In the Payhawk Web Portal, you can set up approval workflows that determine how employee trip requests are reviewed and approved.
An approval workflow defines the sequence of steps a trip request goes through after submission, including who approves it, under what conditions, and what happens at each stage. Combined with your travel policy settings, the workflow ensures that every trip request follows your company's process from submission to approval.
Understanding the travel workflows
When configuring approval workflows for travel, keep in mind how the system handles some specific situations.
Price changes and availability
The system includes a 10% buffer on trip requests to account for price fluctuations during the review and approval process. If a delay causes the price to change, the buffer covers the difference, and the employee can proceed with booking; no new approval required. Approvers receive reminders to help keep the process on track.
If the original option becomes unavailable by the time the trip request is approved, the Travel AI Agent asks the employee to select a new flight (same dates and destination), room, or hotel (within 5 km) and books the confirmed choice without requiring a new approval.
If an employee makes pricing changes to the trip request, such as selecting a more expensive option, re-approval is required.
Booking on behalf of another employee
When a Payhawk Administrator or an employee with the required permissions books on behalf of another employee, the approval flow follows the traveler's configured approval rules, not the booker's. The approval workflow is determined by the traveler's approval configuration, for example, manager approval, Travel Manager review step. The booking is treated exactly as if the traveler had submitted it themselves.
All other approval rules, such as budget thresholds, policy limits, and escalation steps, apply to the traveler's request as usual.
Configuring travel workflows
You can configure approval workflows for the trip requests of your employees. Note that these approval workflows are only available for Payhawk users.
To configure workflows:
Go to Settings > Trips > Travel > Workflow tab.
Click on Edit workflow. Alternatively, click on Go to workflows and you'll be redirected to the Settings > Workflows screen to view and manage all trip request workflows in one place.
Create an approval workflow that suits your requirements by following the steps for defining custom workflows and noting the following specifics that are valid for trip requests:
The Submit step is always present. During this step, the Travel AI Agent must gather the needed information to fill out all the request fields, create, and submit a trip request.
The Review step is optional. You can set the relevant people at your company as reviewers. These are usually travel managers who can make changes to the flights and hotels. This step will trigger a review request notification in the Agent - in web portal, mobile app, and Slack.
The Approve step is for you to define. For example, you can set the corresponding Team manager as an approver. This step will trigger an approval request in their Payhawk web portal, mobile app, and Slack. This will allow them to approve the trip request in the Agent - in Slack, web portal, and mobile app.
The Pay step is always present. Once there's a successful approval, the Travel AI Agent automatically raises the employee's card limit and books the business trip.
The Close step is also always visible by default. It includes predefined rules for automatically closing requests when the auto-close option is activated and also specifies the default roles authorized to manually close requests.