By Tomer London, Chief Product Officer at Gusto, and Joshua Reeves, CEO
If you’re a software developer in the B2B space, odds are you’ve thought about offering payroll services to your customers. It’s something every business across every industry needs. But building, delivering, and servicing payroll software is really hard. We know. At Gusto, we’ve spent a decade solving the technical and regulatory complexities that come with processing hundreds of billions of dollars in payroll and operating across all 50 states.
That’s why today we’re introducing Gusto Embedded Payroll. This new product enables software developers to embed and customize payroll directly into their software. And it works in any type of platform serving small and medium businesses: vertical SaaS, business operations, fintech, neobanks, and more.
We’re taking the infrastructure we’ve built servicing tens of millions of paychecks and tens of thousands of tax codes and making it available for software developers.
The best part: this is just the beginning. On top of full-service payroll, Gusto has become one of the most trusted sources for health and financial benefits, hiring and onboarding tools, HR services, and more. Soon, we’ll be able to provide software developers with the API and guidance to build more of our people-focused functionality into their platforms.
Powering the rise of Vertical SaaS, Fintech, and Neobanks
The events of 2020 catapulted millions of businesses into the digital world. We’ve seen huge growth in the software ecosystem. More than ever, platforms are building for the needs of very specific customers: barber shops, fitness centers, construction contractors, restaurants, cleaning services, and many other industries.
These software providers are experts on what each business needs to run day-to-day, but many don’t offer team-focused features like payroll and HR. They don’t have the time and resources to take on the risk, costs, and complexities of building those tools. After all, it can take several years to become compliant across all 50 states.
At the same time, business owners are busier than ever and looking for ways to streamline both business transactions and people processes in an all-in-one solution. The owner of a barber shop, for example, needs one place to manage client bookings, transactions, employee scheduling, and payroll. There’s not enough time in the day to manage multiple systems and vendors.
Businesses shouldn’t have to pick between great operations software or great team software. With Gusto Embedded Payroll, they won’t have to — they get reliable payroll built directly into the tools they already use. At the same time, those software providers become more competitive and more valuable to their customers.
Unlocking new opportunities for software developers
With Gusto Embedded Payroll (GEP), we’re helping software companies expand their offerings by empowering software developers to deliver more value to their customers. Take our partner Novo, for example. By integrating a huge business expense like payroll into the Novo platform, their small business customers will have a clearer view of their financial picture. This means Novo will be able to help their customers optimize cash flow and operations. By leveraging Gusto Embedded Payroll, Novo will also be able to accelerate their payroll product roadmap and become one of the first SMB banking platforms to offer integrated payroll.
More than a dozen partners are already starting to build with GEP. Soon, Xendoo customers will be able to pay both full-time employees and contractors at the same time. busybusy, an industry leading time tracking platform built to manage the complexities of modern construction sites, uses GEP to take hours worked and seamlessly calculate and run payroll, all within their platform. Salon, spa and fitness SaaS provider Vagaro is using GEP to build special workflows for managing payroll for their unique workforce. While Squire is building the payroll functionality their barbershop customers have been waiting for.
“Squire is built to be a difference maker for barbers, not just a convenient software solution,” said Aram Muradyan, Squire’s Head of Product. “Our customers have been waiting for a solution that makes payroll work for their needs. We are excited to be able to build a product that will leverage the power of Gusto’s payroll capabilities combined with Squire’s user experience and unique understanding of how payroll should function in the context of barbershop operations.”
Regardless of platform specialty, GEP puts powerful payroll into the hands of developers, unlocking new opportunities for software providers and their customers. And along with our APIs and user-friendly guides, we also provide thoughtful developer support to ensure a smooth build-out.
Helping businesses grow and scale
Regulations and payroll compliance laws change constantly. Software providers need an expert payroll partner they can trust. With GEP, developers can tap into Gusto’s expertise in building and managing the complexities of payroll.
We’ve developed a trusted and scalable infrastructure for managing everything from benefit deductions to pay schedules to tax filing. GEP gives partners the tools they need to calculate salaries and wages, automatically file payroll taxes, direct deposit paychecks, generate W-2s, and much more. GEP even offers a way to give employees early access to earned wages, keeping them happier with cash in their pockets.
Software providers and developer partners get access to:
Payroll API and web components: With these APIs, partners can embed payroll into their products any way they want.
Full-service tax filing: Partners will get Gusto’s complete, automatic tax calculation and filing service.
Support and advisory services: Payroll product experts will be available to help partners build, design, and market their payroll solution.
Best-in-class customer support: Gusto’s friendly support team is committed to helping partners answer questions and advise their customers with confidence.
Making a difference for millions of businesses and their employees
We’ve built Gusto’s people platform to provide growing businesses with the services they need to hire, pay, insure, and support their teams. Partnering with other powerful software platforms unlocks access to modern payroll for millions of new businesses. Soon, we’ll be able to expand that access to include powerful features like health insurance, financial tools, hiring and onboarding, expert HR, and more.
Gusto’s mission is to create a world where work empowers a better life. We’re energized by the opportunity to help businesses everywhere support and take care of their teams in new ways.
Developers can sign up for early access to Gusto Embedded Payroll here. And stay tuned: we’ll be expanding our embedded services in the months ahead. Learn more at https://gusto.com/embedded-payroll
