Earned Wage Access FAQs for employers and managers

At present, the Earned Wage Access product is built as part of our wider benefits product offering. Our goal is to support the financial well-being of all employees who use our product, and to do so, we are trying to break the typical mould of pay schedules, waiting to be paid, and the reliance on expensive credit products.

We would love to learn what your concerns and questions are about this benefit and how we might be able to alleviate them. We have also provided some additional information and resources below.

In a market where finding and retaining the best talent is especially tough, Earned Wage Access offers a unique and valuable addition to your Employer Value Proposition (EVP). This benefit allows your employees to access their earned wages in real time with no credit, interest or hidden costs. There is only a variable administration fee of 1.5% to your bank or 1.3% to a Swag Spend Account.

We've crafted a blog post that offers employers all the essential information about Earned Wage Access to help you better understand the ins and outs.

Earned Wage Access provides employees with access to their pay for work already undertaken - rather than an advance on work not yet done. Below are some key details around this:

• Only 50% of an employee's unpaid net pay owed is eligible.
• There is a weekly withdrawal limit of $1000 (and no minimum per transaction).
• Earned Wage Access will show as a payslip deduction on the employee's next payslip.
• When the pay run period comes around, your organisation then pays Employment Hero the wages, instead of the employee.
• This is all automated and completed as part of the pay run, so there's no extra admin on your part.

Further to this, there is eligibility criteria in place, providing parameters an employee needs to meet in order to access their available funds, which are outlined in the Eligibility FAQ guide.

This article outlines how Earned Wage Access can be viewed, processed and reported upon from an organisational perspective to support managing the use of Earned Wage Access. I also wanted to include the T&Cs here, should you wish to review them (see section: Additional Specific Terms relating to Earned Wage Access), and a helpful FAQ for employees regarding using Earned Wage Access.

I hope these details assist in highlighting the value of Earned Wage Access for your organisation and its employees, but if you have specific questions or concerns about your employees having access to this benefit and feature you want to discuss, please feel free to talk to our customer care team.

There is no additional effort required by you. When employers are connected to Employment Hero payroll, employees are given access to Earned Wage Access (EWA) benefits via the EH Work app.

When an employee requests EWA, the money is paid to them directly from Employment Hero. At the same time, a deduction is added to the employees record in their pay run inclusions page. 

The deduction is then automatically added to the next pay run for Employment Hero to recoup their money. If you have an open pay run, the deduction will show in a deductions tab for your convenience so that you can apply it to the pay run.

You can see which employees have accessed EWAy by going to your Pay run inclusions report and looking for the deduction 'EH EWA Post-tax deduction'.

When an employee requests an earned wage access payment, these transactions will appear in the relevant pay run as a post-tax deduction. Employment Hero bases earned wage access availability on approved timesheets, or a pro-rated daily amount (for each work day) for salaried employees. To read further information on the employee-facing side of the earned wage access feature, refer to the following article.

Earned Wage Access (EWA) services offer several benefits for employers:
 

• Increased Employee Satisfaction: offering EWA as a benefit can improve job satisfaction, loyalty, and morale, leading to higher engagement and retention rates.
• Talent Attraction: employers that provide financial wellness solutions, like EWA, can stand out as more attractive to job seekers, especially in competitive job markets.
• No Impact on Cash Flow: EWA services is funded by Employment Hero, which means there's no direct impact on the employer's cash flow.
• Enhanced Productivity: financial stress is a major factor in decreased productivity. Providing EWA can help alleviate this stress, allowing employees to stay focused on their work.

1. Log into Employment Hero. 
2. Click on Benefits on the left-hand side menu.
3. Click on Earned Wage Access overview. 
4. Here you will find valuable information about benefits for employees, how it works for employers, and other resources.

Your employees can use EWA to:

• Access money they have already earned before pay day for any unexpected bills/emergencies
• Avoid credit products and build healthy financial habits
• Take control of how they want to manage their finances

We also provide employees with links to financial wellness guides within EH Work.

Earned Wage Access (EWA) is easy to set up with Employment Hero. As long as your payroll is connected to Employment Hero, there are no additional setup requirements. After two months, EWA will automatically be available to your employees through EH Work, with no extra effort needed on your part. For more details, see here.

There are no costs for employers to provide Earned Wage Access (EWA) to their employees. The only fee involved is a variable administration fee of 1.5% to your bank or 1.3% to a Swag Spend Account, which is charged to the employee and clearly displayed when they use EWA within EH Work.

However, if you are interested in subsidising this cost to offer EWA as an employee benefit, feel free to reach out to us for more information.

Offering Earned Wage Access (EWA) does not impact your business's cash flow or liquidity. Employment Hero provides the funds directly to the employee from our own accounts. These amounts are then automatically deducted from the next relevant pay run as a post-tax deduction.

No money leaves your organisation's account for EWA until payday, where the total payment remains the same—simply divided between the employee and Employment Hero.

Employment Hero has also achieved ISO 27001 compliance and uses two-factor authentication (2FA) for key actions within its platform to minimise fraud risks. For more details, visit our page on the Employment Hero website.

1. Log into Employment Hero. 
2. Click on Settings in the left-hand side menu.
3. Click on Custom Security Settings. 
4. Click the New Security Group button.
   
5. Complete the fields of group name, description (optional) and select the employee(s) you would like to assign access.
   
6. Click on Other Permissions.
   
7. Select Earned Wage Access Dashboard (Use).
8. Click Create.
   

If you are interested in subsidising the cost of Earned Wage Access (EWA) as a benefit for your employees, please get in touch with us. We are exploring options to make this an employer-funded benefit.

Currently, there are no costs for employers to offer EWA to their employees. A transaction fee is charged to the employee and is clearly displayed when they use EWA within EH Work.

Information about Earned Wage Access (EWA) can be found in our Help Centre here. We will continue developing additional resources to help employers promote the benefits of EWA to employees.

Earned Wage Access (EWA) does not have any tax implications for employees, as it operates within the existing tax framework.

We have automated the necessary intra-pay-cycle HMRC submissions for early wage access requests, ensuring that there are no changes or additional tax or HMRC reporting requirements for employers.

No, using Earned Wage Access (EWA) will not affect an employee's credit score. Accessing earned wages before payday is not considered a credit or payday loan product, so it will not appear on an employee's credit report or impact their financial standing in any way.

Data privacy for Earned Wage Access (EWA) is maintained in line with the data privacy standards applied across the entire Employment Hero platform. You can refer to our Privacy Policy for further details. EWA is protected by the same robust security measures used throughout the Employment Hero platform.

Trust is at the core of what we do, and we take data protection very seriously. We employ bank-level encryption standards and industry-leading technology to safeguard the security and integrity of your HR data. Employment Hero has also achieved ISO 27001 compliance. For more details, visit our Security Centre on the Employment Hero website. Additionally, we implement two-factor authentication (2FA) for key actions within the platform to minimise fraud risks.

Earned Wage Access (EWA) appears as a separate line item on the employee's payslip, making it clear that the amount has been deducted from their pay-check. There are no tax implications associated with using EWA.

Earned Wage Access (EWA) is safeguarded by the same robust security measures used across the entire Employment Hero platform. We prioritise data protection and employ bank-level encryption standards and industry-leading technology to ensure the security and integrity of your HR data.

When an employee uses Earned Wage Access (EWA), a post-tax deduction is automatically created within their payroll file. This can be viewed in both the employee's pay run inclusions and your organisation's pay run inclusions report. Currently, this is the only summarised view available for monitoring EWA transactions.

Employees can access a maximum of 50% of their unpaid net pay, with a weekly cap of $1000. To support responsible use, we offer financial wellness resources within EH Work to help employees understand how to use EWA wisely and reduce reliance on high-cost credit and loan products.

Employees also have the option to opt out of the EWA feature if they find it is not beneficial to their situation. For more information, visit here and here.

When an employee uses Earned Wage Access (EWA), a post-tax deduction is automatically created within their payroll file. This can be viewed in both the employee's pay run inclusions and your organisation's pay run inclusions report. Currently, this is the only summarised view available for monitoring EWA transactions.

The payroll platform allows you to run a report that will show the earned wager access transactions processed within your organisation. The steps on how to run this report are:

1. Log into your Employment Hero Payroll platform.
2. Click the Reports menu.
3. Click the Pay run inclusions report, under the Payroll area.
4. Complete the following fields to determine who will be included in the report:
   • Employee.
   • Location.
   • Status.
   • Pay schedule.
   • Employing entity.
     You can either choose to include/exclude terminated employees.
5.  Click the Run Report button.
   
6. Open the relevant accordions for the employee deductions you want to view.
7. You will see EH EWA Post-tax deduction in the Deduction category - this shows an earned wage access deduction.
   

Once an employee requests an earned wage access payment, the platform will create a locked post-tax deduction for the withdrawn earned wage access amount in the employee's payroll file. The steps on how to view this are:

1. Log into your Employment Hero Payroll platform
2. Click the Employee menu.
3. Click the List submenu.
4. Click on the employee whose earned wage access deduction you want to view.

5. Click the Pay Run Inclusions button.

   Helpful Hint

   You will now see under the deductions section the employee's earned wage access post-tax deduction. Please note that this may still be labelled as an 'EWA Post-tax deduction'.

   

Notifications for earned wage access deductions depend on your organisation's setup:

• For organisations using both HR and Payroll: The HR organisation owner and the full access (admin) users of the connected Payroll organisation will receive an email notification.
• For Payroll-only organisations: Full access users in the Payroll platform will receive the notification.

This email notification is triggered only once, when Earned Wage Access is used for the first time across the entire organisation. It does not trigger for each individual employee application.

Notifications for earned wage access deductions depend on your organisation's setup:

• For organisations using both HR and Payroll: The HR organisation owner and the full access (admin) users of the connected Payroll organisation will receive an email notification.
• For Payroll-only organisations: Full access users in the Payroll platform will receive the notification.

This email notification is triggered only once, when Earned Wage Access is used for the first time across the entire organisation. It does not trigger for each individual employee application.

Employees can access a maximum of 50% of their unpaid net pay, with a weekly cap of $1000. To support responsible use, we offer financial wellness resources within EH Work to help employees understand how to use EWA wisely and reduce reliance on high-cost credit and loan products.

Employees also have the option to opt out of the EWA feature if they find it is not beneficial to their situation. For more information, visit here and here.