With Payhawk, you can add, manage, and fully control the company funds you have deposited in your account, use local payment schemes for incoming and outgoing payments when applicable, and utilize the supported bank transfer infrastructure for international payments.
The Funds app
The dedicated Funds app in Payhawk serves as your main money hub on Payhawk. From there, you as a Payhawk administrator and other authorized people or roles at your company can send funds and deposit money into their Payhawk account by using global payment schemes, such as ACH, FPS, and SEPA, and monitor your company's fund deposits and deposit history.
In the app, you can:
Create, manage, and delete Payhawk currency accounts.
Deposit funds from company bank accounts into Payhawk currency accounts.
Link and unlink company bank accounts to facilitate depositing funds into Payhawk.
Manage how individual or team Payhawk cards are funded.
Some use cases where you can use the Funds app include:
To create accounts in currencies not supported by your traditional bank.
To send and receive money in local currencies when working with international suppliers.
To optimize your FX fee cost structure, simplify global financial operations, and more.
Depositing funds into your Payhawk account
There are some specifics depending on whether your company is based in the US, or in the EU or UK.
US
Payhawk USD accounts are used for funding corporate credit card transactions over ACH Pull (Debit). Reimbursements and bank transfers are executed by Payhawk doing an ACH Pull from your linked bank accounts.
EU and the UK
Payhawk credit accounts are used for card transactions only.
Payhawk debit accounts are used for card transactions and bank transfers.
Depositing funds in the EU and UK can be done over a top-up from a linked bank account or with a bank transfer.
Currency accounts in Payhawk
The currency accounts serve as a funding source for your employees' cards. In Payhawk, you can have currency accounts in EUR, GBP, USD, RON, BGN, PLN, and DKK.
As Payhawk is a financially regulated institution, it needs to adhere to specific compliance regulations. Therefore, all requests for opening new Payhawk currency accounts need to be reviewed by the Payhawk Compliance team which takes up to 2 business days. For more information, see the article about creating Payhawk currency accounts.
Payhawk credit currency accounts are linked to a credit line your company has applied for and has been approved by the Payhawk Compliance team. Your Payhawk credit accounts are automatically opened after the approval and are in the currency in which you have requested the credit line. For more information, see the section on credit funds.
Accounting currency and Payhawk base currency
Your company's accounting currency ("functional currency" as defined by IAS 21) is the currency within the accounting system from which the trial balance is generated.
In Payhawk, the base currency is the accounting currency for your company's Payhawk account. The base currency is defined by the company when its Payhawk account is created.
Linking bank accounts in Payhawk
By linking a company bank account to your Payhawk currency account, you facilitate the process of depositing funds in the currency account - when the bank account is linked, you can initiate a deposit directly from the Payhawk system without having to log out and make a bank transfer from your bank system.
However, the deposit is not automatically initiated by Payhawk on your behalf as Payhawk doesn't have direct access to the bank account. For example, you can initiate a deposit of EUR 10,000 from Payhawk by clicking on the Add funds button.
This will create a bank transfer between your linked bank account and your currency account in Payhawk. Once the transfer is completed, you will see the funds as an incoming transfer in the currency account.
For more information:
Topping up funds in Payhawk
All physical and virtual cards in Payhawk that have their funding source set to the respective debit or credit Payhawk currency account feed on the funds that are available in it. Each card transaction deducts the amount of the available funds in the currency Payhawk account to which the card is linked.
You can control the card spending by setting monthly card limits to the linked cards. You'll be able to set the recurring monthly card limits even if the available funds in the Payhawk account are not sufficient to cover them as the card limit corresponds to the amount this card can use from the account. For example, if the card limit is set to EUR 1,000 but in the EUR Payhawk account to which the card is linked there are not enough funds to cover it, the card availability will display only the amount that is available in the account.
You do not need to add funds for each card separately. For example:
You can fund your EUR Payhawk account with EUR 10,000; then, issue 5 cards with a limit of EUR 1,000 each and 5 cards with a limit of EUR 100 each.
All cards will have direct access to this EUR 10,000 in the Payhawk currency account but will be able to spend only the amount that is set as a limit - either EUR 1,000 or EUR 100.
Once one of the cards makes a transaction for an X amount, this amount will be withdrawn from the EUR 10,000 in the Payhawk currency account, but this operation will not affect the other cards as long as there are enough funds in the Payhawk account to cover their limits.
For more information, see the article about depositing funds to your Payhawk account.
Funding your Payhawk account with a bank transfer
When making an incoming bank transfer, depending on the type of bank account, you may be asked by the system to provide different payment details such as a payment reference.
For more information, see the section on specifics when loading funds over bank transfers.
Paying locally with Payhawk
The local payment scheme infrastructures, such as FPS for GBP, SEPA Instant/Credit for EUR, and BISERA for BGN, are used by Payhawk for transfers whenever applicable. If not applicable, Payhawk will fall back to the supported international bank payment infrastructure.
For more information on the payment schemes that apply, see the article on supported fund currencies and payment schemes for top-ups and bank transfers.
Paying globally with Payhawk
With Payhawk, you can reimburse your employees and send money worldwide in more than 50 currencies to over 160 locations.
The international bank payments have to go out of your company's GBP, EUR, or USD Payhawk currency accounts if your base currency in Payhawk is the same as your accounting currency, and the international payment infrastructure will be used only if the local payment schemes are not applicable.
If your Payhawk base currency is GBP, EUR, or USD and is the same as your accounting currency, you can make international transfers from your Payhawk account in this currency:
In the UK and Europe, you can use your GBP or EUR accounts to make outgoing international bank transfers.
In the US, you cannot use your USD accounts in Europe to make outgoing international bank transfers.
For more information, see the article about making international bank payments.