Inviting a third-party to submit an Expense

Please note if an invitation isn't accepted within a month, it will expire. You will need to submit a new expense and invite the third party again.

It is also possible to draft an expense and send it to a third party to edit and submit an expense. You can send a drafted expense to an existing user of the platform or to someone else that is not on the platform yet.

Inviting a third-party user or organization to submit an expense automatically creates a draft of the expense and emails the user so they can finalise any final details and submit it to the collective.

Notice, although the invited user will pick who's going to be paid for the expense, the created expense will display you as the user who requested it:

Jean-François requested an expense to Pia who submitted it in the name of Open Collective Inc, one of her organizations.

Inviting an existing user

To invite an existing user, search for an existing user in the payee selection dropdown. After selecting the user, you'll be able to add a title to the expense, optional items, and a note to the recipient that will be sent in the email.

The invited user will receive a notification by email containing a link with a key that will allow them to finish editing and submit the expense.

Inviting a new user

It is also possible to invite a user that does not have an account on the platform to submit an expense. To do that, simply select the option Invite someone to submit an expense.

Select either Personal Account or Organization Account (this will result in an Organisation profile in which that individual is the admin). Fill in their name and email address and Organisational information.

Click next to get to the invoice details screen. You are now able to add additional information about the expense. Pre-fill whatever info you already have, then invite the payee to fill in the rest and confirm. This can make the whole process a lot easier!

Click Send Invite.

The payee will get an email saying "'Collective' wants to pay you" and they will be guided to put in their bank details and confirm the expense

When the payee finishes editing the expense, the summary of the expense is displayed and they will be able to create their account and submit the expense in a single action.

After joining and submitting the edited expense, the expense now is saved in the platform and marked as unverified until the payee validates their email. After the payee validates their email, the expense is marked as pending and is displayed on the expenses page for the Collective's admins to approve (and you will get an email notification).

Once the expense is there on the list, click "approve" on it