I’ve been getting a lot of DMs asking how we built the Wellness Benefit at Ramp—so let’s break it down for everyone!
First off, Spend programs are one of the most underrated features of Ramp. They let you set up card controls and issue cards to employees at scale, making it easy to onboard new employees & manage spend like wellness benefits, travel per diems, WFH stipends, etc,
How much?
- $300 per employee, on an every 4 months frequency (it breaks down to $75/month)
- This setup encourages employees to invest in their wellness consistently throughout the year, as opposed to a lump sum at the end of the year.
How is it issued?
- Funds are auto-issued to every employee during onboarding—no need to request them.
- Employees can:
- Spend directly with their Ramp card.
- Use virtual cards for online purchases.
- Reimburse against these funds if they use personal cards or cash.
Any restrictions?
- Yep! These funds have Merchant and Category restrictions to block inappropriate spending. (Yes, someone did try to classify their Netflix subscription as “wellness.” Nice try!)
- Employees also have access to an internal doc with clear examples of what’s in-policy and what’s not. This keeps things transparent and reduces any confusion.
Automate accounting fields?
- Every transaction is automatically booked to a specific Employee Fringe Benefit GL account in NetSuite.
- Transactions are marked “Ready to sync” for faster month-end close.
What’s needed after spend?
- No receipts, no memos, no approvals needed—these transactions are auto-approved.
- For internal audit purposes, we run a report on a quarterly basis to review transactions, flag out-of-policy purchases, and request repayment directly in Ramp, if necessary.
Because this is a Fringe Benefit, we report the amount utilized by each employee to payroll for tax withholding each quarter:
- Filter the Spend Program (“Wellness Benefit”) in Ramp Insights or the Card Transactions table.
- Export the last quarter’s transactions to a CSV.
- Pivot by employee
- Import or enter the amounts into payroll system as a fringe benefit
Of course, we promote this benefit on our careers page (Careers - Change How Businesses Run | Ramp) to entice any prospective employees.
