This article describes how to turn on and set up reimbursements in Perk for companies in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, and Portugal, so Perk can pay your employees for approved out-of-pocket expenses on your company's behalf. Use it when you're ready to enable the feature at company level.

Before you start: complete Perk Cards setup

Reimbursements in Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Portugal run on a pre-funded model using Perk Cards. Your company holds a pre-funded virtual account, which Perk tops up before each reimbursement run and draws from to pay employees directly to their bank accounts. Because of this, Perk Cards onboarding — including Know Your Business (KYB) verification — must be completed before you can enable reimbursements.

Before you start, make sure you know which companies should use reimbursement, how often you want to run payouts, which currency to use, and which transfer account in your accounting system you'll use for reconciliation. If you're unsure, check with your finance or accounting team.

Note: Already on Perk Cards? If your company already has a Perk Cards account set up, KYB is already done. Go directly to Create a payment profile using the lodge card step below.

Caution: If the account has multiple companies across various markets, each legal entity is set up independently. The setup described here can also be used for Austria, France, Germany, Italy, and Portugal. If the company is based in Belgium, Estonia, Ireland, Netherlands, Spain and the UK, you need to set up your account for post-funded reimbursements. For the US, see Set up reimbursements for your US company. There is no impact between these setups.

Note: Currently reimbursements can be used with these integrations: 

• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance (Finance & Operations)
• Oracle NetSuite
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
• Xero
• QuickBooks Online
• SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition
• SAP S/4 KPMG
• Sage Intacct

Step 1: Confirm setup with your account manager or implementation specialist

Contact your Perk account manager or implementation specialist to confirm you want to use reimbursements. They will initiate the setup process.

Step 2: Complete KYB as part of Perk Cards onboarding

Your company will go through the standard Perk Cards onboarding process, which includes KYB verification. A lodge card is issued as part of this process. This typically takes 4–6 weeks.

Funding your virtual account

Perk does not transfer money into your virtual account. You're responsible for transferring funds from your company bank account into the virtual account tied to your lodge card, with enough balance to cover upcoming reimbursement runs. Perk charges the lodge card to collect what your company owes; it never funds the account on your behalf.

This top-up is a movement between your own accounts, so you also need to post it yourself in your accounting system. See Manage and reconcile reimbursements for how to record it.

Create a payment profile using the lodge card

Once the lodge card is issued, you must create a payment profile in Perk using that lodge card. Perk cannot do this on your behalf due to PCI compliance needs.

1. In Perk, go to Settings > Account > Payment profiles.
2. Add a new payment profile and select the lodge card issued during Perk Cards onboarding.
3. Set the invoicing cadence (statement period) to periodic: weekly, every two weeks, or monthly. Instant statement generation is not supported for reimbursements.

The lodge card uses instant (direct debit) payment, which means Perk collects from your company at the moment each payout is confirmed. This makes the payment profile compatible with all payout cycles — weekly, biweekly, or monthly.

Choosing which companies use reimbursement

Decide whether reimbursement applies to all companies in the account or only to specific companies.

1. In Perk, go to Settings > Expense management > Reimbursements (account admin) or Finance > Review > Reimbursements (financial reviewer).

1. Select whether you want to turn on reimbursement for the account (all companies) or for specific companies only. If you turn it on for only some companies, employees in other companies won't see the option to receive reimbursement via Perk for out-of-pocket expenses — they'll follow your existing process (e.g. payroll or manual bank transfer).

Note: Reimbursements for Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Portugal are available in EUR only. If your account includes companies in other currencies, those aren't in scope for this setup.

Setting reimbursement frequency and currency

Set how often Perk runs reimbursement payouts.

1. In Settings > Expense settings > Reimbursements, open the reimbursement settings for the company (or account).

2. Set the reimbursement frequency — for example weekly, every two weeks, or monthly. This defines how often a batch of approved reimbursements is sent for payment.

   • Weekly: every Friday
   • Every two weeks: the 14th and last day of each month
   • Monthly: the last day of the month

   Payments are done at 11:00 AM UTC. There is no cutoff time before the payment. If an expense misses a run, it will be picked up in the next scheduled one. Once triggered, payout arrival time varies by region: up to 1 working day (T+1) for UK payouts, up to 2 working days (T+2) for EU payouts. Bank holidays and weekends are not counted in these windows.

Caution: The frequency applies to all selected companies. You can't set different frequencies for different companies. 

Tip: Pick a frequency that fits your approval and month-end close. Weekly reimbursement runs give employees faster payouts and still let you export and reconcile on a regular schedule.

1. The payout currency is EUR. Select the payment profile created in the previous section (the one using your lodge card).

Note: Expenses in other currencies: Employees can submit expenses in any currency — for example, a German employee on a US trip submitting a USD receipt. Perk automatically converts the expense amount to EUR using the exchange rate at the time of processing. No action is needed from the employee or financial reviewer.

Indicating the transfer account

Tell Perk which transfer account (GL account) in your accounting system you'll use to record and reconcile these payouts. Your finance team uses this to match Perk's reimbursement statement to the correct account.

1. In Settings > Expense management > Reimbursements, find the Transfer account number (or equivalent) field for the company.
2. Enter or select the transfer account code or identifier that your accounting system uses for reimbursement payouts.

Your financial reviewers use this when they export expenses and the Perk reimbursement statement and reconcile payments to this account. If you're not sure which account to use, ask your controller or accounting team.

Tip: Use a dedicated transfer account (or sub-account) for reimbursement so you don't mix these payouts with other types of payments. That keeps reconciliation clean and audit-ready.

Saving and confirming

After you've set companies, frequency, currency, and transfer account, save the reimbursement settings.

Confirm that the summary shows the right companies, frequency, currency, and transfer account.

Once saved, reimbursement is on for the selected companies. Employees in those companies can add bank details in their profile (if they haven't already), and financial reviewers can start approving and scheduling reimbursements from Finance > Review > Reimbursements.