An employer may allow its employees to either purchase assets from the company or through it. In the first case, the company may be liquidating assets and so offers to sell them to its employees. In the latter case, employees are allowed to use the company's bulk-purchase discounts to obtain items at reduced prices from other suppliers. The company may also sell its own products at reduced prices to employees through a company store.

Perhaps because of the discount prices, some employees make such large asset purchases that they are unable to pay back the company immediately for the full amount. Therefore, the company allows them to make payments through a series of payroll deductions. In such a case, an employee should sign an agreement with the company, acknowledging responsibility for paying back the company and agreeing to a specific payment schedule. Though not common, the company can also charge the employee an interest rate, which may encourage the person to pay back the company sooner to avoid an excessive interest expense.

For long repayment schedules, it may be useful to keep employees apprised of the remaining amount of each loan, therefore the payroll staff should consider either maintaining a separate schedule of payments or creating a loan goal through its payroll software that tracks the amount of the debt that has not yet been paid.