You can define a specific workflow for each expense type within Payhawk, for example, bank transfers with or without purchase orders, or custom amount-based rules for card payments.
By setting thresholds and defining the exact role or person as an approver, you can fully customize the processes for the different steps in the expense lifecycle at your company.
Defining workflows for immediate and scheduled bank transfers
To define approval workflows for bank transfers at your company both for immediate and scheduled payments:
Log in to the Payhawk web portal.
Go to the Settings > Workflows > Expense types tab.
Go to Bank transfers and click on Edit workflow.
From the Submit drop-down menu, select On to allow employees to explicitly submit bank transfer expenses.
From the Approve drop-down menu, select the specific person, role, or an amount-based approval chain to define the approval process for your company bank transfer expenses.
From the Review drop-down menu, select the specific person or role that will have the right to review the expenses at your company.
From the Pay > Confirm details drop-down menu, select the specific people, roles, or an amount-based approval chain for confirming the expense details and the payment execution methods. If you choose the Specific person option, that person must be either a Payhawk accountant or administrator.
From the Pay > Authorize drop-down menu, select the specific people, roles, or an amount-based approval chain for authorizing immediate and scheduled payments.
Click on Save changes.
Defining workflows for approving bank transfers with purchase orders
When defining workflows for bank transfers on invoices linked to purchase orders, note the following:
The approval workflow you define will be triggered in case the two-way or three-way automatic matching performed by Payhawk results in discrepancies according to the pre-defined discrepancy rules.
As purchase order approvers you can select roles or specific people. These people can be budget owners, hierarchy roles at your company, such as team or second-level managers, and more. If you prefer, you can define a specific amount-based approval chain too.
The pre-defined expense workflows will not be affected by the approval chain you set for bank transfers with purchase orders.
To define the payment workflow for bank transfers on invoices linked to purchase orders:
Go to the Settings > Workflows > Purchase orders tab.
Go to Bank transfers and click on Edit workflow.
For the Approve option with purchase orders:
Define the Approve matching option - whether the payment of invoices whose amount is matched against the purchase order (and receipt note if required) will require approval or not. If required, select the specific person, role, or an amount-based approval chain.
Define the Approve discrepancy option - select the specific person, role, or an amount-based approval chain if a discrepancy mismatch is triggered by the system.
Click on Save changes.
Defining workflows for other expense types
The workflows for the card payments, reimbursements, mileage, per diem, and company cash expense types in Payhawk are defined in a similar way as the bank transfers for immediate and scheduled payments with the following specifics:
Confirm details and Authorize options are not available for the other expense types.
Reimbursable expenses, such as per diem and mileage, require you to define the specific person or role that will be able to execute the reimbursement.
Card payments are executed upon the generation of the expense and company money is paid in cash so these expense types do not require you to set a Pay option for them.
