This article explains what reimbursement is in Perk, how the flow works from expense to payout to your books, and how expense status and reimbursement status differ. Use it to decide whether to use reimbursements for your company and to align admins, financial reviewers, and employees.

What is a reimbursement?

Reimbursement in Perk means Perk pays your employees for approved out-of-pocket expenses (e.g. meals, taxis, incidentals) on your company's behalf. Out-of-pocket expenses are any expense with payment method set to Privately paid in Perk. The employee gets the money from Perk; your company is then invoiced by Perk for those payments in a separate reimbursement statement. Approval, payment, billing, and audit trail all stay in Perk—meaning no PAIN files and no manual payment runs in your banking portal.

Reimbursements are available when the feature is turned on for your account; however, you can choose whether you want to use it for a specific company or not. Account admins or financial reviewers set up the feature for a company; financial reviewers approve and schedule reimbursements; employees receive payouts.

Perk uses two different funding models, depending on your company's country:

• Post-funded — Perk pays your employees first, then invoices your company afterward for the amounts paid out, through your existing billing relationship with Perk.
• Pre-funded — your company holds a pre-funded virtual account (funded by a Perk Cards lodge card) that Perk tops up before each payout run and draws from to pay employees. This requires Perk Cards onboarding, including Know Your Business (KYB) verification, before you can enable reimbursements.

Availability by country

Your company's country determines which funding model applies and which setup article to follow. If your account includes companies in several countries, each legal entity is set up independently. Reimbursements aren't currently available for companies in other countries.

Why use reimbursements in Perk?

• Approval, payment, billing, and a single audit trail live in one place in Perk.
• You don't generate or upload payment files to your bank; Perk handles payouts.
• No hours are spent building and uploading payment batches.
• Payouts and Perk's reimbursement statement line up for straightforward matching.
• From expense to approval to payout to your books, you stay in one flow without jumping between systems.
• Employees can see when their reimbursement is scheduled, processing, or paid.
• Once a financial reviewer approves and schedules the reimbursement, payouts run on Perk's cycle (e.g. weekly) instead of waiting on your internal payment process.

Tax treatment: Perk as payer

Perk pays employees on the company's behalf, acting as a payment agent. Because these are reimbursements of genuine business expenses, they are not treated as taxable income for employees in the countries where Perk operates (US, UK, Spain, Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium). The payment appearing from Perk in an employee's bank statement does not change this.

Documentation and payroll reporting needs vary by country. Companies with employees across multiple jurisdictions should confirm local obligations with a tax advisor.

How reimbursements work end to end

Once set up, the flow works like this:

1. The employee creates an out-of-pocket expense in Perk (e.g. client lunch, taxi) and sends it for approval.
2. The expense goes through your usual approval flow (e.g. cost object approver, then financial reviewer).
3. Once a financial reviewer approves and schedules the reimbursement, Perk pays out to the employee's bank account on your company's behalf.
4. Perk issues a reimbursement statement (billing document) that lists the payments made. Your company is charged for those amounts.
5. Your finance team records and pays Perk's reimbursement statement in your accounting system.

The employee is paid by Perk; the company is billed by Perk and then settles that bill. The company never sends the reimbursement directly to the employee's bank.

Expense status vs reimbursement status

Perk tracks two separate things: the expense status (for accounting and export) and the reimbursement status (for payment).

Once a financial reviewer approves and schedules the reimbursement, the expense moves to Ready to export status and the reimbursement gets its own status that reflects the payment lifecycle.

Financial reviewers and admins see reimbursement status in Finance > Review > Reimburse. Employees see the reimbursement status (often labeled "Processing" or "Reimbursed") in My Tasks.

For more information on what employees see and how to check status, see Receive reimbursement for your out-of-pocket expenses (outside the US) or, for US-based employees, Link your bank account for reimbursement payouts (US).

How the accounting flow works for financial reviewers

Financial reviewers typically do the following to account for reimbursement:

1. Review the out-of-pocket expense (policy, receipt, amount, cost object, etc.) in Finance > Review > Reimburse.
2. Approve the expense and schedule it for the next reimbursement (payment) run. The expense moves to "Ready to export" and the reimbursement is scheduled.
3. Perk runs the payment batch and pays the employee's bank account. You don't trigger this in your bank; Perk does it.
4. Perk sends the company a reimbursement statement that lists the payouts made in that period.
5. In Finance > Review > Reimburse, you can see payout status (e.g. paid, failed). Use that and the reimbursement statement to confirm what was actually paid.
6. Export expenses and the Perk reimbursement statement into your accounting system. Reconcile the payment against the specific transfer account you use for reimbursement so your books match the statement.

Reconciliation is done by matching the payouts on the reimbursement statement (and in Perk's reimbursement views) to the expenses you export and to the transfer account in your GL. The reimbursement statement is the link between what Perk paid out and what your company owes Perk.

For step-by-step reconciliation, see Manage and reconcile reimbursements. For sending payouts, see Send a reimbursement to an employee.