Pay Element Overview

Compa partners closely with every Offers customer to configure their offer data and appropriately structure compensation details. This important onboarding step ensures Compa accurately represents data by value, timing, and type, and makes it possible to compare pay data apples-to-apples.

Compa Offers collects a standard set of pay elements, which are defined below. Click on each pay element for more details, or to see localization requirements by country.

Pay Element	Also Known As	Time Period	Definition
Base Salary	Annual salary, base pay, base	Annual	Initial salary offered to a candidate, not including benefits, bonuses, or other guaranteed compensation.
Ongoing Bonus	Annual bonus, target bonus, cash incentive, short-term incentive	Annual Expressed as a percentage of base salary or as a target cash amount	Representative of the organization's corporate bonus program where employees are eligible for an ongoing bonus, based on achievement of corporate and/or individual goals.
Sign-on Bonus	New hire bonus, starting bonus, hiring bonus, signing bonus	One-time Expressed as a cash amount	Used to attract employees with hard-to-find skills or as a way to make an employee "whole" if they are leaving money on the table from their previous employer.
Relocation Bonus	Moving bonus, lump sum, relocation allowance	One-time Expressed as a cash amount	A fixed, lump sum amount provided to a candidate to help them manage expenses related to moving from one location to another.
All Other Bonuses	Relocation, milestone, spot, patent, referral, project, etc.	One-time Expressed as a cash amount	Any one-time variable payment an organization might offer a candidate that is outside of a sign-on bonus. Includes relocation bonuses.
Target Total Cash (calculated)	Target Total Cash Compensation, TTC	Annual Expressed as a cash amount	Sum of annual base and any target incentives (ongoing bonus, OTI); does not include one-time bonuses
New Hire Grant	Stock compensation, equity compensation, stock-based compensation, share-based compensation, options, RSUs, equity, cash LTI	One-time Expressed as the value communicated at time of offer.	Stock grant provided in the offer letter, typically communicated in $ value and delivered in RSUs, Options, or in rare cases, cash. New hire grant only, excludes future grants.
Total Direct Compensation (calculated)	Total Direct Comp, TDC	Annual Expressed as a cash amount	The sum of annual base salary, annual incentives (OTI, ongoing bonus) and stock (new hire grant). Does not include one-time bonuses or refresh grants.
Total Offer (calculated)	Total offer	Annual Expressed as a cash amount	Sum of annual base, annual ongoing bonus (includes OTI), total one-time bonuses (includes sign-on, one-time, relocation), and total new hire grant value.

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