Welcome to Payhawk!
We are super excited to have you on board and hope to make your life easier with our platform!
The Payhawk Customer Success Team is available to guide you through the entire process and you can also find them in the live chat every Monday-Friday from 08:00-18:00 CET for proactive support.
If you need to check some of the most common questions, search through the resources on the Payhawk help center.
Audience
This guide is intended for employees of UK- and EEA-based companies who have Payhawk Administrator permissions and are responsible for fully managing their company’s Payhawk account. This includes overseeing all company expenses, linking and issuing corporate cards, setting spend policies and card controls, defining workflows, processing bill payments and reimbursements, and creating teams with shared budgets.
Summary
This quick start will lead you through the basic steps for using the system as a Payhawk Administrator and will help you get up and running with the Payhawk Web Portal and Mobile App:
Let's get started with your Payhawk experience!
Step 1 - Register to Payhawk and activate your account
To be able to follow the steps in this guide, you need to first:
For more information, see the articles about configuring your personal Payhawk profile settings.
Step 2 - Load funds into your Payhawk account
Loading money into Payhawk is as easy as a bank transfer. To top up funds in your Payhawk account from linked bank accounts in the UK and EEA:
Go to Funds. Click on your desired currency in your credit or debit accounts.
Click on the + Add Funds button to view a list with your linked accounts.
Click the linked account of your preference to set it as a funding source for topping up the required funds and specify the amount. Click on Add Funds.
Once you have authorized the payment, the deposit will be displayed as pending under your relevant account. When the deposit is settled, it will be shown under the Deposit History field of the account.
Alternatively, you can load money to your Payhawk account with a bank transfer. For more information, see the article about fund currencies and payment schemes for linked accounts top-up and bank transfers.
Moreover, with Payhawk you don't need to sign in to the product every day to just keep an eye on your company's fund balance. Set a threshold and when your balance falls under this amount, Payhawk will automatically inform Payhawk Administrators at your company over email.
Step 3 - Invite employees and create your teams
To enable employees to start using Payhawk, you need to first invite them to the system. Then, you can build your teams. Teams in Payhawk don’t have to necessarily correspond to the hierarchical structure at your company. They can also be created based on other criteria, such as specific projects or functions employees are working on.
Payhawk roles and permissions
Each employee you invite to Payhawk must be assigned a role. You can either use any of the built-in Payhawk roles or create your own custom role. Additionally, on top of each role, you can assign the role extension of the Team Manager or Executive Assistant if needed.
The fundamental Payhawk roles are Payhawk Administrator, Payhawk Accountant, and Payhawk Employee. The other built-in roles of the IT Administrator, Senior AP Clerk, and Auditor are based on the permissions of the Payhawk Administrator role.
Invite employees to Payhawk
To invite employees to Payhawk and assign them the necessary roles:
Go to the Employees > Employees tab. Click on + Add new.
To send an email invite to the employees, enter an email, select the role, and click on Invite. As a result, the employee will receive an email with a registration link.
To send an SMS invite to the employees, enter an email, and switch on the Invite with SMS toggle button. Fill in the employee name and cell number, select the role, and click on Invite. As a result, the employee will receive an SMS with a registration link.
The team members you invite receive emails. Clicking on the Start using Payhawk button will lead them to the screen for creating their Payhawk account.
Once the invited employees register to Payhawk, their pending invitation status will change and the employee will move under the Employees > Active tab.
After you've invited your employees, you can build and manage your teams and employees - for example, create, edit, and delete teams, modify employee reimbursement details, or edit employee emails.
Additionally, Payhawk also supports integrations with multiple HR Information Systems (HRIS). This means that you can automatically import employees and their data from supported platforms.
Step 4 - Issue cards for your employees
Now that you have deposited funds into your account, you can start issuing physical or virtual cards for your employees.
Payhawk virtual cards are intended for online payments. However, they can also be added to a digital wallet and used for payments on POS terminals.
Payhawk physical (plastic and premium metal) cards are intended for executing both online and POS payments, for example, company-related in-store purchases or for travels worldwide.
Stand-alone limits and spend card policies
You can also issue individual cards for employees or create team cards (shared budgets). In Payhawk, you can set a stand-alone limit to an individual or team card, or define spend policies and assign them cards.
Stand-alone limits are individual monthly limits for individual or team corporate cards. Cards with stand-alone limits are suitable for recurring payments that are easy to estimate and do not require complex approvals.
Limits based on company spend policies are suitable for grouping cardholders into different categories based on their spending behavior. For example, you can define a high-level management policy that can have a high-spending limit.
Issue plastic and premium metal cards
Physical cards arrive in less than 5 business days from issuing. Each plastic or premium metal card is associated with individual employees and each cardholder must activate their physical card from the Payhawk mobile app:
Go to Dashboard > Cards > Cards. Click on the + New button.
In the dialog that opens, select the Physical (for a plastic card) or Metal (for a premium metal card) option, and choose the employee assigned to the corporate card.
Under Limits, select between a stand-alone monthly limit or a monthly limit based on an existing company spend policy.
For cards with stand-alone limits, select the currency and the monthly recurring limit. For cards under existing company spend policies, select the currency and the policy to which you'll assign the card.
Choose the delivery address for the card. The toggle button indicating your company address is switched on by default If you want the card to be delivered to another location, switch off the toggle and fill in the required post data.
Click on Issue card to confirm your choice.
Issue virtual cards
Virtual cards are automatically activated and your team can start using them directly after you issue them:
Go to Cards > Cards. Click on + New.
In the dialog that opens, select the Virtual option and choose the employee assigned to the corporate card.
Under Limits, select between a stand-alone monthly limit or a monthly limit based on an existing company spend policy.
For cards with stand-alone limits, select the currency and the monthly recurring limit. For cards under existing company spend policies, select the currency and the policy to which you'll assign the card.
Click on Issue card to confirm your choice.
Step 5 - Define expense categories and custom fields
Payhawk's expense categories and custom expense fields combined are very powerful tools as they allow for faster and easier financial control.
Payhawk expense categories
Expense categories are user-friendly names assigned to expenses that employees can submit from the mobile app or the web portal. Employees can see and quickly choose the appropriate category of an expense.
Each category is tied to an optional account code from your chart of accounts or other systems of record. Note that the account codes will be visible only in your monthly report.
To create an expense category:
Go to Settings > Expense fields.
In the Built-in expense fields section, click on Categories, and, then, on the + Add category button.
Enter the name for the new category, the account code, and the default VAT rate if any. Click on Save.
Payhawk custom expense fields
In addition to the expense category, Payhawk enables you to include more details in each company expense such as cost center, project ID, and many more.
To create a custom expense field in Payhawk:
Go to Settings > Expense fields.
Under the Custom fields category, click on + Add field to add the new custom field.
In the Add field dialog, provide the required details - field name, roles, whether the custom expense field will be displayed for specific expense categories, whether the custom expense field will be required for submission, and whether the custom expense field will be required for review.
Click on Add.
Step 6 - Set approval workflows
Different departments, amounts, expense and request types may require separate approvers before an invoice or payment is finalized. Payhawk allows you to create custom approval workflows to fit your company’s structure.
Conditions, approvers, and custom workflows
You can define workflows for card requests and card transactions, reimbursements (including per diem and mileage), bills, requests, purchase orders, and other expense and request types.
Approval steps can be assigned to default roles (such as Payhawk Accountant or Administrator), custom roles, or specific employees. You can also include Team Managers, Category Managers, or Custom Field Managers to handle approvals based on teams, expense categories, or values you define.
Workflows in Payhawk are highly flexible. You can build conditions, such as amount thresholds, and design sequential or parallel approval steps to match your company’s policies and spending processes.
Defining workflows for bills
For this example, let's assume you haven't defined any workflows for bills (outgoing bank transfers) just yet, and that you want to create approval for bank transfers with no purchase orders:
In the Payhawk Web Portal, go to the Settings > Workflows > Expense types tab.
In the Bill field, click on Edit workflow.
Click on Submit and select the Submit On option to allow employees to submit expenses that will be paid over bank transfers.
Click on Save changes.
For the approval step of the bill expense type, follow the NO PO option and click on + Add approval step. Choose to add your custom approval or use the default template suggestion. For this example, click on + Custom.
The Template option displays any previously defined custom roles for your company, for example, Team manager, so that you don't need to manually select
from the drop-down list of available approvers.
In the dialog that opens, name the step by clicking on the Pencil (edit) icon. Fill in the content and click on the ✔ button.
From the drop-down with available approvers, select the Team manager role. Then, define the desired condition by clicking on + Add condition - for example, Amount.
To specify the amount for which approval will be required, define the quantity limit from the drop-down - for example, less or equal to (<=). On the next line, set the amount - for example, 200.
Click on Save.
To define single-step, multi-step sequential, or non-sequential approvals, follow the guidelines and apply the same steps as above.
To set the rights for reviewing expenses, click on the Review step. From the Review drop-down menu, select the specific employee or role that will be allowed to review the bills at your company - for example, any Payhawk accountant. Click on Save.
To set the rights for confirming expense details, click on the Confirm details step. From the Confirm details drop-down menu, select the specific employee or role that will be allowed to confirm the expense details and the payment execution methods at your company - for example, any Payhawk accountant. Click on Save.
To set the rights for authorizing payments, click on the Authorize step. From the Authorize drop-down menu, select the specific employee or role that will be allowed to authorize (pay) bills for immediate or scheduled payments with no purchase orders linked to them - for example, any Payhawk administrator. Click on Save.
For more information, see how to define workflows for requests and purchase orders and card requests. After you have defined your workflows, your employees can submit expense requests, card requests, and other requests, while the approvers at your company can approve or decline them.
Step 7 - Sync your Payhawk account with your ERP
Payhawk supports live integration with ERP systems, such as DATEV (DUO), Exact Online, Sage Intacct, MS Business Central, Oracle NetSuite, Xero, and more. Based on the integration, the master and custom accounting data, specific to the ERP system, is automatically shared between Payhawk and the accounting software. For more information on what expense and payment data is pushed and pulled daily, see the articles about shared data for the integration you need - for example, shared data between Payhawk and DATEV (DUO), Exact Online, MS Business Central, Sage Intacct, Oracle NetSuite, Xero, and more.
In addition to integrations with ERP systems, Payhawk also supports connections with travel management systems such as Perk (formerly TravelPerk) and Egencia, enabling seamless business travel management.
Step 8 - Close the month and archive your expenses
With Payhawk, you can close and archive specific periods, which is an especially important feature for businesses based in Spain and Germany - the expense archive functionality follows the Spanish state tax regulations as well as the GoBD directive and enables you to do paperless accounting. You can also archive two or more months.
When closing and archiving the month, note the following specifics:
You can close and archive all expenses for a given month, but you cannot archive a single expense.
After closing and archiving a period, you can access, see, and export each archived expense, but you cannot change or delete archived expenses.
You can close an accounting period only if all expenses for that period have been reviewed.
Payhawk archives all expenses with a service period date for the selected period.
To close a single month and archive your expenses for a specific month:
Go to Archive.
Hover over the month you want to close and after the checkbox appears, check it. Then, check the checkbox for the confirmation option.
Click on the Archive 1 month button.
