Contractor Payment Object

The Contractor Payment Object represents a payment made out to a Contractor Object .

attribute

type

description

contractorPaymentID

string

Zeal Contractor Payment ID

contractorID

string

Zeal Contractor ID

companyID

string

Zeal Company ID

status

string

Holds one of the following values: pending pre-processed processed

approval_required

boolean

optional

Whether manual approval is required for this payment or not. By default, Zeal automatically processes the payment two business days before the pay date. However, if approval is required and the payment is not approved by time of processing, Zeal will NOT process the payment.

approved

boolean

optional

Whether this payment has been manually approved or not (only relevant if approval_required is true)

pay_date

date

Date of Pay Date for this contractor payment, in the ISO-8601 format in UTC. Zeal will pay this contractor on this date. Example 2019-10-01

amount

number

Amount to be paid to the contractor

disbursement_status

string

Disbursement Status is provided upon response of Contractor Payment creation

Provides an up-to-date status of the payment. The disbursement_status will hold one of the following values:

pending: Status of all checks until net pay has been started

settled - Funds have successfully settled in employee’s account

void - When an Employer pays out the wrong person or the wrong amount and wants to void the check

returned - Net pay did not successfully get disbursed

refunded - Status of checks that failed but then the employer wants to pay out in-house (only applicable to direct deposit payments)

canceled - The check got canceled due to going to an inactive user or having a transaction going to a watchlist match (only applicable to direct deposit payments)

disbursement

object

This object includes information regarding how the net pay is disbursed to the employee.

Zeal supports 6 disbursement methods:

Direct Deposit, Download Check, Physical Check, Prepaid, Paycards (Early Access), and Instant Pay (Early Access).

More information on these can be found at the bottom of the page.


Show disbursement fields:
method type: string default: direct_deposit

type

string

Type of payment. Only regular payments are reported on a contractor's Form 1099-NEC. Holds one of the following values -
regular, reimbursement

speed

string

The ACH speed of the check, accepts two_day, one_day or one_day_no_reserve, zero_day as values. (Early Access)

triggered

boolean

Whether a disbursement has been triggered for this contractor payment. Only applicable to contractor payments of disbursement method paycard

triggered_at

datetime

Timestamp of when the disbursement was triggered, in the ISO-8601 format in UTC.

customerAccountID (Early Access)

string

Can be used to attach a customer account to a contractor payment

{
  "contractorPaymentID": "246863894",
  "contractorID": "1234567890",
  "companyID": "0987654321",
  "status": "pending",
  "approval_required": false,
  "approved": false,
  "pay_date": "2024-10-01",
  "amount": "100",
  "disbursement_status": "pending",
  "disbursement": {
    "method": "direct_deposit"
  },
  "type": "regular",
  "triggered": true,
  "triggered_at": "2025-03-04T23:18:09Z",
  "customerAccountID": null
}

Types of Disbursements

Direct Deposit: The most convenient disbursement type is to do a direct deposit into the employee's bank account, from the employers. In this case, Zeal will include the employee net pay in the Company Debit number of the employer check (i.e. net pay is debited from the employer's bank account.

The net pay is deposited into the employee bank account at check date.

Download check: Checks are useful for certain employees who prefer to be paid in checks instead of direct deposits. We do not include net pay from this employee check in the Company Debit number of the employer check (i.e. net pay is not debited from the employer’s bank account if employee check is “download check”).

Net pay is only taken out of the employers bank account when the employee cashes the check. The account / routing number is that of the employers.

The link for downloading the check becomes available by check date on the employee dashboard.

Physical check: For employees where net pay speed delivery is not an issue, and who prefer to be paid with a physical, mailed check instead of the download check or direct deposit methods. We do not include the net pay amount from this employee check in the Company Debit number of the employer check (i.e. net pay is not debited from the employer’s bank account if employee check is “phsyical check”).

Net pay is only taken out of the employers bank account when the employee cashes the check. The account / routing number is that of the employers.

The physical check is created on the check date, and sent to the home address listed for the employee in Zeal. Its arrival time will depend on the location of the employee.

Prepaid: Prepaid is used when the employer does want to use direct deposit, but instead has an alternate method of paying their employees. In that case, Zeal does not include net pay from this employee check in the Company Debit number of the employer check (i.e. net pay is not debited from the employer’s bank account if employee check is prepaid). Instead the employer is shown the net pay they owe their employees after taking out the appropriate taxes.

The employer is responsible for disbursing net pay outside of Zeal.

Paycard: If an employee has a paycard, the paycard disbursement method can be used to direct funds to the existing paycard. This allows for instantaneous payout and does not depend on ACH timings and delays. Note: This is only available for Paycards product (Early Access)

Instant Pay: If an employee has an Instant Pay wallet, the instant_pay disbursement method can be used to direct funds to their wallet. This allows for instantaneous payout and does not depend on ACH timings and delays. Note: This is only available for Instant Pay product (Early Access)