can work through all your pending approvals from one screen.

It’s for anyone who’s set as an approver, such as budget owners, project managers, team managers, and admins.

Click the Approvals icon (✓) in the top-right corner of Productive, next to search. Then choose what you’d like to review:

The number on the icon shows how many items are waiting for you in total, and each option shows its own count. Inside the inbox, switch between the Time, Expenses, and Absence tabs at the top of the page.

📌 You’ll only see the types of approvals you can act on. For example, if you approve absence requests but not time or expenses, you’ll only see Absence.

The Time tab lists time entries waiting for your approval. They’re grouped by day and then by budget, so you can review one day’s work at a time.

A few things to know about when time entries show up here:

From here, you can approve entries, request changes, edit or delete them, and view timer logs.

👉 Learn how time approvals work in Approving Time: Overview, Time Approval in Budgets, and Time Approval in Deals.

👉 If you review submitted timesheets, see Managing Time Entry Submissions (Manager Guide).

The Expenses tab lists expenses waiting for your approval. You can approve them, request changes, edit them, or delete them.

👉 Learn how expense approvals are set up and what happens after you act on them in Expense Approval: Setup and Flow.

The Absence tab lists time off and remote work requests waiting for your approval. You can approve or reject a request and review any attachments.

To check how a request fits into the person’s schedule, hover over their name and select View schedule. Their bookings open next to the request.

👉 Learn how absence approvals are set up and how the approval process works in Setting Up Absence Approvals in Productive.

When you have a lot to review, use filters to narrow the list down, for example to one person, date, or absence category.

Once you approve an item or request changes, it leaves your Approval Inbox.

If an item has more than one approver, one change request is enough to reject it. To find an item again and cancel your change request, open the budget or deal it belongs to.

👉 See How Approvals Work With Multiple Approvers for how approval types and change requests work.