Payroll Changes at Oyster

Payroll Changes allow customers to add payments or benefits to a Team Member's payroll when those items are not already part of the Team Member's employment contract or an addendum.

Typical examples include bonuses, commissions, allowances, and employer-funded benefits.

Payroll Changes are linked to a specific Team Member and payroll period and are processed together with that Team Member's payroll.

Payroll change types

Oyster currently supports the following Payroll Change types:

Bonus
Commission
Employer pension or retirement contribution
Wellbeing
Health insurance
Risk insurance
Meals
Travel allowance
Work from home allowance

The selected Payroll Change type determines how the additional payment or benefit is categorized within payroll.

Expenses

Expense reimbursements and Payroll Changes differ mainly by the nature of the payment:

Expense reimbursements repay a business expense that the Team Member has already incurred. They are submitted by the Team Member and are generally non-taxable.
Payroll Changes are instructions submitted by the customer to add a payment or benefit directly through payroll, usually as an addition to salary. They are generally taxable.

Customers should use Oyster's Expenses workflow for expense claims so that the correct expense and tax treatment can be applied.

Expenses are also available programmatically through the public Expenses API.

Which Team Members can receive Payroll Changes?

Payroll Changes can be created for eligible Team Members associated with the selected customer.

Availability depends on factors including:

the Team Member's engagement status
the Team Member's employment dates
the selected payroll month
whether the relevant payroll cutoff has already passed.

Oyster automatically determines which Team Members and payroll periods are available when the Payroll Change is created.

One-time Payroll Changes

A one-time Payroll Change applies to a single payroll month.

For example:

Team Member: Maria Schmidt
Payroll Change: Bonus
Amount: €2,000
Payment schedule: One time
Payroll month: September 2026

When creating a one-time Payroll Change, the user selects the month in which the change should be processed.

Available months are limited by:

the Team Member's employment start date
the Team Member's employment end date, where applicable
the payroll cutoff for the current month

Within the current calendar year, the months available for selection run from the current payroll month, or the next one if its cutoff has passed, through December. Later calendar years are selectable in full. In all cases the selected month must fall within the Team Member's employment period.

Payroll cutoff

Payroll Changes must be submitted before the relevant payroll cutoff.

For employees, Payroll Changes for a particular month must be submitted before 5:00 am UTC on the day following the Team Member's cutoff date.

For example:

Payroll cutoff: 10 September
Payroll Change submission deadline: before 5:00 am UTC on 11 September

Once the cutoff has passed, the current payroll period can no longer be selected through the standard Payroll Change workflow.

Submitting Payroll Changes before cutoff is important because it allows Oyster to include the change in the applicable payroll cycle.

Amount and currency

Payroll Changes are entered using the Team Member's payroll currency.

When creating an individual Payroll Change, Oyster may show both:

Official gross amount in the Team Member's currency
Approximate gross amount in the customer or reseller currency

The customer or reseller currency value is an estimate based on the applicable FX rate and markup.

Because exchange rates may change, this amount is displayed as approximate rather than final.

If the Payroll Change amount is equal to or greater than the Team Member's monthly salary, Oyster displays a warning asking the user to verify that the value is correct.

Invoicing and payslips for Employments

Payroll Changes processed within a regular payroll cycle appear in the breakdown of the settlement invoice, under a Payroll Component category.

They are also included in the Team Member's regular salary payslip for that payroll period.

All payroll cycles, including monthly, semi-monthly, and biweekly, are billed monthly, so Payroll Changes do not produce a separate invoice.

What the API supports

Programmatic access is covered in the Payroll Changes API Guide. The API is narrower than the interface described above:

one-time Payroll Changes only, with no recurring schedule
one Payroll Change per request, with no bulk entry or CSV upload
no off-cycle payments, which are handled operationally rather than on the platform