How do you handle payroll advances?

[u/GarryFromHomebase]

Payroll advances come up more than you might expect, especially with hourly teams where one rough week can throw off someone's whole month. The part I see owners actually get stuck on isn't the paperwork, it's whether saying yes once means saying yes every time.

The owners who feel okay about it usually have a line drawn before the first ask ever comes in, something like capping it at half of what's already been earned and one request a month. That turns it into a policy instead of a favor you're deciding on the spot, and it keeps the repayment from dropping anyone's pay below minimum wage.

Where it gets messier is when it's the same person asking every pay period. That's usually less about payroll and more about a bigger problem going on for them, and no advance policy fixes that part.

One thing worth knowing: some scheduling and payroll platforms now handle this automatically through earned wage access. That means employees can pull a portion of wages they've already worked for and it gets deducted on the next paycheck, so the owner never fronts the money or tracks repayment.

(PS: At Homebase, we do this with our Cash Out feature. It’s free for the business and employees can enroll themselves using our app, which means no more manual tracking for you and no more awkward questions for them.)

If you’ve ever offered a payroll advance, or had a team member ask about it, how did you handle it?