Introduction

Mesh provides customers with a comprehensive solution for managing reimbursements. The platform enables users to record request reimbursements, manages the expenses approval workflow, disburse payments (e.g., directly to employees’ bank accounts or via alternative methods such as cash, check, or payroll), syncs data with their financial systems, and leverage expense analytics to generate actionable insights.

1. To fully leverage Mesh’s reimbursement solution, both the Reimbursement and Payout modules must be enabled in the Mesh backend. These modules are offered as add-ons and are not included in the base subscription. If this feature is not currently available for your company, please contact our team at support@meshpayments.com to learn more.

2. Your Mesh Administrator needs to create a reimbursement policy and toggle on the 'Reimburse with Mesh' option within the 'Reimbursement' section under the 'Company Settings'
3. Users need to submit reimbursement requests (e.g., out-of-pocket expenses, mileage, travel-related expenses) and await their approval. before Admins can disburse funs.   
4. Customers who wish to use Mesh to disburse funds directly to an employee's bank account must instruct their users to add their bank details to their Mesh profile.

Disburse payments

To disburse payments, log into the Mesh platform as a power user (e.g., a user with an Admin profile), click the Transactions section and then the Reimbursements payments link. 

The page is divided into four tabs as follows:

• Expenses to pay
• Scheduled payments
• Failed payments 
• Paid payments

📑Expenses to pay

The 'Expenses to Pay' tab consolidates all approved reimbursement requests by user. You can search for a specific user and click their name to view their approved reimbursements requests, or click 'All expense requests' to display all the approved reimbursements requests. To schedule a payment, select an individual request—or choose all— click the 'Schedule Payment (XXX.00 USD)' button and then click the 'Confirm' botton. The selected requests will move to the 'Scheduled payments' tab.  

Note: The numbered bubbles next to each tab indicate how many items require your attention.

📑Scheduled payments

The 'Scheduled payments' tab displays a queue of expenses awaiting payments.

The 'Payment' filter can be used to refine search results (e.g., 'Mesh Direct' or 'Indirect,' where 'Indirect' indicates reimbursement from a source other than Mesh).

When you click an expense its details are presented. 

Payments Done by Mesh

For payments made directly by Mesh no further action is required. All expenses added prior to the daily cutoff (1 PM EST) will be processed the next day.

Upon payment, funds will move from the company's Mesh balance, via Mesh's bank, to the employee's personal bank account. Once completed, Mesh will automatically lock the payment and mark it as paid. Each paid reimbursement will appear on the transactions page with the name of the employee to whom funds were transferred. Mesh will post a 'Reverse Payment Transaction' on the Transactions page if a payment fails after being marked as paid.

If users added their personal bank account the payment column will display the 'Mesh Direct' icon and the above will happen automatically however, if users added a bank account after an Admin scheduled a payment, the latter will need to click the 3-dots of such a scheduled payment and select to 'Pay Automatically by Mesh'. The action will send the payment for processing and future payments will occur automatically for this user. 

Admins can export all scheduled payments in a printable format. To do so, click the export icon and select 'Export as HTML'.

Payments done externally to Mesh

For payments made externally to Mesh (i.e., manual), we recommend locking the payment or using the 'Lock, Export & Sync' feature. Once a payment is locked, no additional expenses can be added. After completing the external payment, return to this page and mark the expense(s) as 'Paid'. Those expenses will move to the Paid payments tab.

Note: It is possible to sync expenses from this tab before the payment happens. Although it makes sense to sync items to the ERP after they were paid, it is up to the organization to decide how and when to sync such data to the ERP. 

📑Failed payments 

The 'Failed payments' section displays all unsuccessful attempts to pay an employee using the Mesh reimbursement payment option. Insufficient funds in the company's Mesh account or incorrect bank account details on the employee's end can result in a failed payment. Resolve any issue before rescheduling the expenses for payment.

📑Paid payments

The 'Paid payments' tab presents all the reimbursements that have been successfully paid either by Mesh (i.e., automatically) or externally to Mesh (i.e., Manual). It is possible to sync expenses to the ERP from this tab. 

Note: If an expense was itemized, it is possible to set the platform to wait for all the child expenses to be approved before attempting to sync to the ERP. Please consult our support team if this is a relevant use case. 

The following examples show two expenses:

The first expense was paid externally to Mesh and it is awaiting synchronization with the ERP. It is possible to click the 'Lock, export and sync' option after selecting such expense(s) or to click the expense and then the 'Sync now' button. 

The second expense was paid by Mesh. It was scheduled, locked and paid but it failed to sync during the last attempt. The error message provides insights into what needs to be fixed for it to be synced properly. After handling the suggested areas the user can click the 'Sync now' botton.

Since the second expense got disbursed by Mesh, it appears on the 'Transactions' page.