Make Large Dependent Care FSA Purchases Easier with Recurring Reimbursements

Consumers are used to flexible payment experiences, from paying off a big purchase over several months to spreading it across different payment methods. Payments technology adapts to when and how people need to spend, instead of forcing them to wait until their next paycheck to make a purchase.

Employee benefits should work the same way. 

Expenses Paid Over Time is a Benepass feature that allows employees to submit one eligible claim and receive automatic reimbursements as funds become available. This capability is available across all IRS-governed pre-tax benefits, helping employees access their money sooner without repeatedly submitting the same expense.

Large Expenses Rarely Follow Payroll Schedules

Many pre-tax benefits are funded through recurring payroll contributions. But expenses don’t always arrive in convenient increments. An employee may need to pay for an eligible expense before accumulating enough contributions to cover the full amount. This is especially common when paying for childcare.

Example: A parent may receive a $1,500 daycare bill, including their enrollment fees and the first month's tuition early in the year.

Summer camp registration may require a large upfront payment months before camp begins.

In these situations, employees traditionally have two options, and they’re both frustrating. They can either wait until they have enough funds in their Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account (DCFSA), meaning reimbursement is delayed for weeks or months. Or they can submit the same receipt multiple times as soon as new contributions become available.

Depending on the benefit platform, some employees have no choice but to log in and resubmit an identical expense every pay period or month. Each of these steps creates extra work without adding value to the overall benefits experience. 

One Claim Powers Automatic Reimbursements

Benepass’s Expenses Paid Over Time capability replaces this repetitive process with a single submission.

As soon as Benepass approves the eligible expense, the employee receives the reimbursement based on the funds currently available in the account. When new contributions become available, Benepass automatically issues additional reimbursements until the approved expense is fully paid.

Employees don't need to recreate the claim, upload the receipt again, or remember to return to the platform.

They submit once and receive their reimbursement as soon as those funds are there.

Example: Consider an employee who elects to contribute $5,000 to a Dependent Care FSA.

In January, the employee accumulated just $55 through their payroll deductions, forcing them to pay their $1,500 daycare bill using their personal bank account.

Ready to get their money back, the employee submits the full $1,500 expense. Once approved, Benepass reimburses the available $55 immediately. As additional payroll contributions post, Benepass continues reimbursing the remaining amount automatically until the full claim has been paid.

The employee doesn’t have to take any further action.

Recurring Reimbursements Mean Fewer Follow-Ups

Expenses Paid Over Time is available across all IRS-governed pre-tax benefits administered by Benepass.

That means employees can receive automatic reimbursements for eligible expenses across contribution-based accounts without waiting for the full balance to accumulate or managing repeated claim submissions.

For employees, the benefits are immediate:

• Faster access to available funds
• One submission for each expense
• Fewer logins and follow-up tasks
• Less uncertainty about reimbursement timing

For HR teams, the experience is simpler too. Employees spend less time asking why their claim was only partially reimbursed or whether they need to submit it again. The platform handles the recurring payouts automatically.

Overages Add Even More Spending Flexibility For Commuters 

If an employee wants to make a purchase that's larger than their available benefit balance, Benepass also offers Overages, a complementary feature for card-based spending. Overages allow employees to pay the remaining amount through a linked personal bank account instead of declining the transaction altogether. 

This split payment option is especially popular for commuter parking, where an employee's monthly contribution may not fully cover the cost of a parking pass.

Together, Expenses Paid Over Time and Overages eliminate two of the most common frustrations employees experience with benefit spending:

• A card purchase isn’t automatically blocked because the benefit balance is slightly too low.
• A reimbursement doesn’t require the employee to submit the same receipt multiple times.

The mechanisms are different, but the goal is always the same: make benefit spending more flexible and intuitive.

Meeting Employees Where They Are

The best benefits platforms do more than just hold funds. They also make those funds easier to use.

Each of your employees is an individual, with different benefit needs and different personal finances. Expenses Paid Over Time and overages offer the flexibility people need to receive their money on their own timeline. These features remove unnecessary steps from pre-tax reimbursements, help employees receive money sooner, and reduce the work required to manage large eligible expenses.

Benefits technology should adapt to how people spend money. With automatic reimbursements across IRS-governed pre-tax benefits, Benepass makes that principle part of the everyday benefits experience.