Q: Is there any cost to the employer?

A: No. The employer does not pay any fees to Rain or to Evolve Bank & Trust, which provides the credit account.

Q: Will personally identifiable information, or PII, be exchanged between SmartLinx and Rain?

A: No. SmartLinx and Rain have worked together to engineer the transfer of data about eligible employees so that personally identifiable information is not transmitted to Rain when the employees use the Rain App.

Q: Do advances to an employee have any impact on taxes?

A: Advances obtained by an employee have no impact on payroll or other taxes. An employer’s normal payroll systems are not affected by the employee’s choice regarding whether to use the account.

Q: Does an employee need to change the instructions to the employer for direct deposit of the employee’s paycheck?

A: No. An employee’s choice of depositing the paycheck is not affected by the employee’s choice regarding whether to use the account.

Q: Is there an additional contract required for this service for the employer?

A: No. An employer’s existing contract with SmartLinx includes adequate contractual provisions related to services provided by SmartLinx.

Q: What is the limit on the credit account?

A: The credit program provided by Evolve Bank & Trust generally places an overall cap of $500 on the total amount of credit for an employee who chooses to open an account. During each billing cycle, the amount of each advance may be further limited based on the employee’s earned wages.

Q: Is Rain advancing the money to the eligible employee as well as getting repaid by the eligible employee? Is there a change within payroll system (deduction or direct deposit) for Rain to get money back from the eligible employee?

A: Rain provides all the capital to advance earned wages to the employee and repayment is solely between Rain and the employee. Absolutely no involvement is required from the payroll system. 

Q: What is the amount of advance an employee should expect if the employee chooses to use the account? Is there a limit to the amount employees can access early for each pay period? 

A: Evolve’s credit program allows an employee to request an advance based on the employee’s earned wages. In each billing cycle, the amount that an employee may request is up to 50% of the earned wages, as of the time the employee makes the request (and subject to the overall cap of $500).

Q: Is Evolve Bank & Trust advancing the money to the eligible employee as well as getting repaid by the eligible employee?

A: Yes—Evolve advances funds to the employee who has been approved for a credit account, and Rain services the account by processing both the advances and the payments.

Q: Is there a change within payroll system (deduction or direct deposit) to get money back from the eligible employee?

A: No. Evolve’s credit account does not involve any change with the payroll system for the employee to make payments on the account. 

Q: How is Rain calculating the 50% amount available? Is it based on standard weekly hours, or actual punches calculating into hours up until that point of the pay period? If based on actual punches, does this mean that on the first day of the pay period eligible employees will not have enough to draw from but as the days go on there will be more made available to them?

A: Calculations of earned wages that are used to compute the advance limit are based on actual punches. Thus, the employee’s amount of available credit should increase over the course of the pay period based on the actual hours worked by the employee (and subject to the overall cap of $500). 

Q: If an eligible employee misses punches, will the employee have less credit made available in the account? 

A: Possibly, yes. Because Rain’s system is tied to the actual hours worked, the employee might face a situation of having a lower amount of credit available during a billing cycle due to incomplete punch data. (However, if the employee’s earned wages during the billing cycle reaches the overall cap of $500, then the presence of one or two gaps in the punch data should not affect the employee’s use of the account.)

Q: How does the employee pay this money back, and what happens if they do not pay it back? Will payroll be responsible for paying the money back, or the employee?

A: Payroll is not responsible for repaying any funds borrowed through the account that Rain services. Most employees select the option for automatic payments on the account, and allow Rain to initiate the payment for the amount due for each periodic statement.

Q: On Monday and Tuesday of a payroll week, employees cannot withdraw against the pay date coming up at week’s end – it will instead go against the next pay date, correct?

A: Yes, this is correct.

Q: What happens with a salaried exempt employee who, on the very first day of a pay period, is already preset to get paid for the full pay period?

A: For a salaried employee, Rain converts the employee’s annual salary to an hourly rate based on a standard 40 hour work week, and then calculates the amount of earned wages during a billing cycle based on a standard workday of eight hours of the salary (on that hourly rate). No future earnings are provided for salaried employee (or any other types of employees). Thus, for a salaried employee, the advance limit for a billing cycle still is based on an amount that is 50% of the full pay cycle on the first day of the pay period.

Q: Will the employer be notified when an eligible employee requests an extension of credit via the Rain App? Will there be an approval process in place?

A: No. An employee’s experiences with the credit account held by Evolve Bank & Trust, as well as the employee’s use of the Rain App, involve financial products and services that do not involve approval by an employer.