Benefit Allowances is a great way to make people feel valued at work and improve employee engagement. Many of our customers offer their employees allowances such as Wellness, Work-from-home equipment and Learning&Development.
But it often comes with its challenges of keeping track of allowance statuses; how much has been used and how much is left to spend.
Fortunately, Pleo has a feature to help both employees and finance teams with this.
How to use Pleo for Benefit Allowances
In a nutshell, Pleo makes it easy for employees and reviewers to keep track of spending against their allowances, relieving the Finance team from manual work .
Before making a purchase, employees can easily find out how much they have left to spend in the Pleo app, which helps prevent overspending.
After a purchase, employees, reviewers and admins alike can see how the purchase fits into their allowance, and how much is left to spend.
How to set up a Benefit Allowance
In the Pleo web app, go to Settings.
Find and open the Benefit Allowance settings page.
Select the Category you are using for the Benefit Allowance (if you don't have one yet, you can create one in the Category settings).
Enter the Allowance amount that each employee should be able to spend per year.
If any employees need a customised Allowance amount, click the "+ Add new"-button in the Custom Allowances section to set up custom amounts for individual employees. This is handy for e.g. Part-time employees and mid-year hires.
How employees can use Pleo for their Allowances
Employees can spend their allowance using both Pleo cards and Pocket. Since the allowance amount is tied to the Category specified in Settings, both card and Pocket spend will count towards the allowance.
Checking allowance before making a purchase:
Go to Profile at the bottom right in the mobile app.
Click "Benefit Allowance" in the menu
Each employee will see their individual allowance status; how much has been used and how much is left to spend until year end.
Click on the Allowance to see a filtered view of expenses already made.
Spending the allowance:
Pay with Pleo card or submit a Pocket expense.
Select the Category used for the allowance.
The allowance bar will pop up, indicating how the purchase fits into the allowance and showing how much is left to spend (or overspent).
The bar is green if the expense is within the allowance amount, and red if it is over.
Pocket expenses can be edited to fit the allowance, should the amount be over budget.
Reviewing Benefit allowance expenses
Allowance expenses can be reviewed in both the Pleo mobile and web apps.
Reviewers can see each employees individual allowance status when reviewing expenses.
The bar is green if the expense is within the allowance, and red if it is over budget.
Reviewers can thus easily determine whether the expense is OK or not, and mark the expense accordingly.
FAQ
Can I use both Pleo cards and Pocket to make Benefit Allowance expenses?
Yes, both cards and Pocket can be used to make expenses and spend the Benefit allowance. The allowance amount is tied to a Category in Pleo, so both card and Pocket expenses will contribute to the same allowance amount.
Can I set individual allowance amounts for certain employees?
Yes. By adding a "Custom allowance" in the Settings page, you can set individually customised allowance amounts on selected employees. This is handy for e.g. part-time employees, mid-year hires and employees that have spent some of their allowance outside of Pleo.
Can Admins see employees' allowance spend and status in the Web app?
Yes. Admins, bookkeepers and reviewers can all see employees' allowance status in Expense details in the Web app, both on the Expenses page and Pocket page.
Can I download a spreadsheet of all allowance expenses?
Yes, in the "Wallet" and "Pocket" tabs in the Export page, you can filter by the Category used for the allowance and download a spreadsheet of all expenses made on that Category.
Can we set up more than one Benefit allowance?
No, not yet. However, we would love to learn more about how we can help you manage Benefit allowances in Pleo, so please reach out to us with your feedback 🙏
Can we set up monthly or quarterly allowances?
No, not yet. Currently, only yearly allowances running 1 Jan - 31 Dec are supported. However, we would love to learn more about how we can help you manage Benefit allowances in Pleo, so please reach out to us with your feedback 🙏
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