Creating a payment voucher
Raise a direct payment voucher — choose the account, amount, category and expense label, name the payee, attach supporting documents, and send it into the approval chain.
A payment voucher is how you record a direct expense your organisation needs to pay — a supplier invoice, a beneficiary payout, field aid, or routine operating spend. You raise it, code it to a category and an expense label, name who is being paid, and attach the supporting documents. The voucher is then sent into the approval chain, and the money only leaves your accounts once it has been approved and the treasurer executes the payment.
This is the form to use when you already know what is being paid and from where. If the request started life as a staff member asking for a payment, it comes to you a slightly different way — see Staff payment requests.
Who can do this. You need a finance role that grants create — typically the Accountant or Finance Manager (an owner or admin can do it too). If you can't reach the New payment voucher form, your role doesn't allow it; see Members & roles.
Where to find it. Finance → Expenses → Vouchers → New payment voucher.
Before you start
Have these to hand:
- The amount, in Omani Rial. WAQAF money is OMR to 3 decimals (1 OMR =
1000 baisa), so an amount like
200.000means exactly two hundred rial. - The account the money will leave from — a cash box or a bank account.
- The category the spend belongs to (for example a named project, operating costs, or a Zakat disbursement). The category decides the fund the money comes from.
- The expense label — a required reporting tag, separate from the category. See Expense labels.
- Who is being paid (the payee) and, optionally, an email address to send the paid-voucher receipt to once it is paid.
- The supporting documents to attach — the quote, invoice, or receipt that backs the payment.
Fill in the voucher
The form is laid out in numbered sections, with a summary rail beside it that updates live as you type. Work down the sections in order.
Open the new-voucher form
Go to Finance → Expenses, open Vouchers, and choose New payment voucher. The form opens ready for a new entry.
Choose the account and enter the amount
In Payment & amount:
- Pay from account — pick the cash box or bank account the money will leave from. Accounts are grouped into Cash boxes and Bank accounts. You choose the account; WAQAF works out whether it counts as a cash, transfer, or cheque payment — you never set a payment method by hand.
- Amount (OMR) — type the amount to three decimals (the box shows
0.000until you type). - Due date — optionally, when the payment is due.
Pick the category and expense label
In Categories & split:
- Category — choose the expense category the spend is coded to. Only categories enabled for expenses appear in the list. The category determines which fund the money is drawn from — you never pick a fund separately.
- Expense label — choose a label from the list. This is a separate reporting dimension and is required before you can save. You can search the list by name or by its code.
If the category you choose draws on the Zakat fund, a Zakat recipient category (asnaf) picker appears, and you must name the eligible recipient category before you can save.
What you see about balances depends on your role. If your role can view balances (such as Finance Manager, CEO, or Auditor), the rail shows the category's available balance and the account balance. As an Accountant you instead see a simple Sufficient balance or Insufficient balance badge — never the figure itself. That's by design, not a missing feature. See Balances & privacy.
Name the payee
In Beneficiary & delivery:
- Payee — pick an existing payee from the list, or choose Custom payee… and type the name of someone not on file.
- To email the paid-voucher receipt once the voucher is paid, tick Send the voucher to the recipient by email and enter the recipient email. For a saved payee with an email on file this is filled in for you. If you change it, you can also tick Save this email to the vendor for next time.
Add location and notes
In Location & notes, optionally record the country and city the spend relates to, and add an internal note for context.
Attach the supporting documents
In Attachments, add the quote, invoice, or receipt that backs the payment. Drop a PDF or image onto the box or click to choose files — you can add several. Each file can be tagged as a Quote, Invoice, Receipt, or Context so approvers and auditors know what they are looking at. Files are kept private to your organisation; the maximum size is 10 MB per file (iPhone HEIC photos are converted for you).
Create the voucher
Press Create voucher. WAQAF assigns the next voucher reference (a PV-… number —
see below), records the voucher as coded, and sends it into the approval chain at
the Finance step. Any documents you attached are saved against the voucher. You'll see a
confirmation naming the new reference.
What a PV- reference is
When you create a voucher, WAQAF assigns it a unique payment-voucher reference in
the form PV-YYYYMMDD-NNNN — the date it was raised, followed by a sequence number for
that day. For example, the third voucher raised on 22 June 2026 would be
PV-20260622-0003.
The reference is unique within your organisation and is how the voucher is identified everywhere afterwards — in the expenses list, in the approval chain, on the printed voucher, and in the ledger once it is paid. You don't type it; WAQAF allocates it for you on save.
Splitting the amount across two categories
Sometimes part of a payment really belongs to a second category — for instance, when one category doesn't have enough budget to cover the whole amount and you want to charge the remainder elsewhere. If your organisation has enabled splitting, the Categories & split section shows a second Deduct-from category and a slider:
- Drag the slider (or type the deduct amount) to send part of the total to the second category. The two parts always add up to the full amount.
- Once any amount is deducted, you must choose the deduct-from category and give a short split reason before you can save.
Going over a category's balance is allowed. WAQAF does not block a voucher whose amount exceeds the category's available balance — the category balance simply goes negative (shown in red). The split is there if you'd prefer to redirect the overflow onto another category, but you are never forced to. This is deliberate.
Waqf principal is protected. You cannot raise a voucher that spends from a Waqf principal category — endowment capital is preserved. If you pick one, the form blocks saving and explains why. Choose a different category, or use the deduct line to redirect the amount.
What happens after you create it
- The voucher is coded and sits at the Finance step of the approval chain, waiting for the first approver. While it is still freshly coded and awaiting Finance approval, you can still edit it; once anyone approves it, it can no longer be changed.
- It then moves through the approval chain — Finance Manager, then CEO — before the treasurer can pay it. See The expense approval workflow.
- The money does not leave your accounts when you create the voucher. Only when the treasurer executes the approved payment is the entry posted to the ledger. Ledger entries are never deleted — a mistake is corrected with a reversing entry, not a delete.
See also
Expenses & vouchers
The big picture: how a payment moves from request to paid.
The expense approval workflow
Who approves a voucher, in what order, and what each step means.
Expense labels
The required reporting tag you set on every voucher.
Printing payment vouchers
Print or download the bilingual voucher document.