OPEN BETA
The Financial Controller Agent is a smart tool that automatically reminds employees, on behalf of Finance teams, to submit missing expense documents or complete pending approvals through communication channels like Slack.
The Agent utilizes the communication channel integration to chase employees at specified times (for example, at month-end) and can be activated for individual entities or multiple entities within a group.
For enhanced user experience, you can also enable the Smart Expense Note feature to automatically generate notes for your company's expenses.
Common challenges in expense management
Finance teams often struggle with manual receipt chasing, delayed approvals, and compliance oversight, which can slow down the month-end closing process. The Payhawk Financial Controller Agent tackles these challenges by automating expense tracking, receipt collection, and approval workflows, which significantly reduce manual follow-ups during and at the end of the month.
Key functionalities
The Financial Controller Agent helps streamline processes and improve efficiency in various cases.
Functionality | Capability |
Automatic chasing | The Financial Controller Agent:
|
Chasing in an additional communication channel | Currently, the Financial Controller Agent uses only Slack as a communication channel for chasing. Connecting Payhawk to Slack will enable a new application for all workspace users in Slack from where the users will be able to interact with Payhawk and do their jobs directly from there. For more information, see the guide for employees on setting up the Slack connection. |
Approval process enhancements |
|
Submit expenses where you work |
|
How the Financial Controller Agent works for Finance teams
By activating the Financial Controller Agent, Finance teams can streamline processes and enhance efficiency through:
Real-time updates for both submitters and approvers, ensuring transparency and faster decision-making.
Automated follow-ups across multiple channels - such as email, comments, push notifications, and Slack - to keep expenses on track.
Improved workflow oversight, accelerating month-end close and reducing bottlenecks.
How the Financial Controller Agent works for employees
With the Payhawk-Slack integration, employees can seamlessly act on Payhawk smart reminders, submit expenses, and approve requests if they are part of an approval workflow.
To fully utilize the integration, employees must first authenticate, granting Slack access to their expense data. For more information, see the employee guide for setting up the Slack connection.
The Payhawk-Slack connection enables employees to do the following:
Receive smart reminders for missing documents, pending expense submissions, and approvals.
Submit and approve expenses directly in Slack using call-to-action buttons without switching applications.
Enter all required details, such as categories and custom fields, through a conversational chat flow without switching apps.
How the Financial Controller Agent reminds employees
The Financial Controller Agent sends automated reminders during working days to employees for submitting and approving expenses. A reminder that would happen on a non-working day (weekend or public holiday in the country of incorporation of the business entity) moves to the next working day.
Reminder type | Examples | Reminder schedule (local time) | Notes |
Expenses to approve | Submitted expenses awaiting approval | Reminders at 4:00 PM local time:
| |
Offline card payments to submit | Restaurants, taxis, and physical store purchases | Reminders at 10:00 AM local time:
| Card used at the point of sale (POS). |
Online card payments to submit | Online subscriptions and mobile apps | Reminders at 10:00 AM local time:
| More lenient due to receipts sitting in inboxes or vendor apps. |
End-of-month | All pending submissions and approvals | Reminders at 11:00 AM local time:
| Ensures month-end reporting is complete. |
Upcoming features
Custom reminder schedules. Soon, you'll be able to configure your own reminder schedule directly in the Payhawk Web Portal for more flexibility and control.
Online receipt fetching. A Beta feature is on the way to automatically fetch receipts for online payments. Once available, the reminder schedule for these transactions will be adjusted accordingly.
How Payhawk administrators activate the Financial Controller Agent
For the Financial Controller Agent to become active, Payhawk administrators need to:
Connect Payhawk to the communication channel so the Agent can automatically chase your employees, and they can directly interact with it through Slack.
Enabling the Financial Controller Agent
The Financial Controller Agent feature is available in Payhawk Labs. For more information, see the article on enabling and managing Beta features.
Providing feedback during Beta
To provide feedback on the Financial Controller Agent, use either of the following ways:
The Feedback option of the Financial Controller Agent:
Go to Settings > AI Office > Financial Controller Agent.
Click on the Send feedback.
Pricing
All Payhawk AI Agents are currently free to use while in Beta as part of Payhawk Labs. For information on pricing after the Beta period, contact your Account Executive or reach out to Payhawk Sales at https://payhawk.com/pricing.