BYOD Reimbursement Policy

Which is best? Expense report? Payroll stipend? Think again.

The two traditional methods of BYOD reimbursement both have expensive drawbacks. When employees fill out expense reports, this is tedious, costly, and lacks controls. And payroll stipends come with potential tax consequences for both the company and the employee. What's best for everyone? Direct-to-carrier payments, where the employee's reimbursement funds are sent directly to their wireless carrier. This is a key innovation of the Cass all-in-one BYOD solution. 

Cass offers "the most fit-for-purpose solution to date for specifically managing SRAs and the payment process itself"- Gartner, "How to Manage Stipends, Reimbursements and Allowances for Employee-Owned Mobility" published 2 April 2014, Analysts(s): Brain Taylor, Rich Doheny.

How Cass BYOD Reimbursement Works

The process is very similar to payroll outsourcing. First, the employer funds Cass for all its employees' reimbursements. If the employer has 5,000 employees and its total BYOD reimbursement expense for the month is $38,000, then the employer transfers $38,000 to Cass, which is a financial holding company and member of the Federal Reserve.

Next, each employee receives his or her monthly wireless bill from their carrier. Whether their carrier is AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, or some other, it makes no difference. The employee's bill will reflect the employer's reimbursement stipend as a credit. So, if the employer reimburses some employees $50 per month and others $40 per month and others $70, all of these varied reimbursement payments are managed automatically through the Cass BYOD solution and the Cass Electronic Payment Network. Every employee sees a credit for the correct reimbursement amount on his or her monthly bill.

Cass BYOD Payments Model

Even when new hires come on board and others leave, this BYOD reimbursement solution is turnkey – because it integrates with your HR information system (HRIS) and your Cass communications lifecycle management (CLM) platform. This solution makes BYOD management streamlined for organizations such as Michelin, Nationwide Insurance, and others.

Cass BYOD is an award-winning, all-in-one BYOD solution that works for a number of reasons:

1. The Cass platform integrates with your HRIS, so there is constant validation of employment, cost center details, and reporting hierarchy. Therefore, payments are not made to terminated employees, and if an employee moves to a different department, costs will be allocated per the most current information. Integration with your HRIS also makes it easy to invite new employees to participate and enroll in your BYOD program.
2. Our vast carrier payment network includes thousands of telecom carriers, including all the major wireless carriers. (Learn more about our expertise in managing telecom payments.)
3. Cass delivers GL accounting feeds with costs allocated per your GL rules.
4. Our BYOD payments solution is just one piece of our complete BYOD solution, which enables employee enrollment, policy agreement, MDM, support requests, and more. By automating the full lifecycle of your BYOD program, today’s disparate processes become integrated in one platform.
5. You reduce the workload for your corporate accounting departments. That's because they need only to make one payment to Cass for the entire company's BYOD reimbursement expense. Cass leverages its Electronic Payment Network to make payments to the carriers who, in turn, credit the employees' personal wireless accounts.