Time entry blocked or failed: the full diagnosis

There are only two ways time goes wrong in Current, and they look completely different. Either Current blocks you before you save — a warning banner reading "Time can't be logged here yet" and a greyed-out Log time button — or the entry saves, your PSA refuses it, and it stays a draft with a red "didn't sync" line under it. Work out which one you're looking at first; the fixes have nothing in common.

Both behaviours are deliberate. Current fails closed on time: it blocks an entry it already knows your PSA would reject, and when the PSA does reject one, the entry stays an editable draft rather than being marked rejected or thrown away. Nothing is lost — but nothing bills either, until someone acts. Everything here applies to every PSA; the banners and field names are worded for your provider (Autotask says billing code, work type, and contract; ConnectWise says work role, work type, and agreement; HaloPSA says charge rate and contract).

The same guard runs everywhere time can be entered — the Log time dialog, the Add time button in the task drawer, the ticket list, and the Start button on the timer. When it blocks, it always tells you why. Match the sentence you're seeing to this table.

If the entry exists but carries a red message, your PSA took a look and said no. Current stores the reason on the entry and leaves it as a draft so you can fix and resubmit it. On the timesheet (Time entry) the draft shows the PSA's raw reason plus "It stays a draft — fix it and submit again." In the task drawer, the same failure is translated into a plain-English instruction, with Edit, Retry and Delete right there on the row — hover the message to see the PSA's original words.

These are the translations, and whether editing the entry is the fix or not.

One Autotask failure has its own long message: "Autotask won't accept this time entry's role — your Autotask resource has no role defined for this project." On project tasks, Current resolves a role your Autotask resource genuinely holds — honouring your pick when it is valid, otherwise your default held role — and retries once with a valid role if Autotask objects. Ticket time entries send the role you picked as-is, and this long role message only appears on tasks. When even the retry fails, there is no valid role to send: ask an admin to add you to the Autotask project team with a role, then hit Retry. ConnectWise has no per-project team roles — there, the equivalent failure names the work role on the entry, and the fix is picking a work role your member is allowed to use.

Some refusals are permanent. If your PSA answers that the task an entry points at does not exist or is not valid, the same request will get the same answer next week. Current recognises that class, stops offering a Retry on those rows, and says so above them: "These can't be retried — your PSA no longer accepts the task they point at. Give each one a replacement task, or write it off." Retry all skips them too, and its count says how many rows are actually left to retry.

Two buttons take their place on the row, in Integrations → your PSA's card → Sync details → Outbox. On Autotask workspaces you get both. On ConnectWise and HaloPSA, Current still recognises the refusal and still explains it in plain language, but the two decisions below aren't built for those PSAs yet — the row keeps its Retry so you are never left without an action, and the fix is to correct the entry in the PSA.

1. 1
   Fix: move the time to another task

   Pick a replacement task. The list starts with the tasks on the same project and only ever offers tasks that exist in your PSA, because an unsynced task would strand the entry again. Turn on Search other projects to look wider. If the replacement belongs to a different partner, Current says whose invoice the hours would land on and makes you type that partner's name before it will continue.
2. 2
   Read the check before you confirm

   As soon as you pick a task, Current asks your PSA about it and tells you what will happen: the hours will be billed as a new entry, or the time is already in your PSA and Current will link to it rather than bill it twice. If the time turns out to be sitting on the original task all along, it says so. Nothing has been written at this point.
3. 3
   Confirm

   The entry moves onto the new task and submits through the same path a normal submit uses. The hours still bill under the person who logged them, not under you. If your PSA refuses the new task too, the entry stays a draft on that task with the new reason, and an ordinary Retry works from there.
4. 4
   Write off: record that the time can never be billed

   Admins and project managers only. Say why, in a sentence. The entry is not deleted and it does not change status: it stays on the person's timesheet labelled Written off, with your name, the date and your reason, and the PSA's original refusal stays readable underneath. What changes is that the hours stop counting — project actuals, the Budget report, the hours tiles and every dashboard hours metric all leave written-off time out.
5. 5
   Reverse it if you were wrong

   A write-off is not a one-way door. The Outbox keeps a line at the bottom listing what was written off in the last thirty days, and a manager can put an entry back in the queue. Every write-off and every reversal is recorded in Workspace → Audit log with who did it and why.

The same refusal also teaches Current something: when your PSA says it will not accept a task, Current marks that task as gone. It stops appearing in the task picker when you log time, so the next person cannot create the same stuck entry, and it shows up in Sync details → Reconciliation where an admin can deal with it properly.

1. 1
   Read the message before you touch anything

   Every block and every failure carries its own reason. Ninety per cent of these are answered by the two tables above without opening a single setting.
2. 2
   Confirm your PSA identity

   Settings → the identity card (named for your provider). If it says you're linked, it names the Autotask resource or ConnectWise member. If it doesn't, that's your answer for every blocked button on the account — an admin links you in Users & roles.
3. 3
   Check whether the item is really synced

   Open the task or ticket. A Current-only project or an unsynced task can't take billable time by design — there is no PSA record to attach it to.
4. 4
   Fix the entry, then resubmit

   For anything in the Edit column above: open the draft, change the field your PSA objected to, and save. Editing a draft re-pushes it automatically, and tells you if the PSA still refuses.
5. 5
   Retry from the timesheet

   Time entry → Submit drafts pushes every draft in the week at once. The PSA's approval status comes back with Refresh status.
6. 6
   Sweep the team's stuck hours

   Tenant Admins: Integrations → your PSA's card → Sync details → Outbox. Every failed entry across the workspace, with who logged it, the date, the hours, the PSA's reason, and a one-click Retry. Rows your PSA will never accept carry Fix and Write off instead of Retry — see "When there is nothing left to retry" above. Sync details and the Outbox are Tenant-Admin only — project managers retry their own drafts from Time entry.

A draft with no error message never failed at all: it was simply never submitted. The Outbox flags drafts whose work date is more than three days old, names the people they belong to, and totals the hours — but it won't push them. Drafts only push when their owner submits them, or when a Tenant Admin retries them from the Outbox. This is where unbilled revenue quietly accumulates, so make the Outbox a weekly habit. Written-off entries are the one thing the Outbox leaves out of both lists and out of Unbilled at risk, which is why it keeps a separate line at the bottom naming what was written off in the last thirty days.