what is a WSA?

What is a Wellness Spending Account (WSA)?

A Wellness Spending Account (WSA) is an opportunity for employers to support their employee’s wellness through the allocation of benefit dollars (taxable) for non-medical, wellness expenses. A WSA account can be used as a perk given to your employees to promote healthier lifestyles. You can incentivize employees with eligible categories such as gym memberships, holistic medicine, personal development courses, and more! Customize this list for employee needs. Support your remote workforce with ergonomic office equipment and gym equipment categories.

How Does a Wellness Spending Account (WSA) Work?

In its simplest form, a WSA provides the employee the flexibility to decide what wellness products or services they want to spend their money on. When setting up a WSA, an employer sets the dollar amount available to each employee to use for eligible expenses (as determined by the employer.

Let’s say an employer provides $1,000 WSA through HSA Easy Pay Ltd.’s ayaHSA Prepaid Mastercard® Card for their employee. The employee uses their ayaHSA Prepaid Mastercard® Card to buy a $875 rowing machine. This leaves $125 left on the card for other eligible expenses.

Employers can choose to roll over the remaining WSA balance to the following year, make arrangements that only used funds in a given year are available or even set up allotments monthly/quarterly. There is a ton of flexibility for the employer to set it up however it makes sense for their business and their employees.

Is a Wellness Spending Account (WSA) a Taxable Benefit?

Unlike a Health Spending Account (HSA), a WSA is a taxable benefit and is considered part of an employee’s total compensation package. WSA contributions will need to be included on an employee’s T4 statement.

Some frequently purchased product and service expenses members partake in include:

Personal training and consultation

Gym, fitness centre, and annual memberships

Hobby and general interest classes

Smoking Cessation Programs

Click here for a full list of CRA-approved WSA expenses.

Every employer’s business is unique and they can individually choose what they are and are not willing to honour from the CRA-approved list. There is no set list for a WSA because employers can ultimately choose to cover as little or as many things as makes sense for their business and their employees.

Highlights of the HSA Easy Pay prepaid health and wellness card:

No out of pocket expenses

Submit out of pocket claims directly through app

EFTs are sent swiftly when out-of-pocket claims are submitted. No more waiting for cheques in the mail! All claims can be submitted by taking a picture of the receipt through your phone camera

No paperwork or large forms to fill out

No having to save all your receipts in a shoebox

Apps available for iOS and Android devices

Healthcare is stressful enough. Paying for it shouldn’t be.

what is a WSA?

What is a Wellness Spending Account (WSA)?

How Does a Wellness Spending Account (WSA) Work?

Is a Wellness Spending Account (WSA) a Taxable Benefit?

Highlights of the HSA Easy Pay prepaid health and wellness card:

HSA EASY PAY LTD.

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