Understand outgoing payment records in Sanka, including suppliers, bills, payment proof, status, and reconciliation checkpoints.
Last updated: May 28, 2026
The Disbursement object stores outgoing payments. Use it when money leaves your company to pay a supplier, contractor, vendor, employee reimbursement, or other payee.This reference explains what a disbursement represents, how it differs from a bill and a payment, and what to check before creating, importing, matching, or updating disbursements with AI, CSV, actions, workflows, integrations, or manual entry.
What a disbursement record represents
A disbursement record represents payment execution. It answers "what did we actually pay, to whom, when, and with what proof?"It is different from:
Bill: a supplier invoice or payment request that may still be unpaid
Payment: incoming money received from customers on the sales side
Expense: spend or reimbursement that may need review before it becomes a payable or payment
Journal entry: accounting impact created from or associated with the payment
Common fields include:
Disbursement ID or record ID
Payee or supplier company/contact
Record owner
Payment date
Status, such as draft, approved, scheduled, paid, failed, or reconciled
Amount, fees, tax, currency, and line items
Related bill, purchase order, expense, journal entry, or accounting export
Payment proof, such as bank transfer receipt, remittance file, or memo
Source details from CSV imports, integrations, actions, workflows, or AI-assisted creation
Disbursement fields and statuses can be customized by workspace admins. If a status, required field, or option is not available, check object settings and property settings before treating it as a bug.
How disbursements connect to other records
Disbursements are usually the last operational step in a payables flow.
Companies and contacts: the supplier or payee
Bills: the payment request being paid
Purchase orders: the purchasing context behind the payment
Expenses: spend or reimbursement records that may need payment
Journal entries and accounting exports: finance records created from or associated with the disbursement
Files: payment proof, transfer receipt, remittance data, or approval evidence
If a related bill still looks unpaid after a disbursement is recorded, check whether the disbursement is associated with the bill and whether the bill status was updated.
Review a disbursement with AI
Ask AI to review the payment state before creating or marking a disbursement as paid.
Sample prompt
/sanka Review this Sanka disbursement before making changes. Show the payee, related bill, related purchase order, amount, fees, tax, currency, payment date, payment proof, duplicate payment candidates, bill status, and accounting export status. Do not create, update, mark paid, or reconcile records yet.
After the review, confirm whether the disbursement should be drafted, associated with a bill, marked paid, reconciled, or left unchanged.
Create a disbursement
Use this general flow when recording an outgoing payment:
Open Disbursement and click New.
Select the supplier, payee, or business partner.
Enter the payment date, amount, fees, tax, currency, and line items.
Associate the related bill, purchase order, expense, or accounting record when available.
Attach payment proof, such as a transfer receipt or remittance confirmation.
Set the status according to your workflow.
Save the record.
If the disbursement is created from a bill, confirm that the bill amount, due date, supplier, currency, and approval status are correct before recording payment completion.
Expected behavior
When a disbursement is created successfully:
It appears in the Disbursement object list unless it is archived or filtered out by the current view.
The payee, owner, payment date, status, amount, currency, fees, line items, and payment proof are saved.
It can be associated with bills, purchase orders, expenses, journal entries, and accounting exports when your workspace uses those records.
It may be created manually, imported from CSV, synced from an integration, generated by an action or workflow, or drafted with AI review.
It does not automatically prove that the related bill is correct, approved, or reconciled.
Disbursement status should reflect your actual payment process. For example, scheduled, paid, failed, and reconciled may be separate states depending on your workspace.Archiving a disbursement hides it from active views. It does not automatically reverse accounting entries, reopen bills, delete payment proof, or remove related history.
Troubleshooting
A disbursement is missing from the list
Check whether it is archived, filtered out by the current view, assigned to another owner, or hidden by permissions.
A duplicate disbursement was created
Compare payee, bill, purchase order, payment date, amount, currency, fee, payment proof, and source details. Do not mark both records paid until finance confirms the correct record.
A bill still looks unpaid after payment
Check whether the disbursement is associated with the bill and whether the bill status was updated. Some teams update bill status only after bank reconciliation.
The disbursement amount does not match the bill
Compare withholding, bank fees, currency, partial payments, tax, credit notes, and split payments. Record the reason for the difference before reconciliation.
A payment failed or was reversed
Do not simply delete the disbursement. Record the failure or reversal according to your finance process, keep the proof, and update the bill or accounting records only after review.
A user cannot create or reconcile a disbursement
Check module access, object permissions, owner assignment, approval workflow requirements, and whether the user can access the related supplier, bill, purchase order, or accounting records.
Checkpoints
Before confirming that a supplier has been paid, review the payment proof and related payable records.
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Review disbursement changes
Logs
Search logsAll actionsAll dates
ID / ActionDateTarget / ItemChangeActor
3Reviewed outgoing payment2026/05/10 16:00Supplier paymentChecked payee, bill, amount, fee, currency, and transfer proofClaude / Codex
2Recorded disbursement2026/05/10 16:10Supplier paymentCreated outgoing payment and attached bank transfer proofSanka user
1Reconciled payment2026/05/11 09:30Supplier paymentMatched outgoing payment with bank recordSanka user
Disbursements should be reviewed with bills, purchase orders, payment proof, and accounting records before finance-facing or supplier-facing updates.
