Pay Statement Items & Rules

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Overview

Finch allows you to define how pay statement items are processed, categorized, or modified based on custom rules. This enables more customized payroll data management and streamlined operations. You can associate specific labels, track eligibilities, or perform reconciliation depending on your needs.

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How It Works

To create a rule:

1. Identify the metadata attributes that you would like to track for pay statement items (eg. item eligibiity or source code).
2. Fetch all the unique pay statement items for a given connection from the /pay-statement-item endpoint to identify what the rules can be applied on for the connection.
3. Identify what the rule should be (eg. for pay statement deduction items that are called “401k”, assign a label called “Pre-Tax EE Deferral”).
4. Call the Finch POST /pay-statement-item/rules endpoints to create a rule.
5. Use the other management endpoints (GET, PUT, DEL) to maintain those rules.

Once a rule has been created, Finch applies that rule for all pay statement items for that connection. When the rule conditions are met, metadata attributes will be appended to that pay statement item, which can be retrieved as part of /pay-statement or /pay-statement-item endpoints.

Note that pay statement item rules can only be applied to a specific connection. Universal rules are not supported currently.

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Use Cases

1. Categorizing Pay Statement Items Automatically: You can use rules to assign labels or categories to payroll items

   • If the name field is “Salary”, label it as “Base Compensation”.
   • If the name field is “Bonus”, label it as “Variable Pay”.

2. Enforcing Deduction Policies: Automatically flag or process specific deductions

   • If the name field is “401k”, ensure it is categorized as a pre-tax deduction.
   • If the name field is “HSA”, add a metadata tag for tax-exempt handling.

3. Managing Employer Contributions: You can use rules to track employer contributions separately

   • If the name field is “Health Insurance”, classify it as an employer contribution.
   • If the name field is “Retirement Match”, ensure proper tax treatment.

4. Custom Payroll Data Processing

   • Apply a custom label to specific pay statement items to align with internal reporting.
   • Automatically reformat certain pay statement items for easier integration with reconciliation software.

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Best Practices

• Use clear and specific conditions: Avoid broad conditions that may unintentionally apply to multiple pay statement items.
• Test rules before production use: Validate sample pay statements to ensure rules behave as expected.
• Monitor rule execution: Regularly audit payroll processing results to identify any unexpected behaviors.