Expenses for Remote Workers
When reviewing your policies related to reimbursing remote employees for expenses, the following considerations apply:
- Some states require reimbursement of ALL or most business expenses (California, for example).
- NC, SC and VA follow federal law, which does not require companies to reimburse personally paid business expenses. However, expenses may not reduce wages to below minimum wage under FLSA requirements.
- In some cases, a home office expense might fall into consideration as a reasonable accommodation. In that case, the company should pay if it is not an undue hardship.
- Reimbursing business expenses makes good sense to support employee morale, particularly when the expense is truly for business-related needs.
- When reimbursing expenses, require receipts or proof of payment.
- When reimbursing “partial costs” (for example, the cost of using a personal internet connection for business purposes), place a maximum on the reimbursement amount calculated using local figures for the lowest level connection to avoid reimbursements being seen as regular wages.
- Reimbursing minor use of a phone (such as answering on occasion in an emergency) is unnecessary in NC and the expense may be difficult to calculate.
Travel to home office: This could be seen as work time if the “new home office” is the remote location; however, if the employee arranges for the workday to be divided into home and work time interrupted by a block of time reserved for his/her use, the reserved time is not compensable, even if the employee uses some of that time to travel.
If you have special concerns about your expense reimbursements, feel free to reach out to a Catapult Advisor.
