The lifecycle of an expense report mirrors that of individual expenses. Once an expense report is created, its expense owner can submit it for approval. Approvers can either approve the report, advancing it to the review step, or decline it. If declined, the approver can delete or return the report to the expense owner for further updates and resubmission.
Submitting expense reports
If expense reports have been enabled for your company, employees can submit expenses related to, for example, a trip or project within a period they define.
Expense owners can still submit the included expenses individually, but the expenses included in the report will be sent for approval only after the whole expense report is submitted.
If you have submitted an expense that is part of an expense report, which has not been submitted yet, Payhawk will display a Waiting for report submission label.
To submit an expense report:
In the Payhawk web portal, go to Expenses > Submit.
Select the report.
Click on Submit. As a result, depending on the configured workflows at your company, all expenses within the report will be submitted for approval or review.
If there are any issues, such as missing required fields in some expenses, Payhawk will display an error message, and the affected expenses will be marked with an indicator dot.
If an expense is returned to you, you'll see it under the Submit tab and will be able to edit and resubmit it.
Approved expenses appear under the All tab.
Approving expense reports
Employees assigned as approvers as part of your company's workflows can approve expense reports.
Approving an expense report also approves all the individual expenses it contains. These expenses will then be submitted according to the defined workflow. The entire report will be automatically approved once the final expense in the report has been approved.
You can still approve the included expenses individually.
To approve an expense report:
In the Payhawk web portal, go to Expenses > Approve.
Select the desired report.
Click on Approve.
Reviewing expense reports
Employees assigned as reviewers as part of your company's workflows can review expense reports.
If there are any issues, such as missing required fields, Payhawk will display an error message and prevent the report from being reviewed until the errors are resolved.
In the Payhawk web portal, go to Expenses > Review.
Select the desired report.
Click on Review.
Editing expense reports
Expense reports in Payhawk can be edited before they have been paid by different roles at your company, and depending on the stage of their lifecycle:
Expense owners can edit a report before it's been submitted or if it has been returned to them for updates.
Employees assigned as reviewers, as well as Payhawk accountants and administrators, can also edit an expense report.
As an expense owner, you can edit the description and the dates of your expense reports in the following way:
In the Payhawk web portal, go to Expenses > Submit and select the report.
Click on its three-dot menu and select Edit report.
In the dialog that opens, modify the desired details.
Click on Save.
If you are assigned as an expense reviewer or as a Payhawk accountant or administrator, you can edit an expense report in the following way:
In the Payhawk web portal, go to Expenses > Review.
Select the desired report.
Click on its three-dot menu and select Edit report.
In the dialog that opens, modify the desired details.
Select the checkbox to allow the related expenses to be updated correspondingly based on the latest expense report conditions.
Click on Save.
Returning expense reports to employees
Expense reports can be returned to the employee (expense owner) by approvers and reviewers, and Payhawk accountants and administrators.
Returning an expense report will also return all the expenses it contains.
The included expenses can still be returned to the employee individually.
If you are assigned as an expense approver, you can return an expense report to the expense owner in the following way:
In the Payhawk web portal, go to Expenses > Approve.
Select the desired report.
Click on its three-dot menu and select Return to employee.
In the dialog that opens:
Under Comment, enter the reason for your action.
Click on Return.
If you are assigned as an expense reviewer, you can return an expense report to the expense owner in the following way:
In the Payhawk web portal, go to Expenses > Review.
Select the desired report.
Click on its three-dot menu and select Return to employee.
In the dialog that opens:
Enter the reason for your action.
Click on Return.
Returning expense reports for review
As a Payhawk administrator, you can return both unpaid and paid expense reports for review.
Once an expense report has been reviewed but not paid, you can return it for review in the following way:
In the Payhawk web portal, go to Expenses > Pay > Confirm details.
Select the desired report.
Click on Return for review.
If the payment details of the report have been confirmed:
In the Payhawk web portal, go to Expenses > Pay > Authorise.
Select the desired report.
Click on its three-dot menu and select Return for review.
To return an expense report for review after it's been paid:
In the Payhawk web portal, go to Expenses > All.
Select the desired report.
Click on Return for review.
Deleting expense reports
Expense reports in Payhawk can be deleted as long as they haven’t been paid. When a report is deleted, any linked expenses will be unlinked and, if they are still in the approval process, automatically resubmitted for approval.
While expenses and expense reports cannot be deleted after payment, they can still be returned for review. This allows the Finance team to take appropriate actions, such as deducting the amount from the employee's payroll or arranging a reimbursement via bank transfer to the company account.
At the different stages of their lifecycle, expense reports can be deleted by different roles at your company:
Expense owners can delete a report before it's been submitted or if it has been returned to them for updates.
Employees assigned as reviewers, as well as Payhawk accountants and administrators, can delete an expense report from the Delete option of the three-dot menu.
As an expense owner, you can delete your expense report before submitting it, or if it's been returned to you.
In the Payhawk web portal, go to Expenses > Submit and select the report.
Click on its three-dot menu and select Delete.
In the dialog that opens, click on Delete to confirm your choice.
Deleting an expense report will unlink all associated expenses. Expenses that were already submitted will be automatically resubmitted for approval, while the rest will remain in their current state.
You can still delete the included expenses individually.
If you are assigned as an expense reviewer, you can delete an expense report in the following way:
In the Payhawk web portal, go to Expenses > Review.
Select the desired report.
Click on its three-dot menu and select Delete.
In the dialog that opens, select Delete to confirm the action.
Downloading expense reports
While downloading expense reports is not currently supported out of the box, you can work around this issue and download an expense report based on its ID.
First, you need to export and download the export file:
In the Payhawk portal, go to Export.
Export your expenses for the desired period. The export file that was downloaded on your device will contain the Export report ID column.
Then, filter out the desired expense report based on its ID and download it:
Go to Expenses.
Filter by Expense report ID.
Click on Download.
Filtering and exporting expense reports
If the Expense Reports feature has been enabled for your account, you'll be able to dot he following in the Payhawk web portal:
Filter your expenses from the Expenses app based on the Expense report filter.
Include your expense reports in the custom export files under the EXPENSE options group of the Rows group, Line items, and Expense payment cell type data based on the Expense report ID option.