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Not every payment fits into a payroll cycle. Bonuses, reimbursements, consulting fees, and ad-hoc payments are sent as one-off payments from the Finance → Payments tab.

When to Use a One-Off Payment

Contractor Payment

Paying a contractor outside their normal cycle, for an extra invoice or a quick engagement.

Freelance or Consulting Work

A one-off project or short-term consulting fee.

Reimbursement

Covering a business expense a worker paid out of pocket.

Bonus

A one-time discretionary or performance bonus.

Sending a One-Off Payment

The payment wizard is four quick steps:
1

Recipient

Start from Finance → Payments and click Send payment. Search your team and pick a recipient. Their payout details pull in automatically. Off-cycle payments require either an active contract or a completed payment history with your business; if you enter an email with no contract on file, the wizard prompts you to start a contract for that person first.
2

Amount

Enter the amount. The currency is fixed to the recipient’s contract compensation currency and can’t be changed here. The wizard shows the estimated arrival amount for the recipient (including any FX conversion and fees) so there are no surprises.
3

Details

Pick a purpose for the payment (Reimbursement, Contractor Payment, Freelance Work, Consulting, or Bonus) and add a reference note that appears on the worker’s receipt.
4

Summary

Review everything, then confirm. Shor queues the payment and debits your connected bank account.

Processing Multiple Payments at Once

The payment wizard sends one payment at a time. When you need to move several payments together (end-of-month reimbursements, a batch of contractor invoices, quarterly bonuses) use the Payroll page (Talent → Payroll) instead. Select the rows you want, and Shor processes them as a single approved batch.

Payment Requests From Your Team

A contractor or employee can also request an ad-hoc payment from you directly, instead of you initiating it. Requests appear inline in Finance → Payments alongside your own one-off payments (and on your dashboard attention list when one is waiting). As a business admin, you can approve a pending request (Shor creates the payment and begins processing it right away) or deny it with a reason. Team members can view requests, but only admins can approve or deny. You can’t edit the requested amount, purpose, notes, or attachments; it’s approve as submitted or deny. If the worker’s contract has ended or its currency changed since they submitted, Shor cancels the request instead of creating a payment, and the worker is notified.

Idempotency

If you retry a submission or the page refreshes mid-request, Shor prevents duplicates using idempotency keys on every payment. You won’t accidentally pay someone twice.

Tracking One-Off Payments

One-off payments appear in:
  • Finance → Payments: the canonical list of everything sent
  • Finance → Transactions: every debit and credit recorded
  • The worker’s profile under Payments
  • The Payroll page, alongside scheduled payments
Each payment has a status (pending, processing, completed, failed, cancelled) and a receipt you can download.

Next Steps

Requesting a Payment

How workers request ad-hoc payments from you.

Milestones

For contractor milestone payments with an approval flow.

Reimbursements

Handling expense reimbursements properly.

Payroll

Process batches of payments at once.