This article describes how to match Perk's payouts to your books and reconcile reimbursements in your accounting system. Use it when you're closing a period and need to reconcile reimbursement activity against your transfer account.

You need access to Finance > Review > Reimbursements and to the reimbursement statement Perk sends.

After Perk pays employees on your company's behalf, Perk issues a reimbursement statement that lists those payments. Your job is to check payout status in Perk, export expenses, match them to the reimbursement statement, and reconcile everything against the transfer account set up for reimbursement.

How reimbursement postings work

Understanding what the transfer account represents makes the rest of this article straightforward.

When Perk reimburses an employee on your behalf, your company's obligation does not disappear. It moves. You no longer owe the employee, you owe Perk.

Perk posts one journal entry per expense:

• Debit: the expense account, for the cost
• Credit: your transfer account, for the amount owed

Your transfer account therefore accumulates one credit per reimbursed expense over the period.

The transfer account is a liability account, not a record of a completed payment. A balance on it means the amount is still owed to Perk.

Nothing clears that balance automatically. You clear it yourself, by posting Perk's charge against the transfer account when it reaches your bank account. This is covered in Posting and reconciling in your accounting system below.

This has two useful consequences:

• The balance on the transfer account at any moment is your outstanding reimbursement liability, provided you post Perk's charges against it as they land. You do not need to calculate it separately or book an additional accrual.
• At period end, including year end, that balance is already your liability figure. Expenses exported in December and charged by Perk in January will sit on the transfer account at 31 December, correctly stated. No manual accrual or January reversal is required.

Before you start

• Reimbursements must be set up for the company, including the transfer account used for reconciliation.
• You set up the transfer account per legal entity. If your company has more than one legal entity using reimbursements, each one needs its own transfer account set up, and each account must exist in that entity's chart of accounts.
• Reimbursements must have been scheduled and processed. Some may be paid, some may have failed or need action.
• You need access to Finance > Review > Reimbursements and to the reimbursement statement Perk sends, by email or in the billing area depending on your setup.

Checking payout status in Perk

1. In Perk, go to Finance > Review > Reimbursements.
2. Review payout status for the period you're reconciling: Reimbursed, Processing, Scheduled, or Needs action.

Reimbursed means the money has been sent to the employee's bank. Needs action usually means the employee must fix something, for example their bank details, before the payout can succeed. Your company is only charged by Perk when a payout actually completes.

Expenses in "Needs action"

Caution: Before you export, be aware of what happens if that payout never succeeds. Exporting posts the amount to your transfer account. If the payout is subsequently cancelled or never completes, Perk will not charge your company for it, and Perk does not reverse the posting automatically. The amount stays on your transfer account with no corresponding Perk charge for you to clear it against.

If you export expenses whose payouts are still in Needs action, track them and reverse the posting in your accounting system if the payout does not go through. If you would rather avoid this, resolve Needs action items before exporting.

Use this view to confirm which reimbursements were paid in the period and to spot any that failed or are pending.

Cancelling a reimbursement

Finance admins can cancel a reimbursement before any money moves, instead of leaving it stuck or opening a support ticket.

1. Open the reimbursement in Finance > Review > Reimbursements.
2. Select Cancel Reimbursement. This is available when the reimbursement is Scheduled (awaiting payout) or Needs action (payment failed).
3. Choose a cancellation reason and confirm.

Caution: Cancelling is not available once the payout reaches Processing or Reimbursed. Export status does not affect this: an exported expense can still be cancelled if its reimbursement is still Scheduled or Needs action. Once the payout is in flight or settled, the reimbursement can no longer be cancelled in Perk.

Getting the reimbursement statement from Perk

Perk issues a reimbursement statement for the relevant period. The statement lists the payouts made (and possibly related details such as expense IDs, amounts, and payees) so you can match them to your records.

1. Get the reimbursement statement for the period you're reconciling. It may be available in the billing or invoicing area of Perk or sent to your billing or finance email—follow your company's process.
2. Open the statement and confirm the list of payouts and totals matches what you expect from the payout status in Perk.

If something's missing or doesn't match, resolve it (e.g. check for delayed payouts or failed payments that will appear in a later statement) before you post to your GL.

Exporting expenses and matching to the statement

The reimbursement statement is the source of truth for what Perk paid out and what Perk is charging your company.

Reconcile line by line, or by batch if your process is batch-based, so every payout on the statement is accounted for in your export and in your books.

1. Export expenses from Perk for the same period. Use the export that includes expense IDs, amounts, dates, and any fields you need for your ledger, such as cost object or project.
2. Match the exported expenses to the reimbursement statement. Each payout on the statement should correspond to one or more expenses that were scheduled and paid in that period.

A note on timing

Expenses are exported when they are marked ready to export, which is independent of the payout cycle. An expense can be exported before its payout has been made.

This is expected and does not indicate an error. It is the reason the transfer account carries a balance between export and Perk's charge to your bank.

Posting and reconciling in your accounting system

How the expense side is posted depends on how your company exports from Perk.

• If you use an accounting integration (API connector), Perk posts the expense side into your accounting system automatically when the expense is exported. You do not need to record those expenses again.
• If you use a file-based export, you import the export file into your accounting system using your usual process. The file contains the same postings described in How reimbursement postings work above.

In both cases, one entry is always yours to post: the payment to Perk.

1. When Perk's charge reaches your bank account, post it against the transfer account that was set for reimbursement in Settings > Expense management > Reimbursements:

   • Debit: the transfer account
   • Credit: your bank account

   Perk charges once per payout run, covering every reimbursement request in that run. You post one entry per charge, clearing the accumulated credits in a single line. Use the reimbursement statement to see which reimbursement requests, and which expenses, the charge covers.

2. Reconcile the transfer account. The movements for the period should match the reimbursement statement total and the exported expenses posted in that period. The remaining balance is what Perk has paid out on your behalf but not yet charged you for.

If you use a dedicated transfer account for reimbursement, all Perk payout activity for this feature should flow through that account so reconciliation stays clear and auditable.

Tip: Keep the reimbursement statement and the export in the same period, for example by statement date or payout date, so your ledger period and Perk's statement period align and reconciliation is straightforward.

What Perk does and does not post

To be explicit about the boundary:

• Perk posts: the expense cost, and the credit to your transfer account representing the amount owed to Perk.
• Perk does not post: the payment from your bank account to Perk. Perk has no visibility of your bank account, so this entry is always yours to make, using the reimbursement statement to identify what each charge covers.

You do not need to book a separate liability for the upcoming Perk charge. The credit to your transfer account already is that liability.

To learn more, see Reimbursements in Perk, Set up reimbursement for employees, and Send a reimbursement to an employee.

For employees, see Receive reimbursement for your privately paid expenses.