The best payroll software for your company depends on your business size and needs. Top payroll services for small businesses include ADP RUN, Paychex Flex and Gusto. Based on what we were able to play with in the platform, Gusto guides you through payroll and benefits management in a way that makes these processes less overwhelming. You can be sure you’re doing things in the right order without missing a step. In addition to smooth integration, your Gusto account could get you discounts on some popular apps. For example, at the time of this writing, it’s offering three months free to restaurant scheduling software 7shifts, 25% off Breezy HR plans and many more.

• Features including background checks and benefit enrollment are paired with cloud-based services such as e-signatures and state tax registration to create a streamlined onboarding experience.
• So, anyone you hire for HR, accounting or bookkeeping can get the information they need without going through you.
• Though this process was straightforward, entering several people manually could get tedious for companies with high hiring volume.
• It costs $10 per month for up to five employees, plus $1 per additional employee per month.
• In addition, the platform shares income insights and personal tax documents such as W-2s.
• Once that step is complete, you’ll add employee information, such as pay rate, direct deposit details and any withholdings, into Gusto.
• However, the downside we noticed is that payroll and adding new team members, in particular, require a lot of manual data entry upfront.

Gusto customers can contact customer support via chat, email or phone. Gusto’s phone support is only available Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. MT. Customers on the Premium plan get access to priority support, meaning they can skip the queue https://www.bookstime.com/articles/self-employment-tax when they call, but there is no 24/7 phone support available. From the employee side, it’s very easy to initiate an expense reimbursement request. Employees can upload a receipt and add a memo, so it’s clear what the payment is for.

Does Gusto have an app?

From there, Gusto lets you preview the payroll run in the third step before submitting payroll. Upon submitting, Gusto confirms that you’ve successfully submitted payroll. Gusto is a great choice for startups and small businesses that want to focus on automated, compliant payroll and build out from there to include solutions for benefits, time tracking and more.

You can also elect to have Gusto automatically file a new hire report in an employee’s state when you hire them. Running employee payroll through Gusto is simple and flexible to your company’s needs. You can set a salary or hourly wage in an employee’s profile and set up payroll on autopilot to let Gusto run payroll for you automatically on the schedule you set. While the initial setup can be time-intensive, depending on the number of employees, once all the information is recorded, the software’s automations take over and help streamline the process. After that point, you’ll simply need to input employee hours weekly or biweekly and Gusto will run payroll. Gusto is designed with dynamic startups and growing small businesses in mind.

Gusto vs. Paychex Flex

From the employee perspective, we were able to view accrued and used time off in the web browser version of Gusto. It was easier to request time off in the Gusto Wallet app, as we didn’t have to gusto login choose the time-off type first. Gusto files employee W-4s and contractor W-9s as part of their profile setup, and it creates and distributes W-2 and 1099 forms each January for tax returns.