Overview
When a week is finished and its hours have gone to payroll, nothing used to stop someone changing a shift, a timesheet or a leave request in that week afterwards - and nothing recorded it. The numbers payroll was given and the numbers in Florence could quietly drift apart.
Locking closes that gap. A manager locks the week from the rota; the rota then shows the week is locked and who locked it. Anyone who still needs to change something has to hold the right permission and give a reason, and every one of those changes is written to an audit trail. A company-level Weekly hours report shows which homes have signed off and which haven’t.
What’s New
Lock up to <date>: a new action in the rota’s Tools menu that closes a finished week.
Locked-week banner: the rota tells you the week is locked, who locked it and when — before you try to change anything.
Override reason: changing something inside a locked week asks for a reason, which is recorded. It reaches every touchpoint — shifts, shift assignments, cancellations, timesheets and leave.
Manage data in locked period: a new location-scoped permission that allows those changes.
Weekly hours report: a company-level page showing every home’s lock status, workers and total hours for last week.
Audit trail: a panel per home listing every create, edit or delete made inside a locked period, with the actor, the change and the reason.
Before You Start
Anyone can lock their own locations. Locking is not restricted to a permission — any member of staff can lock a week for the locations they belong to.
Only some people can change a locked week. Company directors can, automatically. Everyone else needs the Manage data in locked period permission for that location.
Locking is per location, not per company. Each home locks its own week.
Locking a Week From the Rota
Open the rota for the location, and move to the week you want to close.
Open Tools.
Choose Lock up to <date> — the date shown is the last day of the period you’re viewing.
Read the confirmation, then press Lock.
The confirmation spells out exactly what will happen: “Shifts and leave up to 30 August 2026 will become read-only. Anyone changing them afterwards has to give a reason, which is recorded in the audit trail.”
If the action is greyed out, the tooltip says why:
“You can only lock a period that has finished.” — you’re looking at the current or a future week.
“This period is already locked.” — that period is covered by an existing lock.
What a Locked Week Looks Like
A banner sits above the board whenever you’re looking at a week that is locked, or partly locked:
This week is locked — the whole week you’re viewing is closed.
Part of this week is locked — the lock covers some of the days on screen.
This period is locked / Part of this period is locked — the same, on a multi-week view.
Underneath, it names the range that’s read-only, who locked it and when, and then one of two lines depending on what you’re allowed to do:
“You can still make changes — each one is recorded in the audit trail.”
“Only a company director or someone with the "Manage data in locked period" permission can make changes.”
The board itself is unchanged. Locking doesn’t hide or grey out anything — the shifts are all still there to look at.
Changing Something in a Locked Week
Edit the shift, timesheet or leave request exactly as you normally would. When you save, Florence stops and asks why.
Make the change and press Save.
Override locked week appears: “This week has been locked. Your reason will be recorded in the audit trail.”
Type a Reason for change. It’s required — leaving it blank gives you “Enter a reason for this change”.
Press Confirm change.
The change is saved and an audit entry is written against that home. One reason covers one action, so a bulk operation records a single reason.
If you don’t hold the permission, the save is refused instead and you’re pointed at your company director.
The Weekly Hours Report
Under Payroll, open Weekly hours.
The page always shows last week — you don’t pick a date. Along the top it tells you how far through sign-off the company is: “2 of 4 locations have locked this week — Confirm location managers have locked their own weeks before you finalise.”
Each home gets a row showing:
The home’s name, and its workers and total hours for that week.
A status: Not locked, Locked, or Locked - with updates — the last one meaning the week was locked and something has been changed since.
Who locked it and when, or “Awaiting locking from the location manager”.
An action: Lock week if it hasn’t been locked, or View audit trail if it has.
You only see the locations you belong to. A location manager sees their own homes; a company director sees all of them.
Locking a Home From the Weekly Hours Report
If a home hasn’t locked its own week, you can do it from here without going to its rota.
Press Lock week on that home’s row.
Confirm: “Are you sure you want to lock down week Mon 24 August – Sun 30 August 2026?”
The row flips to Locked and the count at the top goes up.
Checking the Audit Trail
On any locked home, press View audit trail. A panel opens listing every create, edit or delete made inside a locked period for that home, newest first.
Each entry shows who made the change and when, and a plain-English summary such as “Edited Fergus Kowalski’s shift on Fri 28 Aug 2026”. Open an entry to see:
What changed — for example “Break changed from 0 to 15”.
Reason for change — the reason that person typed at the time.
Use Load more to page back through older entries. If nothing has been changed since the lock, the panel says so.
Video Tutorial
Good to Know
A lock can’t be undone in the app. Locking sets a date, and everything on or before that date stays read-only. There’s no unlock button — if a week was locked in error, changes still go through the override-and-reason route.
Locks are cumulative. Locking a later week keeps every earlier week locked too; Florence tracks the most recent locked date for each home.
Locking covers shifts, their assignments, leave and timesheets. Publishing a rota, cancelling a shift, approving a timesheet and reassigning leave all run through the same check.
The banner is the warning. You’ll know before you try to change something, rather than finding out when a save fails.