We’re giving accountants better control over the emails they receive, and making those emails easier to understand and sort. It’s all done through a new email preferences center, which you’ll find within Gusto Pro under the “Settings” tab.

Screenshot of Gusto Settings

What’s happening here? Well, first, you can now control which emails you want to receive based on the client, category, or how important that email is. You can also make bulk changes, so you can update this for many clients at once. 

We’ve also improved the subject lines and preview text of these emails, to frontload the important stuff. You’re now able to tell from just the subject line which client it’s for.

Why make this update? Because we agree that your time is precious and we want to help you have an productive day and reach inbox zero.

How does it work? The details

To adjust your email preferences, log into your Gusto account. In the left-hand panel, select “Settings” and then “Email preferences.” Here you can search for and sort your clients. Select a client and opt in or out of specific email categories. Or, apply email preferences in bulk by selecting multiple clients.

We created new email categories and critical labels to make it easier for you to decide if an email matters and is worth receiving. Those categories include Payroll, Finance & Accounting, Tax & Compliance, HR & Onboarding, Benefits, and more, and labels include critical or non-critical. 

And of course, these emails now provide better context because the client’s name is in the subject line. You can use that to create filters in your work email to, say, sort emails into client-specific folders.

These are decisions every individual at the firm can make. Just because someone wants everything (bless you) doesn’t obligate everyone else to receive the same.

Also, please note, this only concerns what we call “operational emails” about your clients. Unsubscribing in this preferences center won’t affect the other emails you receive from Gusto, like marketing communications. To adjust those, use the unsubscribe or preferences link at the bottom of each email.

What inspired this update? 

We hear accountants receive A LOT of email in their line of work. (Including from us.) And while more email can be a happy signal of more clients and more growth, it can get to be a lot. 

The average professional receives 121 work emails per day according to a now somewhat dated, pre-pandemic study. And two-thirds of people say they’d rather resume commuting than face more emails and Slack and Teams messages. (Which is epic given how badly folks like accountants do not want to return to office.) And somewhat less believably, but still worth noting, a study by the email service Superhuman says 22 percent of people want to leave their job because of the volume of email. 

We believe the more control we can give you over the messages you receive, the better you’re able to do your job. We want to help you receive less unnecessary stuff so you don’t miss the important things. More signals, less noise. That’s the Gusto way. 

For more product updates, read about all the changes we made in May 2022, including Gusto Recruiting.

Shreyas Mecheri My job is to understand and relay accountants' needs within Gusto. Prior, I served the profession for nearly 13 years at the AICPA. I have always been in awe of how accountants help their clients respond to and grow with ever-changing legislative and social trends. I live in beautiful North Carolina and love a good bad accounting pun.