To help businesses manage compliance with expense submissions, Payhawk features auto-blocking policies on cards. This article explains how the feature operates, steps to avoid auto-blocking, and guidance for resolving or configuring such policies.
Overview of auto-blocking policies
A Payhawk card can be set to automatically block if card expenses remain unsubmitted beyond a configured threshold.
An expense is considered late if it remains in Submit status beyond the allowed timeframe, which can vary, for example, seven days.
The card can block once a certain number of such late expenses are accumulated, for example, five late expenses over five days.
Reasons for cards auto-blocking
When the threshold for unsubmitted expenses is reached, the card will block, and any payments attempted during this time will decline.
Cards can block due to alerts from the payment network, such as Visa, indicating potential compromised data such as CVV or PAN.
Cards can block due to network alerts such as potential fraud detected by Visa. These blocks protect funds from unauthorized transactions. If suuch an issue occurs, contact the Payhawk Support team.
Avoiding cards auto-blocking
To prevent cards from being blocked by the system:
Regularly check and complete outstanding expense submissions.
For pending hotel authorizations or similar cases, attach a placeholder image and submit the expense with a note clarifying it’s an expected authorization to expire.
Payhawk sends alerts prompting users to submit expenses and avoid auto-blocking events.
Reactivating a blocked card
When a card gets blocked due to unsubmitted expenses:
Expenses must be submitted. In some configurations, submitting even one overdue expense triggers automatic reactivation of the card. However, other policies require all overdue expenses to be cleared before unblocking.
Once the card is active again, previously declined payments can be retried.
Configuring auto-blocking policies
As a Payhawk Administrator, you can configure auto-blocking policies in the following way:
In the Payhawk Web Portal, go to Cards > Settings > Advanced Controls.
Click on Edit.
Under Auto-blocking cards, modify the parameters to reflect your requirements:
Define the timeline for expenses to be considered late.
Set the number of late expenses allowed before triggering auto-blocking.
Disable the auto-blocking rule entirely, if not needed.
Click on Save.