Your VA sends you a message on Slack.
“Hey, I forgot to start the timer before our call yesterday. Can I add 45 minutes manually?”
You stare at the message.
Is this legit? Should you say yes? What if they start doing this all the time?
Manual time edits are where trust meets money. And if you don’t handle them right, you’re going to have problems.
Setting Up Your Manual Time Policy
Start before anyone ever needs to make an edit.
Decide if you’ll allow manual time at all. If yes, in what situations.
Some employers allow it only for: if they forgot to start the tracker before a scheduled call, emergency tasks that came up outside normal hours, or quick corrections under 15 minutes.
Others require advance approval for every manual entry. “If you need to add time, message me first.”
Put this in writing. Your VA should know the policy before they’re in a situation where they need to use it.
Your time tracking tool should enforce the policy automatically. Require reasons for manual edits. Route them through an approval workflow if you want that control.
And set a deadline. Manual time can only be added within 3 days of when the work happened, for example. This prevents someone from “remembering” hours from two weeks ago.
Building a Manual Time Approval Workflow
Here’s a simple workflow that works.
VA submits manual time. They add the entry in your time tracking tool with a detailed note explaining what it was for.
You get notified immediately. Slack notification, email alert, whatever. You see it right away.
You review it within 24 hours. Check if it makes sense. If yes, approve. If no, ask for clarification.
VA sees the approval status. They know whether it’s been approved, rejected, or is still pending.
Only approved time goes to payroll. Manual entries in “pending” status don’t get paid until you sign off.
This creates transparency. Everyone knows where things stand.
Some time tracking tools do this automatically. Others require you to set it up manually using approval features.
If your tool doesn’t support approval workflows, use a simple spreadsheet. VA logs manual time there, you check it weekly, you mark approved/rejected.
Low-tech but effective.
When Someone Makes a Suspicious Edit
Let’s say you find a manual entry that doesn’t make sense.
Four hours added on a Saturday. No explanation. The VA never mentioned working on Saturday.
Don’t accuse them immediately.
Ask for context. “I see you added 4 hours on Saturday. Can you walk me through what you worked on?”
Sometimes there’s a legitimate explanation you didn’t know about.
Other times the VA realizes they made a mistake and fixes it themselves. “Oh wow, that was supposed to be 0.4 hours, not 4 hours. Let me correct that.”
If the explanation doesn’t add up, pull out your other records. Check your project management tool.
Most disputes fall into one of three categories.
A real mistake. They typed the wrong number or selected the wrong day. Easy fix.
Difference of opinion. They spent 2 hours researching something and consider it work. You think research should have taken 30 minutes. Gray area.
Actual padding. They’re adding hours that didn’t happen.
For mistakes, just fix them and move on.
For gray areas, you make a judgment call. Is this relationship worth $200 of disputed time? Sometimes you pay it and clarify expectations going forward.
For obvious padding, you don’t pay the disputed hours. You document what happened. And you probably end the relationship, because trust is gone.
When Manual Time Actually Makes Sense
There are situations where manual time is the right answer..
Offline emergencies. The power goes out but they finish an urgent task using their laptop battery and mobile hotspot.
They couldn’t track it but the work got done.
The key is communication.
If your VA knows they’re going to do work that won’t track, they should tell you in advance.
That keeps everyone honest.
The Compliance Side You Can’t Ignore
If your VA is actually an employee under local law, manual time edits become a compliance issue.
In the Philippines, the Telecommuting Act requires employers to treat remote employees the same as office employees. Same hours rules, same overtime rules, same record-keeping.
You need to keep detailed records of hours worked. That includes any manual corrections. And those corrections need to be documented properly.
DOLE regulations say your telecommuting program should cover performance evaluation, data protection, and dispute resolution.
Translation: you should have written policies about how time tracking works, including manual edits.
For true independent contractors, the rules are less strict. But misclassification is a real risk.
If you control their hours, provide their tools, and require them to track time like an employee, they might legally be an employee.
The Reality Check You Need
Here’s what I’ve learned managing remote workers for years.
Perfect time tracking doesn’t exist.
People forget to start trackers. Technology fails. Legitimate work happens that doesn’t track automatically.
Your goal isn’t zero manual time. Your goal is a system where manual time happens rarely, gets documented clearly, and gets resolved fairly.
Most VAs are honest. They want to do good work and get paid fairly. They’re not trying to steal from you.
But you still need systems. Because even honest people make mistakes. And because a small percentage of people will try to game any system without clear boundaries.
Set up the systems. Follow the procedures. But also use common sense and give people the benefit of the doubt when they’ve earned it.
That’s how you handle manual time fairly.