Frequently Asked Questions

Your common questions about Compt answered.

 
 

Picking the right perk management solution is not an easy task, and that's why we've compiled our top questions from prospective customers and answered them below for you.

Sections:

 
 

General

 
 
  • What is Compt?

    Compt is a perk management software that helps companies build and streamline perk stipends that offer personalized perks for employees while being flexible, cost-effective, and scalable for HR.

  • Is Compt SOC II Certified?

    Yes, Compt is SOC II, Type 2 Compliant. We're also GDPR compliant. Contact Us for more information.

  • What are perk stipends and why should I offer them at my company? 

    A perk stipend is an amount of money given to employees for them to spend on perks. By providing perk stipends, companies can make their perks inclusive, personalized, and meaningful for their people while being flexible, cost-effective, and scalable for HR. When using Compt, you can also ensure your perks are 100% IRS compliant without any additional effort from you. If you want to learn even more about perk stipends this guide can help.

  • What is a perk?

    Employee perks, often referred to as fringe benefits, are non-wage offerings given to employees that extend beyond salaries and benefits (like health insurance, dental, vision, etc.).

    Perks are ways to support the employees beyond the standard salary and benefits and include purchasable, programmatic, and environmental perks.

    • Purchasable perks include catered lunches, books, fitness stipends, pet insurance and student loan forgiveness.
    • Programmatic perks are policy-driven advantages to working at a company such as remote work opportunities, being pet-friendly, or offering Summer Fridays.
    • Environmental perks are the ways in which you set up your office including meditation rooms, slides, and the overall space.

    What perks are not:

    • Perks are not health care, dental, or vision package.
    • Perks are not essential company hygiene factors like mission, vision, values, fair pay, or a strong/ethical team.
    • Perks are not equivalent to company culture, but rather a component of it.
    • And while it's really great if you work close to where you live, it wouldn’t be considered an employee perk. 

    Read full definitions of compensation, salary, benefits, perks, perk stipends, and more here.

  • Why not give cash rather than build out a stipend program? 

    These days a lot of people don’t even see their pay stubs; what is out of sight is out of mind. Extra cash doesn’t get noticed or appreciated as much by employees as an intentional perk, gift, or award. Employees make that psychological connection between perks program and the things that are meaningful in their lives. That, by and large, is more impactful towards the morale of the employee and for the company as well.

    Google actually did an A/B test on this very topic with their team. They found that employees who were given cash were not retained as long as those who felt supported by their company through experiences and perks. They published the results in “Work Rules” if you’re interested in checking it out.

  • Will Compt’s perk stipends work for my company? 

    If you’re a people first-organization, absolutely! You probably already have some perks in place; it’s just a matter of broadening and simplifying. If you’re newer to the realm of employee perks outside of traditional benefits like health insurance/401k, we have a team in place to help you evaluate where Compt could fit, if we’re a fit. Follow this link to contact sales.

  • Can I transfer my existing perks over to Compt? 

    Absolutely, many of the companies we work with do exactly that and then make tweaks regarding categories and amounts. Some examples of this are catered lunches moving to a Food stipend, gym perks moving to a more inclusive Health & Wellness stipend, or charity donation matching moving to a Charitable Giving stipend. If you have other perks in place that you think could be turned into a stipend but you aren’t quite sure, you can reach out to our team to schedule a perks program evaluation.

  • How many stipends are allowed? 

    We recommend 1 or 2 per employee for optimal engagement, but we can work with you if you want more. 

  • Can we add some of your additional categories for our stipends over time? 

    Yes, it’s easy to create new stipends entirely or add additional categories with just a click. Changes will be reflected in the next stipend cycle.

  • What happens if someone doesn’t use their full stipend? 

    Compt was built as a “use it or lose it” platform to ensure that you do not have additional liabilities hanging out there (like with accrued time off) that you have to pay employees if they leave the company. If an employee doesn’t use the funds during the period you have selected, they are lost.

  • What is the average stipend per employee? 

    This varies greatly, but we typically see $100-$125 per month. We’re happy to provide suggestions tailored to your situation and existing customers’ success on a demo or a strategy call.

  • How much time on average are employees spending within Compt? 

    2-5 minutes per month. They login, click category, upload receipt, and click submit. Quick, easy, and meaningful.

  • What makes Compt different from expense software like Expensify or Concur? 

    Compt now offers expense management capabilities at a fraction of the cost of tools like Expensify and Concur.

    You no longer need separate tools to reimburse employees for business expenses. With Compt, you can set up a perk stipend, recognize team members with spot bonuses, and reimburse employees for business expenses like travel using a single platform.

    Check out the feature now!

  • How does your pricing work? 

    We use a tier-based pricing model based on the number of employees in your organization. 

    Because we don’t use a per-employee-per-month model, you always know your bill and never have to worry about auditing it. It also means that on an annual contract, you lock that price in for a year regardless of company growth during that year. If you double in size, we won’t change your bill during the course of the contract!

  • Is there a minimum amount of employees required? 

    No minimum, but we see higher engagement numbers for employees in companies with 50 or more team members.

  • What resources or collateral do you have for us to share with employees?

    During implementation, we’ll provide you with a one-pager for you to share with your team about their stipends through Compt. You can include some descriptive text under the stipend name as well to provide guidance. Generally, the categories are meant to be broad so the employees can determine what each category means to them. Student Loans, Charitable Donations, and Pets tend to be pretty clear cut though.

  • How much work is it to get started? 

    We provide an onboarding document for you when you’re ready to begin. Then depending on the size of your organization it can take anywhere from one 30-minute call to a few days (over the course of a week or two).

  • What do I need to get started? 

    1. First, you’ll need budget for your stipends. Many folks already have that. We typically see companies consolidating funds they were already spending on the team that were getting limited engagement results and bringing them onto Compt.

    2. You’ll need an idea of how you want to structure, and which spending categories you’ll include.

    3. Next is a roster of your employees.

    4. Lastly, you’ll need a payroll provider that accepts CSV upload (the vast majority do), and fifth, you need the will and desire to make your perks program top notch and delight your employees like you never thought possible!

    We're here to help when you're ready. You can schedule a demo, talk to a product specialist, or request pricing.

 
 

Payroll

 
 
  • How are employees' Compt accounts funded?

    Unlike most of the products on the market that require you to front-load funds, we do not require your cash upfront. Instead, employees are reimbursed for their perks through your payroll system. This has the added benefit of timing the reimbursement to the employee with the tax deduction.

  • How do employees get the money?

    They get reimbursed directly from payroll. There are no stipend dollars housed within Compt. When you set up a stipend in Compt, employees spend their own funds outside of Compt and upload a receipt. You then pull a report and reimburse employees through payroll.

  • Our team is too big for one person to review all of the expenses. What suggestion do you have for setting up an approval workflow in a larger company?

    You can set up as many reviewers as you’d like. For instance, some companies have different managers review their team’s purchases or multiple people on the HR team each taking a group. We will work with you to design a flow that can work for the way your team operates.

  • We’re not on ADP, but we’re too big to use CSV uploads. When can we expect more payroll API connectors?

    We plan on having APIs in all the major payroll providers. In fact, we probably already integrate with the one you use. If you're unsure or want to see if an integration is on our roadmap, check with a member of our team.

  • Is it possible to approve receipts in advance and not pay them out immediately? Our team would like to review expenses as they come in, but pay out reimbursements at a regular monthly interval. 

    We find that this is the case for many larger companies - and we listen closely to our customers! This functionality will be available soon. Let us know if this is an important criterion for you to become a customer.

 
 

Tax

 
 
  • Is Compt IRS tax compliant?

    Yes, we sure are! After all, we're founded by a three-time former CFO.

  • How does Compt ensure our IRS tax compliance? 

    Compt categories are segmented by taxability based on IRS tax classifications, so employees and employers can stay on the right side of compliance.

    The software also keeps every receipt that is uploaded so that you have what you need in case of an audit.

  • What is the difference between Nontaxable vs Pretax? 

    Pretax is the ability to withhold amounts from an employee's paycheck in a way that reduces their income but is not taxed. Nontaxable, or untaxed, is when employees are reimbursed as additional funds in their paycheck, but no taxes are withheld at that time.

  • Do I have to keep track of the nontaxable limits for Continuous Learning, Commuter Benefits, and Student Loan Repayment? 

    Nope. Compt does all of that for you! Compt has limits set within the software to ensure employees can’t go above the untaxed limits set by the IRS for each of these categories.

  • What does Finance need to mark in the ledger each month?

    For taxable items, finance no longer has to do anything! This can all be accounted for as income in their normal monthly payroll journal entries.

    For nontaxable items, Compt provides a report that shows what items were not taxed so that the finance team can make a journal entry reducing payroll or compensation expenses and increasing continuous learning/student loan repayment, commuter benefits, or cell phone perks.

  • Why do you have “Cell Phone” listed as a nontaxable benefit, and “Food” is listed as taxable even though there are instances where it can be nontaxable? 

    Cell phones can be considered a nontaxable benefit as they could be used for business purposes (and who doesn’t check email on their phone!). Food is, unfortunately, considered a taxable benefit in many instances - if your employees get their own food, if it is provided at their homes while working remote, etc. For a full list of taxable and untaxed fringe benefits, you can reference  IRS publication 15-B.

 
 

International

 
 
  • Does Compt work in other countries? Are you available in all countries? 

    Compt can work in most countries, with a few caveats. The Compt software is in English only - so would not be appropriate for teams that need this in their local language. Compt is able to show international stipends in local currencies with local time zones though. We currently support employees in many different countries around the globe.

  • How are you handling the tax compliance for all of the different countries? 

    Compt is built to comply with the US tax code. At this time, all submissions outside of the US are considered taxable income to those employees. While this is a very conservative view from a tax perspective, our intent is to ensure you can support a global team without creating additional international tax exposure.

  • Is there a way for us to manually change what’s listed as a taxable category in the software if it’s nontaxable in the country we are operating in? 

    Great question. This is a feature that is currently being built at Compt based on feedback like yours.

  • What do the reporting and payroll processes look like for a team that’s spread out across multiple countries? 

    Payroll reports are generated per country so as to allow you to process payroll in each currency and location separately.

 
 

Enterprise

 
 
  • Have you worked with large customers before? What has made them successful? 

    We work with customers of all sizes with all-sized budgets to match. We have found that companies see the most engagement within their teams when they really focus on highlighting their cultural values. Whether this is focusing on supporting the needs of families, team health and wellness, or lifelong learning we find that companies can bring consistency to their overall program while still localizing for needs in different parts of the US or in other countries.

  • What level of support would we have if we were to move forward with your platform?  

    After implementation, you will be assigned a Customer Experience manager who will be your point person going forward. We do have the ability for employees to reach out directly to our Support team as well in the software, but we have found that administrators prefer to have one point person to ask all of their questions.

    From a technical perspective, our software is SOC II Compliant, which means we've been certified by a third party to have established secure standard data practices and to main high levels of information security.

 

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