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Overview of exporting and downloading expenses and payments

Get an overview of the differences between exported expenses and payments with live ERP integrations and via file export or download.

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Written by Payhawk
Updated over 2 weeks ago

In Payhawk, you can export your expenses and payments automatically or manually, or download them.

Automatic export (live ERP integration)

If you are using a live ERP integration in Payhawk, such as Oracle NetSuite or Sage Intacct, your expenses and payments will be automatically exported to the accounting software if the two systems are connected. The connection to the ERP system happens from Settings > Integrations and can be done by a Payhawk administrator at your company.

For more information about which ERP systems Payhawk supports, see the help articles on live integrations.

In terms of export, having a live integration between Payhawk and your ERP (accounting) software means that:

Manual file export (for accounting purposes)

If you are not using a live ERP integration, you can manually generate expense data reports on demand. The file exports can utilize either the default or customizable accounting templates.

Whether default or custom file exports are available for you to use is determined by a Payhawk administrator at your company from Settings > Exports in the Payhawk web portal.

When exporting your expenses and payments manually through the file export option, note the following:

  • The file export option is intended for accounting (not reporting) purposes.

  • The generation of a PDF account statement doesn't change the export status of an expense or payment.

  • Expenses can be exported on demand from the Export app and in any of the available file formats.

  • The file export contains the expense and payment data for the selected period, regardless of whether the payment has been settled or not.

  • The update of the export status of an expense or a payment to Exported will happen upon the generation of the export file from the Export app only.

  • Based on the export status, you can apply the Not exported, Exported, or Failed export filters to expenses and payments.

Default file exports

The default file exports in Payhawk are labeled as (legacy) because they use the first version of Payhawk’s export generator engine. They can be archived or deleted by a Payhawk administrator from Settings > Exports.

If the Carbon emissions tracking has also been enabled for your company, you can also export a carbon emissions report.

When using the default file export, you can export your company's expense and payment data in the following formats:

Included data in default Excel and CSV exports

The on-demand expense reports in Excel and CSV include the following data:

  • Balance statement - The balance of all your Payhawk accounts with their relevant end and reserved balances.

  • Payments - All expenses that have been paid through Payhawk. The exported data is ordered by the date of settlement, transaction ID, transaction description, paid amount, supplier name and VAT number, document date, document number, tax and the total amount, and so on.

  • Unpaid expenses - The expenses that have been created in Payhawk for the selected period, for example, supplier name and VAT number, document date, document number, tax and total amount, payment reference, payment source, and so on.

  • External payments - All expenses that have been marked as paid but through an external system, for example, supplier name and VAT number, document date, document number, tax and total amount, and so on.

  • Deposits - All incoming account transfers that you have received.

Including custom fields and values in default Excel and CSV exports

For simplicity, when exporting your data in Excel and CSV, Payhawk automatically removes the columns containing empty custom field values, assuming you won't need them.

For example, assume you create a Project custom field and use it in 10 expenses. Then, you create a new custom field called NEWProject and delete the old custom field Project.

When you make an export in CSV or XLSX formats:

  • The downloaded file will display any values (if any) that were selected from both custom fields on the expenses.

  • If the selection of the expenses does not contain any values from the Project custom field, then the columns will be automatically removed during the download.

Custom file exports

The custom file exports use Payhawk's custom template builder engine. They are generated based on the Payhawk accounting templates, whose sheets, files, cells, and filters can be tailored to export the data in such a way as to correspond to your company and accounting software's needs. The accounting templates can be added to your account and further customized from Settings > Exports by a Payhawk administrator at your company. For more information, see the articles about the accounting templates and their supported configuration options.

When using the custom file export, you can export your company's expense and payment data in the following formats:

  • Excel

  • CSV with document images

  • CSV without document images

Included data in custom file exports

Out of the box, the on-demand Excel- and CSV-based export with custom accounting templates includes the following data:

  • Expenses - Include all expenses that are paid either from your Payhawk account or the external ERP system or accounting software.

  • Payments - Include all card and bill payments executed through your Payhawk account.

  • Deposits - Include all incoming bank transfers to your Payhawk account.

Downloading expenses and payments (for reporting purposes)

You can also download your expenses and payments from the Expenses app. For more information, see the article on downloading expenses and payments.

When downloading your expenses and payments, note the following:

Note on export filters

When the Exported and Failed filters are applied, the results will include expenses that have ever been exported or whose export has ever failed, and may not correspond to the actual latest export status of the filtered expenses.

This behavior of the export status filters is a limitation and will be modified to display the latest export status of an expense when the Exported and Failed export filters are applied.

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