A service provider is another wxrks account that approves and pays your vendors for you, with its own PayPal or Payoneer integration. This article shows both sides of the link: the provider that invites, approves and pays, and the client account that accepts, chooses what the provider covers, follows the payments and can revoke at any time.
💡 Who is this for? Account Admins of the client account (the account whose payables are paid) and Account Admins of the service provider account (the account that pays them).
Before you start
Both sides need Account Admin access. Only Account Admins see Settings > Finance & Billing > Service providers and the provider's Client Payables tab.
The provider pays with its own payment integrations. Set up PayPal or Payoneer in the provider account under Settings > Finance & Billing > Payment integrations first (see How to Connect PayPal to wxrks).
Vendors are paid to the PayPal account or Payoneer ID in their own payment information. A vendor without either cannot be paid by the provider.
The provider needs the account UUID of the client account to send the invite. If you are the client and don't have your account UUID, ask wxrks support.
Key concepts
Term | What it means |
Service provider | The account that approves and pays the covered payables of another account. |
Client | The account whose payables the provider pays. Its users keep seeing these payables, read-only. |
Coverage | What the provider pays: payables from tasks in selected organizations or org units, or the Entire account. The client chooses it. |
Client Payables | The provider's tab in Finance > Payables with the covered payables of every client. |
Org units are the units inside an organization where projects are created (see how org units work).
Example: an agency's account pays the freelancers of its customer's account. The agency invites the customer's account. The customer accepts and covers only its "Marketing" organization. From then on, every payable from a task in Marketing appears in the agency's Client Payables tab. The agency approves it and pays the freelancer from its own PayPal. In the customer's Payables list the same payable shows the agency in the Service provider column and can no longer be approved or paid there.
1. Invite the client account (service provider)
In the provider account, go to Settings > Finance & Billing > Service providers.
Click Invite account.
In Client account UUID, enter the UUID of the account whose payables you will approve and pay.
Click Send invite.
The link appears with the role Provider and the status Pending. Its Coverage reads Waiting for the client to choose, because the client decides what you pay. Until the client accepts, you can withdraw the invite with Cancel invite in the row's actions menu.
2. Accept the invite and choose the coverage (client)
In the client account, go to Settings > Finance & Billing > Service providers.
Find the invite: it shows the provider's name, the role Client and the status Pending. Open its actions menu (...).
Click Accept. To refuse the invite, click Decline instead.
Under Coverage, choose what the provider pays:
Specific organizations or org units: payables from tasks in the organizations you select, including org units created in them later, and in the org units you select. An org unit selected here is covered on its own, even if its organization is not. Org units created later are not added to a selection of org units.
Entire account: every payable of your account. Your open imported payables move to the provider when you accept; payables you import later keep the payer you choose at import (see step 4 below).
Click Accept.
The link changes to Accepted and the Coverage column lists what you chose.
ℹ️ Note: When you accept, your open payables that the coverage includes move to the provider and keep their status: those Pending approval, and those Ready that were not sent to payment yet. New payables from covered tasks go to the provider as they are created. A payable already in payment stays with your account.
ℹ️ Note: You can accept more than one service provider, but their coverages cannot overlap: each organization or org unit has one provider at most, and a provider that covers the Entire account must be your only one. wxrks refuses an acceptance or coverage edit that would overlap another accepted link and names the provider that already covers it.
3. Follow the payables your provider pays (client)
Go to Finance > Payables. The Service provider column shows who pays each payable: the provider's name, or This account. You can also filter the list by Service provider.
Payables paid by a provider are read-only for your account. Their actions menu starts with Service provider: [provider name] and offers no Approve, Make payment or Mark as paid. Your users keep seeing these payables, and their status follows the provider's progress: Ready once the provider approves, then Processing and Paid, or Error if a payout fails.
ℹ️ Note: You can still Cancel payable until the provider starts paying it. Once it is in payment, the cancellation is refused.
⚠️ Warning: A change to a vendor's payment information (payment method, PayPal account or Payoneer ID) after the provider approved one of their payables puts that payable on hold for the provider's review (see step 6). Tell your provider when a vendor's payment details change, so the payment is not delayed.
4. Import payables for your service provider (client)
When you import payables (Finance > Payables > Actions > Import payables > Upload file) and your account has an accepted service provider, the Import payables window adds a Service provider field. Choose This account, or the provider that will approve and pay the imported payables. If a provider covers your Entire account, it is selected by default.
ℹ️ Note: Imported payables have no tasks, so organization and org unit coverage never applies to them. They keep the payer chosen at import. A coverage edit does not move them; only accepting a link with Entire account coverage, or revoking a link, does.
5. Approve and pay client payables (service provider)
Once a client accepts, the provider's Finance > Payables page gets a Client Payables tab.
Go to Finance > Payables and open the Client Payables tab.
Find the payable. Use Status (by default Open, which hides paid and cancelled payables) and Account (All clients, or one client) to narrow the list. Each row shows the client account, the vendor with their payment method, the amount, the status and who approved it.
Open the row's actions menu and click Approve. The status changes to Ready, and Approved by records who approved it and when.
When you are ready to pay, open the actions menu of a Ready payable and click Make payment, then confirm Make payment. To pay several at once, select them with their checkboxes and use the bulk actions menu.
Approving and paying are two separate actions, so one person can approve and another can pay later. Payables to the same vendor, payment account and currency are sent as one payout. If the provider account is connected to the Xero accounting software, wxrks creates the bills of these payables in the provider's Xero, not in the client's.
Mark as paid records payables you paid outside the platform. It is available for Ready, Processing, Awaiting reconciliation and Error payables.
History lists every event of the payable: Sent to the service provider, Approved, Changed after approval, Payout sent, Paid, Payment error and Returned to the client or cancelled, each with who did it and when.
After Make payment, the payable shows Processing while the payment provider confirms the payout, then Paid. When wxrks cannot get that confirmation automatically (for example, for Payoneer payouts), or when the outcome of a payout is unknown because the payment provider did not answer, the payable waits in Awaiting reconciliation. Check the payout with PayPal or Payoneer, then use Mark as paid. Don't pay it again: that could pay the vendor twice.
If the payment provider refuses the payout, the payable goes to Error and the reason shows under the status. Fix the cause, then approve it again, pay it again or mark it as paid.
6. Review a payable whose payment details changed (service provider)
If the vendor's payment details (payment method, PayPal account or Payoneer ID) change after you approve a payable, wxrks holds the payable with the status Payment details changed. A change to the amount or the tasks of the payable is caught the same way when you click Make payment. Make payment skips a held payable until you review it. A banner above the list counts the payables that need review.
Click Review next to the status. The window compares the payment When approved with the payment Now, row by row, and shows who approved and who changed it.
Confirm the change with the vendor through a channel you trust, not through the changed details themselves. Then click Approve again to make the payable Ready with the new details, or Keep on hold to leave it on hold.
⚠️ Warning: An unexpected change to a vendor's payment account can be an attempt to redirect the payment. Approve again only after the vendor confirms the new account.
7. Change the coverage or revoke the link (either side)
Change the coverage (client): open the link's actions menu and click Edit coverage, then Save. Open payables that the new coverage includes move to the provider; open payables it no longer includes return to your account. Payables already in payment, or whose payment failed, stay with the provider.
Revoke (client or provider): open the link's actions menu and click Revoke. Before you confirm, the window counts what happens to the payables under the link.
When a link is revoked:
Payables | What happens |
In payment | They finish with the provider. |
Open (pending approval or ready) | They return to the client, which pays them with its own payment integrations. |
With a failed payment | They stay with the provider, who can pay them again or mark them as paid. The provider can no longer approve them. |
The link stays in the history of both accounts with the status Revoked, and the provider keeps the Client Payables tab while any of the client's payables are still in progress. To work with the same account again, the provider sends a new invite.
Troubleshooting
Message or situation | What to do |
Enter a valid client account UUID. | The value in Client account UUID is not a UUID. Copy the client's account UUID again, without spaces. |
A service provider link already exists with this account | You already have a pending or accepted link with that account. Only a revoked link can be followed by a new invite. |
The whole account is already covered by [provider], Part of this account is already covered by [provider] or One or more selected organizations or org units are already covered by [provider] | Another accepted provider already covers part of what you chose. Choose other organizations or org units, or revoke or narrow the other link first. |
The client does not see the invite | Check that the provider used the UUID of the client account, and that the person looking is an Account Admin of that account. |
A payable was skipped with Payment details changed after approval | Review it (step 6) and approve it again before you pay. |
The vendor has no PayPal or Payoneer payment details for this payment | The vendor's payment information has no PayPal account or Payoneer ID. Ask the client to update the vendor, then review and pay again. |
The service provider account has no PayPal integration configured (or Payoneer) | Set up that integration in Settings > Finance & Billing > Payment integrations of the provider account. |
Payments of a revoked link can't be approved. Pay them again or mark them as paid. | The link was revoked after the payment failed. Use Make payment or Mark as paid. |
The client cannot approve or pay a payable | It is paid by a service provider (see the Service provider column). Only the provider can approve and pay it. |