How to reimburse an employee through payroll

KB140

Overview

There a number of ways to reimburse employees, but the most trackable and easiest to understand process is listed below.

Process

  1. Set up a liability General Ledger account for each employee you want to reimburse. These will effectively be loans, so it is a good idea to put them under a common header Employee loans in payroll liabilities
  2. Set up a Pay Item (Payroll > Setup > Pay items) for each employee you want to reimburse
    • Type: Allowance after tax
    • Default rate: Custom
    • Rate: 0.00
    • Tick Allow user to change rate
    • Default Qty: Custom
    • Qty: 0
    • Tick Allow user to change quantity
    • Unit: Each
    • Payment type: Other: non-reportable
  3. When the employee pays for something, they will give you a tax invoice for the supply
    1. Enter as a normal tax invoice against the same supplier you would use if you paid for it yourself. This is VERY important: the employee is NOT your supplier, they are instead the payment method
    2. PAY the invoice using the employee's reimbursement account as the Drawing account
  4. When you do a pay run, examine the reimbursement accounts for staff and for anyone who has an account balance
    1. Use the pay item created above to pay them back their money
    2. This will reduce their loan account

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Last edit 23/12/21