Яндекс.Метрика

How do you approve payments?

Usually, the manager who owns the budget line approves a payment, and the accountant pays the invoice once that manager has made a decision. In Pachca, you can set this up in a chat, for example one called Payments. An employee submits the invoice through the bot’s form, the manager clicks “Approve” and the accountant attaches the payment order in the thread under the invoice. Walk through the employee’s side yourself below.

Payments

14 members · Payments bot

September 1
PaymentsBot10:05

To submit a vendor invoice for payment, click the button and fill out the form. I’ll post the invoice here and loop in the manager who needs to approve it.

Hannah Ross pinned a message

September 18
PaymentsBot12:40

🧾 Invoice

VendorLitera LLCPurposeBooklet and poster printingAmount38,400 ₽Budget lineMarketingPay bySep 20Sent by@David WardApprover@Amy Hart
✅1

Why approve payments in your team chat

An employee forwards an invoice to their manager in a DM or by email and doesn’t know if it ever made it to the accountant. The manager digs through messages to find invoices, and the accountant hears about approvals by word of mouth. A week later, it’s hard to tell who approved an invoice and whether it’s been paid. In the Payments chat, both the manager and the accountant see the invoice, and the decision and payment order stay in the thread under it.

  • The invoice goes straight to the right manager. The bot picks the approver based on the budget line, so employees don’t have to figure out who to send the invoice to.
  • Managers decide with one click. “Approve” and “Reject” sit right under the invoice, so nobody has to dig for it in their email.
  • The accountant hears about the approval right away. The bot @mentions them in the thread under the invoice and gives the payment deadline. The mention arrives as a notification.
  • All invoices to be paid in one chat. Employees, managers and accounting can see which invoices are waiting for a decision. A ✅ reaction shows which ones are already paid.
  • Easy to find six months later. Search for the vendor’s name to pull up the invoice. The manager’s decision and the payment order stay in the thread under it.

How to set it up

You'll need administrator rights in Pachca. The form and buttons are handled by the bot's handler: you can build it with no code in n8n, or a developer can write it. There's a ready-made example with a form and buttons in the time off use case: swap in your own fields and buttons.

In Pachca

  1. 1
    Click + next to search, select Chat and name it "Payments." Add the employees who send in invoices, your department heads and your accountants.
  2. 2
    In the Integrations menu, choose Bots and click Create bot. Name it "Payments."
  3. 3
    Open the Payments chat settings, click Add members, go to the Integrations tab and select the bot.
  4. 4
    In the bot settings, open the Outgoing webhook tab. Paste your handler's URL into the Webhook URL field and check the New messages, Button clicks and Form submissions events.
  5. 5
    In the handler, set up the form fields: invoice file, vendor, purpose, amount, budget line and due date. For each budget line, specify the manager who approves its invoices. Add "Approve" and "Reject" buttons under the invoice.
  6. 6
    Send /start in the chat: the bot will reply with a "Submit invoice" button. Pin that message. Click the button and submit a test invoice: it should show up in the chat.

With your team

Agree on who approves which invoices and how quickly. For example, a department head approves invoices for their own budget line, and large invoices then go to the CFO for approval too. The accountant only pays approved invoices, attaches the payment order in the thread and reacts to the invoice with ✅.

If you send invoices to clients, check out the "How do you send invoices and track payments in chat?" use case.

Troubleshooting

  • The bot doesn't respond to /start. Check the address in the Webhook URL field and make sure the New messages event is checked.
  • The Submit invoice button doesn't open the form. Check the Button clicks event.
  • The form was submitted, but the invoice isn't in the chat. Check the Form submissions event.