How do I pay incentives to employees?

This article will cover: 

• How to set up an incentive payment
• Recurring incentive payments 
• If your country doesn’t support a net incentive function 
• Adjusting incentive payments 

On Remote, it is possible for you to pay incentives such as commissions, bonuses, stipends, allowances, and other one-time payments to employees outside of their salary. You can make one-time payments to any employee or schedule future payments for an employee in seconds within Remote. You can schedule payments, and edit or delete incentives within Remote until 11:59 PM UTC on the cutoff date (or the Friday before the cutoff date if it falls over a weekend or a holiday) of the effective payroll month.

See also: When is the payroll cutoff?

How to set up an incentive payment

1. To input an incentive, go to the Incentives tab.
2. Click on the Add incentive pay button on the right-hand side and input the incentive details. You can also choose if the amount to be paid out should be the gross or net amount.
   
   
   
   
3. If you want the incentive to be paid out in the same month you're making the request, the effective date chosen has to be on or before the cutoff date of the month. If you choose an effective date after the cutoff date of the month, we will process it in the following or subsequent months, depending on the month chosen. From the modal, you can use the underlined text as guidance to confirm when the employee will receive the incentive.
   
   
   
   The net amount here is the estimated amount an employee will receive after taxes. Remote will apply the estimated amount of taxes to calculate the approximate gross amount. Due to the complexity, there could be some variation in the gross amount an employee will see once the payroll is finalized.

Recurring incentive payments 

1. If you'd like to pay out a recurring incentive to an employee while filling out the incentive details, as shown above, click on Payment Frequency. 
2. By choosing Monthly, you can set an end date or the number of times you want the incentives paid out.
3. If you prefer the recurring incentive to be effective at a future date, you can indicate what month you want the payout to start and how many times you want it paid out.
   
   

If your country doesn’t support a net incentive function

If the country where your employees reside does not support the function to process net incentives, you will see a screen prompting you to enter the gross amount directly. The Remote platform only supports gross incentive options in those countries to maintain transparency and compliance.

Adjusting incentive payments 

• You can edit or delete incentive payments within Remote until 11:59 PM UTC on the cutoff date of the effective payroll month, or the Friday before the cutoff date if the date falls over a weekend or a holiday. After the cutoff date, you will not be able to make changes to incentives scheduled for that month’s payroll. (The cutoff dates for Bulgaria, Germany, and countries where we have a semi-monthly payroll are different, please refer to When is the payroll cutoff?)
• From your Incentives tab, you are able to view all upcoming incentives, the ones that have been paid out and those that have been canceled.