Pay statement items may need to be classified with specific types, such as 401(k), safe-harbor, HSA, etc. Finch attempts to classify individual pay statement items into four categories (Earnings, Taxes, Employer Contributions, Employee Deductions) with a specific type based on the description of the item. However, Finch may not be able to appropriately classify a contribution or deduction if there are not enough details available in the description. For example, instead of naming an item ‘401k plan’, an employer may use an internal code ‘1j7dfp’. Finch is unable to classify items in this scenario.

In instances when Finch is unable to classify a Contribution or Deduction, the best practice is:

  1. Identify the names/descriptions that the employer has set up the Contributions or Deductions as in their payroll system
  2. Have the employer go through Finch Connect, authorizing Finch to retrieve data from the payroll system
  3. Retrieve pay statements for the past 2-3 months via the /pay-statement endpoint
  4. Parse through the results to get the employee_deductions.name and employer_contributions.name
  5. Create an internal mapping to associate the name with the appropriate Deduction or Contribution