Configuring travel policies

As a Payhawk Administrator, you can configure travel policies and approval workflows for trip requests in the Payhawk Web Portal.

Travel policies define the rules employees must follow when submitting trip requests, such as budget limits, allowed booking options, and out-of-policy flagging. Approval workflows define what happens next: the steps, approvers, and conditions that determine how each request is reviewed and approved.

Based on these settings, the Travel AI Agent collects the required details from employees, displays available options (flagging out-of-policy choices), and triggers the approval workflow.

Supported travel policies

By default, Payhawk suggests a travel policy, which you can modify according to the requirements of your company. Once you configure the desired travel policy, it will apply to your entire company or group of entities.

If your company has negotiated hotel rates Payhawk, they will be fully compatible with your travel policy. Negotiated rates will be applied automatically during hotel searches and employees do not need to take any action or enter any codes. Policy rules such as budget limits and approval requirements continue to apply as usual, regardless of whether the employee selects a negotiated or public rate.

Flights

You can define the following flight details in your travel policy:

Preferred airlines, for example, Lufthansa and British Airways.
Maximum budget for domestic flights, for example, up to EUR 150, where domestic flights are the ones within the same country.
Maximum budget for short-haul or long-haul international flights, for example, up to EUR 300 for the former and up to EUR 1000 for the latter.
- If the flight is within the same region and the total airborne time across all segments is up to 7 hours, it's considered a short-haul flight. A long-haul flight in the same region is more than 7 hours of total airborne time.
- If the flight is across different regions and the total airborne time across all segments is up to 6 hours, it's considered a short-haul flight. A long-haul flight in different regions is more than 6 hours of total airborne time.

Hotels

You can define the following hotel details in your travel policy:

Maximum hotel rate, for example, up to EUR 200 per night.
Preferred hotel ratings, for example, 3-star or 4-star hotels only.
Country-specific rates, for example, up to EUR 250 per night in France or up to GBP 250 per night in the United Kingdom.

Daily spend

Daily spend covers the day-to-day costs of a trip, such as meals and local transportation, on top of the flight and hotel budget. For each trip type, you can set daily spend to one of three options:

None. Employees cannot request daily spend for the trip.
Card allowance. Payhawk adds a cash amount to the traveler's card, approved together with the trip.
Per diem. Payhawk applies the daily rates from your per diem policy and reimburses the traveler after the trip.

Card allowance is a spending budget on the card. When the trip request is approved, the card limit increases by the allowance amount multiplied by the number of trip days. For example, a EUR 50 allowance on a 4-day trip raises the card limit by EUR 200. The traveler can spend the allowance from approval until the last day of the trip, and Payhawk removes any unspent amount when the trip ends. You can cap the allowance with a limit and set country-specific limits, or leave it without a limit. Travelers can adjust the amount on their own request.

Per diem is a reimbursable expense, not a card budget. Payhawk works out a per-diem amount from the trip's dates and destinations using the rates in your per diem policy, then reimburses the traveler after the trip. Per diem needs an active per diem policy, set up under Settings > Expense types > Per Diem. For details, see the articles on automated per diems for travel and configuring the per diem expense type.