🚧
Coming Q1 2026
This endpoint will be available as part of the Q1 2026 period close. Details are subject to change prior to release.

At the end of each tax filing period, Check reconciles actual tax withholdings and employer contributions against updated, period-end tax liabilities in a process called "balancing." (Read more about balancing in the Help Center article here.) When differences (or "variances") are identified, Check creates a balancing payroll to true up any differences. These payrolls appear in a similar format as standard payrolls, but also now include a unique "receipt" which provides a structured breakdown of any resulting variances - what is owed, what was waived, and what will be refunded separately by the agency - so partners can surface this information to their customers at period-end.

Note: This endpoint is only available for balancing payrolls. Calling it on a non-balancing payroll returns an error.

When Accept: application/pdf is specified, the response body contains the receipt as a downloadable PDF document. By default, the response is JSON. Use an Accept: application/pdf request header to download the receipt as a PDF document.

Understanding balancing scenarios & sample responses

A balancing payroll can result in one of three scenarios. Each is represented differently in the API response:

1. Period close with no variances: The quarter closed with no differences between what was withheld and what was owed. The receipt returns all totals as 0 and an empty taxes array. No transaction is created. Similarly, the PDF version of the receipt will return with a simple message stating that balancing is complete with more variances and no transaction has been created as a result.

{
  "cash_requirement_total": 0,
  "cash_requirement_waived": 0,
  "agency_refund_total": 0,
  "taxes": []
}

2. Period close with variances below the $1.00 waiver threshold: Variances exist, but the net cash requirement across all taxes totals $1.00 or less. Because the amount is too small to warrant a transaction, Check automatically absorbs it. The receipt still includes the full per-tax breakdown in the taxes array so viewers can see exactly what was adjusted, but cash_requirement_total returns 0. The absorbed amount is reported separately in cash_requirement_waived. No employer debit or credit occurs. If agency refunds are also present, those are reported in agency_refund_total and on each tax - agencies will refund those amounts directly to the employer. The PDF version of the receipt of receipt shows this breakdown but also makes it clear that no transaction will occur.

{
  "cash_requirement_total": 0,
  "cash_requirement_waived": -0.11,
  "agency_refund_total": 20.00,
  "taxes": [
    {
      "tax": "tax_abc123",
      "description": "Employer Medicare Tax",
      "agency": "Internal Revenue Service",
      "cash_requirement": 0.10,
      "agency_refund": 20.00
    },
    {
      "tax": "tax_def456",
      "description": "Employer Social Security Tax",
      "agency": "Internal Revenue Service",
      "cash_requirement": 0.01,
      "agency_refund": 0
    }
  ]
}

3. Period close with variances above the waiver threshold: The net cash requirement exceeds $1.00, so Check creates a transaction directly with the employer to settle the balance. cash_requirement_total reflects the amount that will be debited from or credited to the employer. The taxes array contains the full per-tax breakdown. If any taxes resulted in overpayment to an agency, agency_refund_total and the per-tax agency_refund fields indicate the amounts the employer can expect to be refunded directly by the relevant tax agencies.

{
  "cash_requirement_total": 100.00,
  "cash_requirement_waived": 0,
  "agency_refund_total": 70.00,
  "taxes": [
    {
      "tax": "tax_abc123",
      "description": "Employer Medicare Tax",
      "agency": "Internal Revenue Service",
      "cash_requirement": 100.00,
      "agency_refund": 50.00
    },
    {
      "tax": "tax_def456",
      "description": "Employer Social Security Tax",
      "agency": "Internal Revenue Service",
      "cash_requirement": 0,
      "agency_refund": 20.00
    }
  ]
}

Example Requests

curl https://sandbox.checkhq.com/payrolls/pay_abc123/receipt \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

curl https://sandbox.checkhq.com/payrolls/pay_abc123/receipt \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Accept: application/pdf" \
  --output receipt.pdf

Errors

Non-balancing payroll

Calling this endpoint on a payroll that is not a balancing payroll returns a 400 error.