How to Approve an Operator Docket | Latner Software Documentation

Approving an operator docket is the office's sign-off on a day of wet hire: you check the hours the operator recorded, approve them, and only then can they reach the customer's invoice.

Overview

Nothing on a wet hire job gets charged on trust. The operator records the day, someone in the office checks it against what was actually agreed on site, and approval is the moment those hours turn into money.

A docket has to be Pending Approval before it can be approved. It gets there when someone chooses Complete Docket, either in the office or from the operator's phone.
Approving stamps Approved By and Approved Date, and generates the docket PDF automatically.
Approving locks the timesheets already on the docket - they can no longer be edited or deleted.
Only approved dockets are picked up by invoicing, and each timesheet becomes its own invoice line.
Dockets are approved one at a time, from the docket itself. There is no bulk approve.
An approval can be undone with Reopen Docket, right up until the docket has been invoiced.

Before You Begin

Approval is a permission of its own, and it only applies to a docket that has already been completed.

Requirement	Where to Find It
A docket in Pending Approval	Rental › Operator Dockets, or the Operator tab of the rental contract
Operator Dockets permission (to see the screen)	Security › Configuration › Permission Groups › Rental › Screen
Approve Operator Dockets permission	Security › Configuration › Permission Groups › Rental › Option
Complete Operator Dockets permission, if you also finish dockets off yourself	Security › Configuration › Permission Groups › Rental › Option
Reopen Operator Dockets permission, to undo an approval	Security › Configuration › Permission Groups › Rental › Option
Create Timesheet permission, to correct the hours before you approve	Security › Configuration › Permission Groups › Service › Option

The operator docket options on a permission group. Approve Operator Dockets is a separate permission from Create and Complete, so raising a docket and signing it off can sit with different people

Operator dockets are filtered to the branches you have access to. A docket raised at a branch you aren't set up for won't appear in your list, even with the Approve Operator Dockets permission.

Approving the Docket

Step 1 - Find the dockets waiting on you

Go to Rental › Operator Dockets and open Quick Filters. Pending Approval is the approver's working list: dockets that have been completed and are waiting on a decision. Today and Yesterday filter on the day that was worked, and My Branch is switched on for you when the screen opens.

The Quick Filters menu on the Operator Dockets screen. Open, Pending Approval and Approved all filter the same column, so picking two of them shows both

The Status column tells you where each docket sits, and Operator, Equipment Number and Date are usually enough to recognise the job. You can also reach the same dockets from the rental contract's Operator tab if you'd rather work contract by contract.

The queue after filtering. Docket 4 was raised in the office and docket 3 came in from an operator's phone - both wait in the same list

Step 2 - Open the docket and check what it covers

Click the docket's Number. The header shows the status and the branch, and General Details carries the rental contract, the docket date, the equipment and the operator across from the contract line. Approved By and Approved Date are still empty.

Check the date and the equipment against the job you're expecting to charge. Everything on this card except the date and the operator is read from the rental contract line, and once the docket is Pending Approval even those two are locked - so if the date is wrong, the docket has to be reopened rather than edited.

A docket waiting for approval. Approved By and Approved Date are the fields to watch: they stay empty until you approve

Step 3 - Check the hours

The Timesheets tab is the part that actually gets charged. Each row is one block of work and becomes one line on the customer's invoice.

Start and End - when the block began and finished.
Break Hours - unpaid breaks, already deducted from the total.
Rate Type - Normal Time or Overtime Rate. A day that ran long is normally two timesheets, not one long one.
Price and Total Price - the hourly rate charged to the customer, and the hours multiplied by it. Total Price is the figure that reaches the invoice.

If a line is wrong, fix it before you approve. Double-click the row to reopen it, or tick it and use the delete icon. Both are refused once the docket has been approved.

The Timesheets tab on a docket awaiting approval. A normal time block and an overtime block on the same day are two separate timesheets, priced differently

Step 4 - Check the pre-start checklist

A docket that came in from the field usually carries more than hours. The Checklists tab holds the pre-start checklist completed before the machine was started - expand the row to see how each task was answered. Anything answered Fail is worth chasing before you sign off the day. If the operator signed the docket on their phone, that signature is kept on the docket and appears on the generated PDF.

The Checklists tab, expanded. The Tasks column gives you the pass and fail count without opening anything

Step 5 - Approve the docket

Choose Options › Approve Docket. There is no confirmation dialog - the docket is approved as soon as you click. Approve Docket is only available while the docket is Pending Approval; on an Open docket it's greyed out and Complete Docket comes first.

Options on a docket that is Pending Approval. Complete and Cancel are greyed out because the docket is already past that point

Step 6 - Confirm the approval landed

The status changes to Approved, and Approved By and Approved Date fill in with your name and the moment you approved. From here the hours are billable and the timesheets are locked.

Approved. Latner records who approved the docket and when, so the sign-off is auditable long after the invoice has gone out

After Approval

The docket PDF is generated as part of approving, and lands on the PDF History tab. If the PDF can't be produced the approval still stands - use Options › Generate PDF to try again.
The timesheets already on the docket are read-only. Editing or deleting one is refused with Cannot update timesheets for an approved/invoiced Operator Docket.
Options › Create Timesheet is still available, and a timesheet added to an approved docket is billed on the next invoice run. If you simply missed a block of hours, adding one is easier than reopening.
The next invoice run on the rental contract picks up every approved docket dated on or before the date being billed to, and writes one invoice line per timesheet: the hours as the quantity and the timesheet's price as the unit price. Advance and pro forma invoices never include operator docket hours.
Once an invoice line has been created for the docket it moves to Invoiced. Cancelling that invoice puts it back to Approved.
Options › Reopen Docket takes an approved docket back to Open and clears Approved By and Approved Date.

Options on an approved docket. Approve, Complete and Cancel are all closed off, and Reopen Docket is the way back

Reopening only works while the docket hasn't been invoiced. Once it's Invoiced, both Reopen Docket and Cancel Docket are refused. Cancel or credit the invoice first - that returns the docket to Approved - and then reopen it.

FAQs

Approve Docket is greyed out. Why?

Approval only applies to a docket that is Pending Approval. An Open docket needs Complete Docket first, and a docket that is already Approved, Invoiced or Cancelled can't be approved again. If the docket really is Pending Approval, you're missing the Approve Operator Dockets permission.

Can I approve several dockets at once?

No. Approval is done from each docket's own Options menu, one at a time. The Pending Approval quick filter on the Operator Dockets screen is the practical way to work through them, and the Today and Yesterday filters narrow it down to the days you're chasing.

The hours are wrong. Do I reject the docket?

There's no reject step - a docket is either put right or reopened. While it's still Pending Approval you can double-click a timesheet to correct it, or delete it, without touching the docket's status. If the docket date or the operator is wrong, use Options › Reopen Docket, fix it, and complete the docket again.

I approved a docket by mistake. Can I undo it?

Yes, as long as it hasn't been invoiced. Options › Reopen Docket returns it to Open and clears Approved By and Approved Date, and the timesheets become editable again. You'll need the Reopen Operator Dockets permission.

I approved the docket but the hours aren't on the invoice. Why?

Invoicing only picks up dockets dated on or before the date being billed to, so a docket dated later waits for the next run. Advance and pro forma invoices never include operator docket hours - wet hire is billed in arrears from the dockets. And a timesheet added after the docket has already moved to Invoiced is never picked up, because only approved dockets are billed.

Can the person who raised the docket approve it as well?

Latner doesn't stop them, but it doesn't assume it either. Create Operator Dockets, Complete Operator Dockets and Approve Operator Dockets are three separate permissions, so if you want the yard raising dockets and the office approving them, grant them to different permission groups.

The docket PDF didn't appear after I approved.

Approval deliberately succeeds whether or not the PDF can be generated, so the docket is still approved. Try Options › Generate PDF; if it keeps failing, the operator docket PDF template hasn't been configured for your system. That isn't something you set from the Settings screen, so raise it with Latner support.

A docket I'm expecting isn't in the list.

Check the quick filters first - My Branch is on by default, and operator dockets are limited to the branches you have access to regardless. If the docket is still Open, nobody has completed it yet, so it won't show under Pending Approval. The rental contract's Operator tab lists every docket raised against that contract, whatever its status.