Overview

Oyster reimburses team members for eligible business expenses through the monthly payroll cycle. This guide explains how expenses work end-to-end — from submission through to reimbursement — and what partners and customers building on the Oyster platform should understand about the expense lifecycle.

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What is an expense?

An expense is a business-related cost incurred by a team member on behalf of their employer that Oyster processes for reimbursement. Common categories include:

• Travel
• Equipment
• Home Office
• Learning & Development
• Office Supplies
• Food
• Car
• Benefits
• Rent
• Other

Each expense must include a receipt and is subject to approval before it is eligible for reimbursement.

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How expenses are submitted

Team members submit expenses individually through the Oyster platform or via the Expenses API. Each submission requires:

• Name – a short label for the expense
• Description – details about the business purpose
• Date incurred – the date the cost was actually incurred
• Category – the type of expense (see the full list above)
• Receipt – an uploaded receipt confirming the amount paid
• Amount – the receipt amount and currency

Once submitted, the expense moves to a pending state and awaits manager or administrator approval.

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Approval workflow

Expenses are reviewed and approved (or declined) by a manager or administrator with the appropriate permissions.

• Approved expenses are queued for reimbursement in the next eligible payroll cycle.
• Declined expenses are not reimbursed and the team member is notified.

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On-cycle reimbursement

Oyster processes expenses through its standard monthly payroll cycle. This is fully supported on-platform with no manual intervention required. This flow applies to EOR and GP team members.

Monthly cut-off

Each month has a payroll cut-off date. An approved expense must be submitted and approved before the cut-off date to be included in that month's payroll run.

Settlement invoice

This section applies to EOR (employment) team members only. GP team members are billed via a separate Global Payroll Fees invoice.

For EOR team members, approved expenses that are reimbursed through payroll appear as a line item in the customer's monthly settlement invoice. All payroll cycles — monthly, semi-monthly, and biweekly — are billed on a monthly basis. There is no separate expense invoice.

Off-cycle expense payouts are also captured in the monthly settlement invoice — there is no separate invoice. Billing is monthly across all payroll cycles (monthly, semi-monthly, biweekly, and off-cycle).

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Off-cycle expenses

Oyster does not currently offer a self-serve off-cycle expense flow. If a team member misses the monthly cut-off and requires urgent reimbursement before the next scheduled cycle, this is handled as an exception by Oyster's Operations team and processed manually off-platform.

This mirrors how off-cycle payroll changes work at Oyster. The Expenses API does not expose an off-cycle concept — all API operations follow the standard on-cycle flow.

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Taxability and payslip visibility

Whether a reimbursed expense appears on a team member's payslip depends on their engagement type, not their country.

• EOR (employment) and Global Payroll (GP) team members: all approved expenses are processed through payroll as a payroll component. They always appear on the payslip. Taxability affects how the expense is taxed, not whether it shows up.
• Contractors: expenses are not processed through payroll. They are reimbursed via a separate contractor expense reimbursement invoice and do not appear on a payslip.

For questions about how a specific expense is taxed, contact Oyster Support.

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Summary

For more information about how to use the Expenses API, see Managing Expenses via API.