Odoo Timesheets: Logging, Validating & Billing Worked Time

What Are Odoo Timesheets?

Odoo Timesheets is the Odoo app that lets you log, view, and validate working time across projects and employees, enabling accurate time tracking and productivity analysis. Unlike a standalone time clock, it is tightly coupled to Odoo Projects, Sales, Payroll, and Time Off, so a single timesheet entry can drive invoicing, cost reporting, and payslips without re-keying data.

The core unit of capture is hours logged against a project task. You configure a project by enabling timesheets in the project's Time Management settings, then log hours on the task's timesheet tab so effort is captured per task and per project. Hours roll up to the project for reporting, utilization analysis, and real-time margin on billable work.

• →Log time per project and task, manually or with the integrated timer.
• →Roll hours up to project-level reporting and utilization views.
• →Feed validated time into invoicing, payroll, and profitability in one move.

Setting Up Timesheets on a Project

Timesheet capture starts at the project level. There is no separate 'timesheet project' object to stand up; you switch capture on inside the project the team already uses.

Once enabled, every task in that project gets a Timesheet tab. Team members add entries with a description, the date, and the hours worked, and those entries aggregate on the task, the project, and the employee's timesheet view.

1. 01
   Enable timesheets on the project

   Open the project and enable timesheets in its Time Management settings so its tasks accept time entries.

2. 02
   Log hours on the task

   On each task's Timesheet tab, add the date, hours, and a short description. The Odoo timer can also be used to capture time live.

3. 03
   Review at the project level

   Hours roll up to the project for utilization analysis, profitability, and reporting across the team.

Validation and Approval Workflow

Odoo Timesheets provides a validation workflow for managers to review entries before they are considered approved. Managers review and validate timesheet entries from the validation view, where they can confirm individual entries or validate several at once in a single action.

This is a lighter-touch approval model than a formal pipeline: the manager sees the entries, confirms them, and they move from 'to validate' into the approved pool that downstream apps can consume. Time off approved in Odoo automatically generates timesheet entries on the relevant project or task once approved, so leave flows into the timesheet without double entry.

• →Managers review and validate entries from the timesheet validation view, individually or in bulk.
• →Approved Time Off requests auto-create timesheet entries, eliminating duplicate leave logging.
• →Validated time is the clean signal that billing and payroll consume downstream.

Billing Time Through Odoo Sales

Time captured in Odoo Timesheets becomes billable revenue through Odoo Sales. A service product can be configured to invoice based on timesheet hours recorded on the linked project or task, generating invoice lines from billable timesheets.

When a Sales Order uses a service product configured for timesheet-on-tasks, the order can auto-create the project and task the team logs against. The billing policy, whether rate-based, skill-level-based, or fixed-price, determines how hours convert to invoice lines, and the project's profitability view reflects the result in real time.

Odoo's Project profitability view shows amounts moving into 'To invoice (revenues)' or 'To bill (costs)' columns once work is delivered, for example when a timesheet is created, giving real-time margin on billable projects.

• →Service products can be configured to invoice from timesheet hours on the linked task.
• →Sales Orders with timesheet-on-tasks can auto-create the project and task to log against.
• →The Project Profitability view shows costs versus revenues as time is entered.

Payroll and Work Entries

On the payroll side, Odoo Payroll computes worked time using Work Entries, which the Payroll app automatically creates based on the employee's salary structure type and from the Planning, Attendances, and Time Off applications. Odoo Payroll is used to calculate employees' worked time in conjunction with other Odoo apps such as Employees, Time Off, Attendances, and Planning.

Validated timesheet and time-off data feeds this Work Entries pipeline. Because approved leave auto-creates timesheet entries, and Attendances and Planning also feed Work Entries, payroll sees a consolidated worked-time picture rather than a manually reconciled export from the timesheet app. Note that Odoo Payroll availability and feature depth vary by country and localization, so parity with enterprise payroll engines is not guaranteed everywhere.

• →Odoo Payroll computes worked time through its Work Entries engine.
• →Work Entries draw from salary structure, Attendances, Time Off, and Planning.
• →Validated timesheet and leave data flows into payroll without manual export.

Dynamics 365 Equivalent: Project Operations Time Entries

The Dynamics 365 equivalent is Dynamics 365 Project Operations, specifically its Time entries feature, formerly under Project Service Automation. In Dynamics 365 Project Operations, time entries are used to capture the actual time a resource consumes, and that time flows into cost and sales price calculations so the organization can track project progress and financials.

Team members create time entries daily (or weekly in older PSA versions) and associate each entry with a Project Task; users enter time and submit it for approval. On approval the system generates cost actuals and sales actuals, the unbilled revenue that drives project financials, invoicing, and profitability. Approvals are handled through the Project Operations approvals pipeline, where recall requests and cancel-approval actions reverse the generated actuals when corrections are needed.

• →Time entries are created by selecting a Project Task and submitted for approval.
• →Approval generates cost and sales actuals that drive invoicing and profitability.
• →Recalls and cancel-approval actions reverse generated actuals so corrections can be made.

Corrections After Approval and Choosing a Platform

Where Odoo's approval is a manager validation step in a list, Dynamics 365 Project Operations has a formal approvals pipeline with actuals generation and structured correction paths. In Dynamics 365 Project Operations, a submitter can recall a time or expense entry after it has been approved; the approver then acts on the recall request, which reverses the generated cost and sales actuals so corrections can be made. Approvers can also cancel time or expense entries that they previously approved, providing a second correction path after approval.

For SME professional services, the choice is typically architectural. Odoo Timesheets is part of Odoo's modular app suite, licensed per app and user under Odoo's app-based model, and sits alongside Projects, Sales, Payroll, and Time Off on one platform. Dynamics 365 Project Operations is part of the Dynamics 365 and Power Platform stack, runs on Dataverse, and is typically licensed per user through a Project Operations edition or as an attach to a Finance or Supply Chain Management license. The right fit depends on organization size, existing stack (Microsoft versus open-source), and licensing posture rather than on a single feature checkbox.

• →D365 recall reverses generated actuals so a submitter can correct an approved entry.
• →D365 cancel-approval gives approvers their own post-approval correction path.
• →Platform choice is architectural: Odoo's app-based model versus D365's Dataverse and Power Platform stack.