How to Make a Reimbursement

You can manually add a tax-exempt earning or a negative deduction during payroll to simplify paying a reimbursement.

Jeffrey Mo avatar
Written by Jeffrey Mo
Updated this week

Sometimes your employees purchase work-related items or training classes, and you'd like to reimburse them for these expenses. You can reimburse employees in either of the following ways:

  • Through a tax-exempt earning

  • Through a negative deduction, which is a modified post-tax deduction that adds an amount to an employee's pay instead of deducting it.

With either of these methods, you can manually add the earning or negative deduction during payroll to any employee's check, making reimbursement very simple.


Create a tax-exempt earning code

  1. Log in to your Fingercheck account as an Administrator.

  2. Click the SETUP tab > Payroll > Earnings.

  3. Click Add.


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  4. From the panel that opens, click Add Custom in the top-right corner.

    Note: Alternatively, you can click Add for the Mileage Reimbursement Non Taxable earning to automatically create the earning. Then, you can edit the earning and remove Mileage from the earning its name if you want to use the earning code for other reimbursements.
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  5. In the pop-up window that appears, complete just the first four fields as shown below.

    For the Earning Type field, select EXCEPT - Exempt Wages.

    This window has many fields, but you don't need to complete them. For more information, see How to Set Up Earning Codes.

  6. Click Save.


Create a negative deduction

  1. Log in to your Fingercheck account as an Administrator.

  2. Click the SETUP tab > Payroll > Deductions.

  3. Click Add.

  4. From the list of deduction templates, click the Add button next to Reimbursement.

  5. In the two confirmation windows that appear, click OK.

  6. Close the panel.

    The new Reimbursement code appears in the list.

  7. Click the Edit icon (pencil) for the new code.

  8. Edit the fields as needed.
    For descriptions of the fields, see How to Create Deduction Codes.

  9. Click Save.


Apply the reimbursement earning or deduction during payroll

  1. Start a payroll run.

  2. Within Step 4 (also known as Payroll Entry), click on the triple bar icon next to the employee's name you would like to reimburse.

  3. From the drop-down list of options, select Edit Check.

  4. If using an earnings code:

    1. Click the Earnings tab, and click Add to start a new row on the tab.

    2. From the Earning drop-down list on the new row, select the reimbursement code you created in the previous procedure.

    3. In the Amount field, enter the reimbursement amount.

      In the Amount field, enter the cost of the reimbursement.
      For example, to pay $100, enter 100.00. The earning will appear on the paycheck, but it will be tax exempt.

    4. Click Save.

  5. If using a deductions code:

    1. Click the Deductions tab, and click Add to start a new row on the tab.

    2. From the Deduction drop-down list, select RE - Reimbursement.

    3. In the Amount field, enter the negative cost of the reimbursement.
      For example, to pay $100, enter -100.00. This way, the deduction will pay the amount instead of deducting it.

    4. Click Save.

  6. Click Continue.
    The Preview Payroll grid displays the negative deduction you entered. Since you selected Post-Tax, the employee will receive the full amount.

  7. Click Next to approve payroll, and the employee's paycheck will include the reimbursement.


Watch this video to see the two ways to set up a reimbursement and pay the employee:

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