Reimbursement in Perk means Perk pays your employees for approved out-of-pocket expenses (such as meals, taxis, and incidentals) on your company's behalf. The employee receives the money from Perk, and your company is then invoiced separately for those payments.

Approval, payment, billing, and the audit trail all stay in Perk, so there's no need for PAIN files or 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.
 

Currently reimbursement applies to:

• Eligible clients: UK, Spain, Netherlands, Ireland and Belgium companies in any account.
• Payout currency: GBP and EUR, depending on the configured base currency. Expenses can be submitted in any currency — Perk converts automatically.
• Expense types: Privately paid expenses only, such as meals, taxis, incidentals, and other day-to-day expenses.

If your company uses reimbursements, only privately paid expenses that meet the criteria above can be paid out by Perk. Other expense types follow your existing reimbursement or payroll process.

Warning: Currently reimbursements can't be used with Oracle Netsuite or Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance (previously, Finance & Operations)

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 (for example, weekly) instead of waiting on your internal payment process.

To learn more, see Set up reimbursement for employees.

How reimbursements works end to end

Once set up, the flow works like this:

1. The employee creates a privately paid expense in Perk (for example, a client lunch or taxi) and sends it for approval.
2. The expense goes through your usual approval flow (for example, cost object approver, then financial reviewer).
3. Once a financial reviewer approves and schedules the reimbursement, Perk pays 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:

• Expense status (for accounting and export)
• 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.

How the accounting flow works for financial reviewers

Financial reviewers typically do the following to account for reimbursement:

1. Financial reviewers typically do the following to account for reimbursement:
2. Review the privately paid expense (policy, receipt, amount, cost object, etc.) in Finance > Review > Reimburse.
3. Approve the expense and schedule it for the next reimbursement run. The expense moves to Ready to export and the reimbursement is scheduled.
4. Perk runs the payment batch and pays the employee's bank account. You don't trigger this in your bank; Perk does it.
5. Perk sends the company a reimbursement statement that lists the payouts made in that period.
6. In Finance > Review > Reimburse, you can see payout status (for example, Paid or Failed). Use that and the reimbursement statement to confirm what was actually paid.
7. 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.