---
title: "Submission and approval notifications - Payhawk Help Center"
slug: "submission-and-approval-notifications"
description: "See which email and mobile notifications Payhawk sends about submissions, approvals, returns and declines, and who receives each of them in your account."
updated: 2026-10-23T10:37:43Z
published: 2026-10-23T10:37:43Z
canonical: "payhawk.com/submission-and-approval-notifications"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://payhawk.com/help/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Submission and approval notifications

On specific occasions, Payhawk sends out platform-level notifications via email and mobile, thus enabling you to stay on track with your corporate expenses and approval requests.

## Platform-level notifications

The platform-level notifications are designed to ensure that actions, such as expense submissions and approvals, are carried out efficiently, tailored for different roles, including users, approvers, and Payhawk Administrators. For example, Payhawk notifies employees when they have to submit an expense or managers need to be aware of their pending requests.

The following table summarises the notification types and their details.

| **About** | **Purpose** | **Occurrence** | **Medium** | **Receivers** |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Returned expenses | To notify an employee that their expense was returned to them for additional input. | Upon the return of the expense | Mobile and email | Everyone |
| Rejected expenses | To notify employees that their expense was rejected. | Upon the rejection of the expense | Email | Everyone |
| New fund, card, and purchase order requests for approval | To notify that a request was submitted. | Real time | Mobile | Approvers (based on the defined approval workflows) |
| Fund and purchase order requests for approval | To remind that a submitted request is still pending approval. | If no action is taken on the request within 15 minutes after its submission. | Email | Approvers (based on the defined approval workflows) |
| Expenses and requests for approval | To remind approvers for all expenses and requests they need to approve. | Once a day, only when the approver has expenses, bills, or purchase orders waiting for their approval. The exact time varies. | Email | Approvers (based on the defined approval workflows) |
| Expenses with pending document submission | To notify employees about a successful card transaction and remind them to submit a receipt. | Real time | Mobile | Everyone |
| Expenses with pending input | To remind employees for all their expenses which have not been submitted | Each Monday at 7AM GMT | Email | Everyone |
| Employees having expenses with pending input | To provide a summary of how many expenses are not submitted, and by which employees. | Each Monday at 4PM GMT | Email | Admins and accountants |

> [!TIP]
> Approvers who have turned off email notifications, or whose user is not active, don't receive the daily approval reminder. Expenses and requests that have not been submitted yet are not included.

## Recognizing genuine Payhawk notifications

All Payhawk notification emails come from `no-reply@payhawk.com` email address. Scammers can send emails that copy the look of Payhawk notifications, for example, reminders about expenses or requests waiting for your approval, from addresses outside the payhawk.com domain.

Before you act on an email about pending actions:

1. Check the full email address of the sender, not only the sender name. The address must be `no-reply@payhawk.com`.
2. Instead of clicking on links in the email, open the Payhawk Web Portal or the Payhawk Mobile App directly. In the Web Portal, go to **Inbox** > **Requests to me** > **Pending**. In the Mobile App, go to **Inbox** > **Requests** > **Pending**.
3. If you don't see the pending actions from the email in your Payhawk Inbox, don't click on any links in the email, don’t reply to it, and [contact Payhawk Support via chat](/help/contacting-payhawk-support).

## Financial Controller AI Agent reminders

If your company has enabled the Financial Controller AI Agent, employees and approvers also receive consolidated reminders via the Payhawk Web Portal, Mobile App, and Slack (if connected). These reminders group all pending expenses into a single message and follow a customizable chasing schedule set by a Payhawk Administrator.

The AI Agent reminders work alongside the standard platform notifications listed above; they don't replace them. For more details, see the article on [how the AI Agent's reminder schedule works](/help/overview-of-the-financial-controller-agent#h_63c300d816).

## Useful resources

- [Approving and declining expense requests](/help/approving-and-declining-expense-requests-from-the-payhawk-inbox)
- [Approving and declining fund requests](/help/approving-and-declining-fund-requests)
- [Submitting and cancelling fund requests](/help/submitting-and-canceling-fund-requests)
- [Submitting and canceling ATM withdrawal requests](/help/submitting-and-canceling-atm-withdrawal-requests)