How top employee benefits providers use Merge’s new Bank Info and Pay Group models

Merge Platform is excited to announce the addition of two new common models to our Unified HRIS API: Pay Group and Bank Info. After receiving countless customer requests for added support around payroll, these new models will be a welcome addition for any service looking to build in the employee benefits space. 

What even is a Pay Group? How to Use the Pay Groups Endpoint  

With our additional models, customers now can link employees to a specific Pay Group within any HR or Payroll platform. If an organization groups employees for payroll reasons (contractor vs. salaried, etc.), this field can be used to make that distinction. By offering this label we hope our Pay Groups endpoint will simplify creating payroll runs.

The pay group model returns a single field: pay group name.

Related: Common benefits of implementing software integration

How To Use the Bank Info Endpoint

If you need to access an employee’s bank account in order to make payments or deposit money on their behalf, then Bank Info can be used to record bank accounts for customers. The bank info object returns the following fields which allow you to access the specifics of a user’s accounts:

• account number
• routing number
• employee id
• bank name
• remote created at

With our Unified API, you can link as many bank accounts per user as necessary!

Use Cases For Bank Info Endpoints

To help you better understand these two new models, we’ll walk through a quick list of how companies can utilize these new data objects.

Purchase on Employee's Behalf

• Use the account information returned in bank info to make transactions on an employee's behalf in order to purchase certain benefits or rewards points. 

Reliably Link to Bank Accounts

• Use bank info to manage cash for customers. You can take the fields returned in bank info to link to customer bank accounts directly, allowing you to easily transfer funds on an end-users behalf.   

Regulate Pay Rate

• If you are a company that manages how an employee gets paid, then you need to manage employees' bank accounts to regulate how they get paid. The bank info model tracks employee bank account information regardless of the platform they use.

Pay Groups for all

• You can use the Pay Group endpoint as a flag to group different cohorts of employees. For example, if you have multiple groups of employees that began work on different dates – such as a cohort that began in January versus September – and they need to be paid in different intervals you can use pay group to programmatically group these employees.
• You can group different employment types into Pay groups: contractor, interns, salaried employees, or more. 

If you have any questions on how to use the added fields, Merge is always here to answer questions. Feel free to reach out over Intercom or email hello@merge.dev.

If you want to test out these common models for yourself: sign up for a free account today and start using Merge. If you’re best served with a hands-on demo, then we’re happy to chat here!

‍