Expense approval notifications let approvers know when they have new expenses waiting for their review. Perk sends these notifications by email, Slack, or Microsoft Teams depending on your account's settings.
Email notifications are available on all Perk plans. However, Slack and Microsoft Teams notifications are only available on Premium and Pro accounts.
Expense approval notifications are turned on automatically for all accounts that use travel and expense management. Use this article to turn them off if they're not right for your organization.
How expense approval notifications work
Perk sends approvers an email, a Slack message, or a Microsoft Teams notification whenever they have new expenses pending approval.
| Source | Frequency |
|---|---|
| Perk checks at 8.10 am UTC for any new approval requests since yesterday and, if there are any, sends an email. | |
| Slack | For Premium or Pro accounts that use the Slack trip approvals integration, Perk checks hourly for any new expense approval requests and, if there are any, sends a Slack message. |
| Microsoft Teams | For Premium or Pro accounts that use the Microsoft Teams trip approvals integration, Perk checks hourly for any new expense approval requests and, if there are any, sends a Teams notification. |
The email is only sent on days when new expenses have been submitted—approvers won't receive it if nothing is waiting for them. Account admins can turn notifications on or off at any time.
Note: Expense approval email notifications are separate from the Open spend task email, which groups all pending tasks for a user and sends a summary by email. The open spend tasks email is configured per company and can be turned on or off for all employees—employees can't opt in or out individually or change the frequency.
Approvers may receive both emails if your account has the open spend tasks email turned on—one doesn't affect the other. To learn more, see Send an open spend tasks email to employees.
If you've set up a Slack or Microsoft Teams integration, approvers receive notifications via those channels in addition to the daily email.
What approvers receive when notifications are on
When new expenses are submitted, approvers receive an email (daily at 9 am company timezone), a Slack message, or a Microsoft Teams notification listing the expenses that need their attention. They can click through from the notification directly to Perk to review and approve or reject each one.
To learn more about how approvers use these notifications and how they look, see Review expenses from a notification.
Turning notifications on and off
Expense approval notifications are turned on by default. You can turn them off for your entire account at any time, and turn them back on if needed.
To turn off expense approval notifications:
- Go to Settings > Expenses > Expenses notifications.
- Find the Expense approval notifications toggle.
- Turn it off.
- Save your changes.
Once turned off, approvers will no longer receive a notification when expenses are submitted to them.
To turn on expense approval notifications:
- Go to Settings > Expenses > Expenses notifications.
- Find the Expense approval notifications toggle.
- Turn it on.
- Save your changes.
Caution: Turning off expense approval notifications means your approvers won't receive dedicated approval notifications. Make sure they have another way to stay on top of their approval queue—for example, by using the open spend tasks email or signing in to Perk regularly. To learn more, see Send an open spend tasks email to employees.