Stipends Pay for Employees

It's great to see your commitment to compliance while supporting your travel nurses, @Nursing24. I want to ensure you get the guidance you need.

Based on the situation you provided, it seems that these stipends are intended to cover travel and lodging for your travel nurses. You're on the right track in checking the GSA site firsthand to ensure you provide fair and standardized stipends. I highly encourage collaborating with a tax professional as the next step to ensure compliance with laws since we can only provide general guidance on setting up the pay types in QuickBooks Online (QBO) Payroll.

Please know that any bonus, stipend, or payment that is part of an agreement or incentive must be included in the regular rate of pay calculation, which means it should be part of your employees' regular hourly wage. However, if the stipend is meant to cover lodging, meals, and incidental expenses as indicated on the GSA per diem rates site, it is classified as a reimbursement.

If you have determined for the stipend to be part of the regular hourly wage of your employees, you can consider setting up the stipend as Other earnings pay type which are reported as regular wages in most tax forms. You can follow these steps:

1. Go to Payroll. Then, Employees.
2. Select Edit payroll items.
3. Click on New payroll item. Then, Pay type.
4. From the Pay type drop-down list, choose Other Earnings.
5. Type an appropriate name in the Name field.
6. Hit on Create.
7. Select Assign employee(s).
8. Place a checkmark beside the employees' names to apply the pay type.
9. Enter a recurring amount. Then, hit Save.

If you've determined that the stipend is for covering the travel expenses of your employees, you can consider setting a Nontaxable per diem pay type. Nontaxable per diem amounts are fixed, nontaxable daily allowances to pay for lodging, meals, and incidental expenses incurred during travel. This pay type is used in businesses where travel is a required part of the job. Here's how you can set up this pay type:

1. Go to Payroll. Then, Employees.
2. Select Edit payroll items.
3. Click on New payroll item. Then, Pay type.
4. From the Pay type drop-down list, choose Nontaxable Per Diem.
5. Hit on Create.
6. Select Assign employee(s).
7. Place a checkmark beside the employees' names to apply the pay type.
8. Enter a recurring amount. Then, hit Save.

After this, I'm adding this article about assigning or updating your employees' pay schedules in QBO as a future guide: Set up and manage payroll schedules.

We'll be here in the Community if you have further questions setting up stipends for your travel nurses in QBO. We're committed to offering ongoing support. Take care!