Cancel previously approved time or expense entries

Important

Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation has evolved into Dynamics 365 Project Operations. For more information, see Project Service Automation Transition.

Applies to Project Service app version 3.x

In the latest version of Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation, approvers can cancel time or expense entries that they previously approved.

Cancel a previously approved time or expense entry

Follow these steps to cancel a time or expense entry that you previously approved.

1. Go to Projects > My Work > Approvals.
2. On the Approvals list page, change the view to My past approvals. A list of the time and expense entries that you previously approved is shown.
3. Select one or more entries, and then select Cancel approval. You receive a warning message.
4. Select OK to cancel the approval.

Understand the impact of canceling a time or expense entry approval

When an approval is canceled, there is both operational impact and financial impact.

Operational impact

On the operations side, when an approval is canceled, the status of the record is reset to Draft, and the approval no longer appears in the My past approvals view. Instead, the canceled approval appears in either the Time entries for approval view or the Expense entries for approval view, depending on whether it was a time entry or an expense entry. Additionally, the status of the related time or expense entry is changed to Submitted, so that the related entry is consistent with approvals that have a status of Draft.

As an approver, you can edit some of the fields of an approval that has a status of Draft. These fields include Billing Type and Billable Hours for Time Entries. After you make changes, you can approve the record again. Alternatively, you can reject the entry. If you reject the approval of a time entry, the status of the entry is changed to Returned. If you reject the approval of an expense entry, the status is changed to Rejected. Functionally, both returned and rejected entries behave the same as an entry that has a status of Draft. A project team member can either make any required changes to the entry and then resubmit it for approval, or delete the entry entirely.

Financial impact

A project is also affected financially when an approval is canceled. First, the corresponding actuals for cost and sales are updated in the following manner:

• The adjustment status is set to Adjusted.
• The billing status is set to Canceled.

Next, reversal entries are created in the Actuals table. To create reversal entries, the system copies over the field values from the original actuals. The only values that aren't copied over are the quantity values. These values are reversed instead. Reversed actuals are created for both Cost and Unbilled Sales actuals. The Adjustment Status field on the reversed actuals is set to Unadjustable, and the billing status is set to Canceled.

After these changes are made, the amount that is recorded as spent on the project and the revenue backlog on the project will longer account for the amounts that these actuals represent.