Depending on the defined approval workflow at your company, you may be included as an approver for expense requests submitted by your team members.
Whenever an expense request you have to approve has been submitted, you'll be notified over email and a notification email will also be sent to your Inbox in Payhawk.
Specifics
Based on the defined workflow, after you approve an expense request, all relevant approvers along the approval chain of that expense type will be duly notified.
Once you've declined an expense request, the employee who submitted the request will be notified with a push notification on their phone and an email. They will also be able to view why you rejected the expense request.
Depending on the pre-defined approval workflows at your company, the approvers of split line-item expenses will simultaneously receive an expense request for the respective amount. In the expense request, approvers can see the details about the other line items and approvers.
When returning or rejecting an expense, the reason for the action you pointed out (along with the action itself) will be logged as a comment and can be viewed from the Activity > Comments tab.
The return-to-employee and reject actions will also be logged as an activity and can be viewed from the Activity > Workflow tab.
Accessing expense requests
You can access an expense request from your phone or computer from the email request notification you have received.
Alternatively, open the Payhawk mobile app on your phone or log in to the Payhawk web portal from your browser, and access the request from your Payhawk Inbox.
Approving bank payment requests for purchase orders
When approving a bank transfer payment for a supplier invoice linked to a purchase order, you may get a warning message for amount discrepancies based on the two- or three-way matching done by Payhawk and based on the pre-defined discrepancy rules at your company. The content of the message, therefore, may vary.
Approving expense requests for budgeted amounts
If you are a Budget owner or an approver of expense requests for spend your company has budgeted, you'll be able to see the budget details and also go to the budget and the expense itself for more details.
If you are a Budget owner or an approver of expense requests for spend your company has budgeted, and the expense request is related to a purchase order, you'll be able to see the budget details and also go to the budget and the purchase request itself for more details.
In any case, if you risk going over the budget or have already done so, the system will display a warning for you to note.
Approving expense requests in the mobile app
To approve an expense request from the Payhawk mobile app:
In the Payhawk mobile app, tap Inbox.
Under Pending, select the desired expense request by tapping it.
Tap Approve.
Declining expense requests in the mobile app
To decline an expense request:
In the Payhawk mobile app, go to Inbox.
Select the desired expense request by tapping it.
Tap Decline. As a result, the Decline this request screen opens. Now, you have to select whether to return the expense for the requester to update, or reject and delete the expense altogether.
To return the expense request for the employee to update and re-submit:
Tap the Return to employee option.
Under Note, enter the reason for declining with the additional details the employee needs to provide.
Tap Return.
To reject and delete the expense request:
Select the Reject and delete option.
Under Note, enter the reason for rejecting the expense.
Tap Reject.
Approving expense requests in the portal
To approve an expense request:
In the Payhawk web portal, go to Inbox.
Select the desired expense request by clicking on it.
On the next screen, click on Approve.
Declining expense requests in the portal
To decline an expense request:
In the Payhawk web portal, go to Inbox.
Select the desired expense request by clicking on it.
On the next screen, click on Decline. As a result, the Decline this request dialog opens. Now, you have to select whether to return the expense for the requester to update, or reject and delete the expense altogether.
To return the expense request for the employee to update and re-submit:
Click on the Return to employee option.
Under Note, enter the reason for declining with the additional details the employee needs to provide.
Click on Return.
To reject and delete the expense request:
Select the Reject and delete option.
Under Note, enter the reason for rejecting the expense.
Click on Reject and delete.
When you reject a request for a card expense, this will not delete the expense but will display the reason for the accountant to see.
When you reject a request for other types of expenses, this action will altogether remove the expense unless it's been paid without approval.
