As an employee, you may need to make requests that help you perform your role effectively. For example, if you are a graphic designer, you might need to submit a purchase request for a new drawing tablet or specialized design software to complete your projects efficiently.
Typically, in such cases, you’ll need to provide the basic details of what you want to request, which, in turn, must then be reviewed and approved by authorized people or roles within your company, for example, your Team Manager or the CFO.
Once approved, the delivery process can begin, either partially or in full. In any case, your company may receive receipt notes (documents confirming that goods were delivered), if set as required by a Payhawk Administrator at your company, and invoices for the amounts due to the supplier. This process continues until all goods or services are delivered, the full payment is made, and the purchase is closed (meaning no further actions are required).
Types of requests in Payhawk
Payhawk Administrators at your company can define different types of requests. The goal is to improve visibility over company spending, manage budgets more effectively, categorize expenses better, and set up tailored workflows based on the specific type of request.
For example:
When submitting a request for a new drawing tablet, you might select the Hardware request type, assuming such a type has been defined for your company by a Payhawk administrator.
This request type might then require approval from the IT Team Manager instead of your direct Team Manager.
By the end of the month, your company will have clearer insight into how much was spent specifically on new hardware.
Purchase orders may also be generated for your request if they've been enabled for the Payhawk account by a Payhawk Administrator at your company. A purchase order is an official document issued by a buyer to a supplier. It specifies the products or services that are going to be purchased, along with their quantities, prices, and delivery details.
Regarding the frequency of the requests or purchase orders, they can be either one-time or recurring.
Notes on requests
Payhawk administrators at your company may have defined settings for requests that affect your process. Note the following specifics:
Some of the requests may require a receipt note (for example, when the company purchases goods), while others may not (for example, when the company purchases services).
Payhawk Administrators can define discrepancy rules for requests. These rules are intended to address situations where the supplier's invoice exceeds the requested amount or the received quantity of items differs from what was ordered by the company. In such cases, authorized people or roles at your company may request additional information from you to resolve the issue.
Payhawk accountants and administrators, as well as assigned reviewers, can access all company requests.
Phases in the request lifecycle
To align with the milestones each request must follow at your company, Payhawk organizes the lifecycle of every request into the following key phases (or steps) relevant to request owners:
Key phase | Actions, roles, and responsibilities |
Creating requests and submitting them for review or approval | You can create and then submit your request from Requests > Submit.
In the same location, you'll be able to find requests that were returned to you by authorized people at your company if additional purchase data is required or the information needs to be updated.
From here, as a requester, you can:
Once you submit your request:
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Reviewing and approving requests | The requests you've submitted will need to be reviewed and/or approved by authorized people at your company who have been assigned as part of the review and/or approval workflow by a Payhawk administrator.
During the review and/or approval phase, as the requester, you'll still be able to:
If your company requires requests to be reviewed first before approval, the request will move under Requests > Approve once they've been reviewed.
If your company doesn't require requests to be reviewed, the request will move under:
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Uploading receipt notes and invoices for your requests | During the delivery process, you'll receive receipt notes for the requested goods and invoices for the delivered items or services, which you can upload to your request.
From Requests > Receive and Requests > Invoices, you'll be able to:
If your request requires receipt notes, all of the receipt notes have been received and uploaded, and the delivery is completed, the request will move to Requests > Invoice.
When all invoices have been uploaded, your request will move to Requests > Pay.
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Paying and closing requests | Once all invoices for your request have been paid by the authorized people at your company, your request will:
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Matching request line items with different invoices or invoice lines
When you create a request, you add the goods or services you need as line items and specify their net unit prices. When matching requests or purchase order line items to expense or invoice line items, the following rules apply:
Bank expenses can be matched to requests with the payment method set to Bill or None.
Card expenses can be matched to requests with the payment method set to Card or None.
Expenses cannot be matched to requests with a payment method set to No payment needed.
Requests and purchase orders with inactive suppliers are excluded from the matching options.
When selecting expenses to match against requests and purchase orders, only those with status Open will be available, and the following filter logic will apply:
If the expense has a supplier assigned, you can select from all requests and purchase orders that have either the same supplier or no supplier assigned.
If the expense has a suggested supplier, you can still match the expense to all requests.
If the expense has a purchase order identifier, Payhawk's automation tool will automatically match it to the purchase order, as PO identifiers are unique for the system.
The requests and purchase orders you are allowed to see depend on your Payhawk role and permissions. For example, if you have been granted permission to link expenses to requests and purchase orders, you can perform this action even if you have not originally submitted the expense, the request, or the purchase order.
To accurately match each request line item with the corresponding expense, keep the following scenarios in mind:
If the request contains a single line item, Payhawk’s automation tool will automatically match the invoice to it.
If the request has a single line item and the invoice has multiple lines, you need to edit each expense line, fill in the information for each, and click on Save to update.
If the request has multiple line items and the invoice has a single line, you will need to manually select which request item to match.
If you need more context for items in requests that do not have categorization fields, you can use the Split to lines option:
If there is no document attached, you can manually split the items.
If a document is attached, you can split the items manually or extract lines from the document.
If the request and invoice have a different number of line items, you will need to manually match the request items to the respective invoice lines from the expense.