Use reimbursements to pay your employees back for out-of-pocket expenses by sending the money straight to their personal bank account, instead of running it through payroll or another manual process. This article walks you through the requirements, how to turn reimbursements on for your company, and how to set them up once they're turned on.

Note: This article is for companies with a US legal entity only. If your company is in a different country, see Setting up reimbursements for other countries.

What reimbursements enable for your company

Reimbursements let your company pay employees directly for approved out-of-pocket expenses, rather than reimbursing them through payroll. Each employee links their own personal bank account (see Link your bank account for reimbursement payouts (US)), and your company funds the payments through your existing Perk billing relationship. Reimbursements are available to companies with a US legal entity.

Requirements and limitations

Before you set up reimbursements, keep these key points in mind:

• Your company needs a US legal entity to use reimbursements.
• Employees can only link a personal checking account for payouts. Savings and money-market accounts aren't supported.
• Employees can only link an individual account in their own name — joint and business accounts aren't supported.
• If you turn reimbursements on for only some of your companies, employees in the other companies won't see the option. They'll keep using your existing process, like payroll or a manual bank transfer.
• As a financial reviewer, you can only select the companies you have permission to manage when choosing which companies use reimbursements.

Enable reimbursements for your company

Turning on reimbursements is self-serve — you don't need to contact Perk. As an account admin or financial reviewer, you turn reimbursements on for your company yourself, as part of setting up your reimbursement settings.

1. Go to Settings > Expense management > Reimbursements (account admin) or Finance > Review > Reimbursements (financial reviewer).
2. Turn on reimbursements for your company. If your account manages more than one company, select the specific companies you want to turn reimbursements on for.
   
3. Choose your payment cycle: weekly, every two weeks, or monthly. This sets how often Perk sends a batch of approved reimbursements for payment.
   • Weekly: every Friday
   • Every two weeks: the 14th and last day of each month
   • Monthly: the last day of the month

Perk processes each run at 11:00 AM UTC with no cutoff time, so an expense that misses one run is picked up in the next one. Once triggered, payouts typically arrive within 1–2 business days as an ACH bank transfer; bank holidays and weekends aren't counted in that window.

1. Confirm your payout currency is USD.
   
2. Select an existing payment profile in USD, or set up a new one that matches how your company is billed. Your payment profile's currency must match your payout currency — you can't pay employees in a different currency than the one you're set up to pay Perk in.
3. Enter your transfer account — the account in your accounting system you'll use to record and reconcile these payouts. Check with your accounting team if you're not sure which one to use. Your financial reviewers will use this same account when they export expenses and reconcile the Perk reimbursement statement.
4. Save your settings, then check the summary to confirm your companies, payment cycle, currency, and transfer account are all correct.

Payment profiles that use a card can't be used for reimbursements. If a card is the only profile available for your currency, contact your Perk account manager to add a bank transfer or direct debit profile first.

Bank transfer payment profiles only work if their billing statement period is the same as or more frequent than your payment cycle — for example, a weekly payment cycle needs a weekly or biweekly bank transfer profile, not a monthly one. Direct debit profiles work with any payment cycle, but if their billing statement period is less frequent than your payment cycle, Perk collects from your account before that statement is issued — you'll see a notice about this on screen, and it doesn't affect employee payouts.

Your company is billed for reimbursements through your existing invoicing relationship with Perk, so you don't need to set up a separate payment method beyond confirming your payment profile and transfer account.

Once you save your settings, reimbursements are on for the selected companies. Employees can add their bank details from their profile if they haven't already, and financial reviewers can start approving and scheduling reimbursements from Finance Review Reimbursements.

Where employees see their status

Admins and financial reviewers can track each employee's reimbursement status in Finance > Review > Reimburse. This shows whether an employee's reimbursement is scheduled, processing, paid, or needs attention — for example, because of an invalid or unverified bank account. A periodic reimbursement statement is also available there, so you can reconcile reimbursement payments against your own accounting records.