Most employers believe they already offer “modern” benefits: According to reporting from WorldatWork, 86% of organizations said they do. Yet, just 59% of employees agree. This disconnect exposes the gap between what employers think they deliver and the benefits people actually use. Employees judge a benefits package (including any employee benefits software you choose) by whether it’s intuitive, accessible, and responsive to their real lives, not by buzzwords or nice-to-haves. 

That disconnect is where Compt comes in. The average salary increase is expected to remain flat at 3.5% for 2026, and 58% of employees say they pay out of pocket for tools and resources they wish their employer covered. Employees want personalization, flexibility, and ease, and the freedom to use their benefits in the ways that make the most sense to them. Yet, many of today’s employee benefits setups don’t deliver. 

Forward-thinking organizations are listening to what employees are telling them. Compt’s 2026 Annual Lifestyle Benefits Benchmark Report, covering our customers’ lifestyle benefits benchmarks from January through December 2025, shows the average stipend budget hit $850 per employee per year across all company sizes, and 64% of Compt customers now offer all-inclusive LSAs. 

And personalization increasingly includes everyday essentials. In 2025, nearly 1 in 10 stipend dollars was spent at grocery retailers — a clear signal that employees are using flexible benefits to offset real-life cost pressures.

We often hear from HR and Finance leaders (as well as benefits brokers): “If it’s a reimbursement, can Compt cover it?” The answer is yes because reimbursements are the foundation of modern employee benefits. It’s how you deliver them that defines how your people will feel about them.

In 2025, all-inclusive LSAs reached 89% utilization, showing that when flexibility is built into program design, employees actually use what you fund.

Compt: Best employee benefits software for stipend management via reimbursements

Reimbursements provide a unifying framework for nearly any kind of lifestyle or workstyle benefit. Compt harnesses this by providing all-in-one benefit management software that consolidates:

• Lifestyle benefits: LSAs, wellness, family care (including childcare and elder care expenses), student loan repayment support
• Workstyle benefits: Professional development, tuition reimbursement, remote work, office equipment
• Rewards and recognition programs: Monetary rewards and noncash/e-thanks
• Customized company swag
• Business expenses

That means:

• One payroll integration (for the U.S.; international organizations may require additional setup)
• One budget line
• One set of policy rules

As a result, Compt programs reached 95% activation and 93% participation in 2025. By contrast, only 28% of employees surveyed by benefits broker NFP report making maximum use of perks and benefits because of “the misfit of benefits offered versus what is valued.” Compt helps employees feel heard, understood, and supported, while you get much-needed relief from spreadsheets and ad-hoc expense management.

“It’s been a really easy and fun way to offer perks to our employees, which has added to the experience our employees are having. It’s a low lift on the HR side, which goes a long way with employees.”
— Leslie Neitzel, Chief Human Resources Officer, Carrot

Why “reimbursement” is your signal to think “Compt!”

Anytime you think, say, or hear “We reimburse for…” in the context of benefits, it’s a trigger that Compt can help. That’s one difference between a generic employee benefits management software and a flexible benefits platform designed for personalization, compliance, and real-world employee needs. 

If your employees are asking about any of the following reimbursements, Compt is here for it:

• Home office and connectivity help: This includes stipends for internet, phone, coworking, ergonomic chairs, monitors, etc. Compt automates the compliance logic for taxable and nontaxable benefits, so you and your employees can expense and reimburse without worry. In 2025, 78% of total stipend spend was taxable, which makes accurate categorization and payroll reporting critical for HR and Finance teams. With multicurrency support in 70+ countries, everyone is covered equitably.
• Health and wellness: Looking to offer stipends for gym memberships, therapy (in person or via apps), nutrition and food, or fitness classes? These are perennially popular lifestyle benefits and remain among the top categories in 2025.
• Family, fertility, and caregiving: If you’re picking stipend or LSA categories based on employee needs, then childcare, elder care, fertility, adoption, and even pet care are popular options. According to SHRM, 45% of working caregivers rely on flexible schedules, but few employers offer direct support. With Compt, you can set annual funding limits and the policy for what is permitted, such as $10,000 for adoption, IVF, or daycare costs, or $4,000 for specialized medical care that requires the employee to travel to a different state or country. Even if your stipend doesn’t cover the full cost, it will make difficult and emotionally charged situations more affordable for these employees.
• Professional development: Are your employees using ChatGPT or investing in AI prompt libraries to innovate on the job? In 2025, 20% of professional development spend was AI-related, reflecting a shift toward tools and productivity software rather than traditional conferences or memberships. Do they want funds for courses, certifications, conference registrations, books, or student loan repayment? According to LinkedIn’s 2025 Workplace Learning Report, “91% of L&D professionals agree continuous learning is more important than ever for career success.” Compt solves this in two ways: a professional development category in a stipend or multicategory LSA, or Professional Development Pro™, a module with a preapproval workflow and other advanced features.
• Rewards and recognition: Spot bonuses, birthdays, work anniversaries, peer-to-peer, e-thanks. These programs are growing — 11% of companies now fund team recognition stipends, and longitudinal data from Gallup shows that well-recognized employees are 45% less likely to have turned over after two years. In terms of redemption options, the Company Swag Store from Compt and Snappy lets employees use their swag stipend on branded gear they truly love and will use (including uniforms). 
• Commuting and travel: Regardless of whether your people are in-office, hybrid, or remote, a time will come when they need assistance with transit passes, mileage, parking, flights, business meals, hotel stays, and other unavoidable aspects of doing business for you. Instead of leaning on a separate expense app, run everything through Compt and take advantage of our IRS-compliant reporting.

With all of the above, employees simply snap a receipt and get reimbursed in their next paycheck. 

Yes, that’s it.

“We let people use it on basically anything because we want them to have the ultimate freedom. We use the Slack integration so people can share what they’ve used their stipend for, and they’ve really used it on everything.”
— Lucy Lemons, Chief People Officer,  ButterflyMX

How to spot and qualify the gaps in your lifestyle benefits offerings

If you’re not sure whether your benefits program is keeping up with what employees need and want, start by looking inward. As yourself:

• Processes: Are reimbursements still running through email, spreadsheets, Slack channels, and/or a clunky expense tool?
• Fairness: Can you easily set and enforce eligibility rules, budgets, and limits?
• Compliance: Do you know which benefits are taxable vs. nontaxable, and is payroll handling that automatically? Do you have access to prior payroll reports to help you prep for an audit, or reconcile what was approved and actually paid out?
• Global reach: Can your non-U.S. employees access the same support and effectively use the benefits in their parts of the world. Is there local currency conversion?
• Admin load: Are receipts, approvals, and reporting slowing you down or creating audit risk?
• Employee input: Have you asked or surveyed employees regarding whether they understand, value, and use the perks you offer? 

When you ask, you may find your current system isn’t built for today’s needs. That’s exactly the gap Compt fills, with automated tax logic, fast global support, reporting built for your CFO — and a single platform for every type of reimbursable benefit.

“I don’t want my employees to struggle with using a benefit, whatever it is. It needed to be seamless for us and the employee.”
— Leslie Neitzel, Chief Human Resources Officer, Carrot

Why Compt works (and where other employee benefits software providers fall short)

Many HR leaders and benefits brokers know the pain firsthand:

• Ad-hoc expense tools that don’t know the difference between taxable and nontaxable benefits (or don’t even track them), leaving you holding the bag full of compliance risk.
• Manual spreadsheets that consume hours of your day, vary from established policy, and trigger audit-related heartburn. 
• An expanse of vendors across gift card providers, perk apps, expense tools, swag providers, and add-on health benefits, with each one adding costs and complexity. 

Compt was built to solve these problems, giving you:

• An easy way to consolidate all your lifestyle benefits under one employee benefits software provider.
• Robust policy controls so you can choose stipend or LSA categories, budgets, eligibility rules, employee groups, and distribution frequencies. (The Compt Customer Success team is here to help you make these decisions!)
• Automatic tax handling with built-in logic for taxable vs. nontaxable benefits, general ledger (GL) exports, and payroll integrations. 
• Global lifestyle benefits management software with coverage in 75+ countries and built-in currency conversion, so non-U.S. employees are included. 
• Finance-backed reporting with receipts, approvals, and spend analytics all in one place.

People-first companies are using Compt to consolidate benefits, cut costs and complexity, gain built-in IRS compliance, and deliver desired personalization to their employees.

 “With Compt, an employee in Bulgaria has the same user experience as an employee in the U.S., so nobody can sit there and go, ‘Well, why did they have this and we don’t have this?’”
— Kevin Sullivan, Global Benefits Manager, Quickbase

Lifestyle benefits expansion logic: start small, then grow based on employee feedback

You don’t have to do everything all at once. If you have a set of employee benefits software vendors you’re looking to replace or if you’re new to the lifestyle benefits game, it’s completely fine to start with one reimbursement program and then expand. 

Some natural next steps include: 

• Start with stipends for phone/internet, then expand into reimbursing home office and health and wellness expenses. 
• Start with health and wellness, then add professional development. 
• Start with peer-to-peer and top-down recognition (monetary and e-thanks), then add the Company Swag Store and swag stipend as part of an LSA to give people ways to cash in their rewards.  
• Start with managing business expenses through Compt’s ADP partnership, then expand to an LSA. 

The incredible flexibility is why 64% of Compt customers already offer all-inclusive LSAs: they’re consolidation in action. How you fund benefits matters, too. Quarterly programs reached 85% utilization in 2025, compared to lower engagement for monthly or annual funding, a reminder that cadence drives behavior as much as budget size.

One customer, Fictiv, chose stipends that cover 13 different categories of employee spending. 

“Compt has been instrumental for us to be able to increase employee satisfaction and utilization rates far higher than we could have ever achieved with our old perks approach.”
— Melissa Salcius, Director of People Operations, Fictiv

Ready to simplify reimbursements? Request a Compt demo.

If you’re still managing employee reimbursements in spreadsheets, payroll adjustments, or one-off expense apps like Concur or Expensify, you’re working too hard. Compt consolidates every reimbursable benefit into one platform your employees will love to use, backed by the confidence you’ll stay 100% IRS-compliant. 

Request a demo today and see how simple reimbursements can be with Compt.

Want to share the details with your team first? Grab our reimbursement one-pager.

FAQs: Best employee benefits software for reimbursements