Switching from BambooHR to Gusto involves more than moving an employee list. You need to preserve payroll and tax records, decide which BambooHR products you are replacing, enter prior payroll history, rebuild deductions and policies, coordinate benefits, and document which provider will complete each outstanding filing.
This guide explains how to switch from BambooHR to Gusto, including the records to export, the additional work required for a midyear move, and the checks to complete before canceling your BambooHR account.
Define the scope of your BambooHR-to-Gusto switch
Start by deciding exactly what you are replacing.
BambooHR is an HR-first platform. Its base plans center on employee records, reporting, hiring, onboarding, time off, performance, compensation, and other people-management functions. BambooHR Payroll, Benefits Administration, Time & Attendance, Managed Payroll, and certain global employment services are separate products or add-ons.
Gusto’s employee plans begin with payroll. HR, time, benefits, hiring, performance, and related functions are connected to that payroll system, and availability depends on the selected plan and add-ons.
Your migration may involve replacing:
BambooHR Payroll only
BambooHR Payroll and Benefits Administration
Payroll, Benefits Administration, and Time & Attendance
BambooHR’s entire HR platform
BambooHR Payroll while retaining BambooHR for HR records, recruiting, or performance management
This decision determines which records you need, which workflows must be recreated, and which BambooHR products should remain active.
Gusto and BambooHR use different product models
Category | BambooHR | Gusto |
Primary architecture | HR-first platform with separately purchased operational products | Payroll-first platform with connected HR, benefits, time, and talent functions |
U.S. payroll | Paid BambooHR Payroll add-on | Included in the primary employee payroll plans |
Payroll tax service | Federal, state, and local tax calculation and filing through BambooHR Payroll | Supported federal, state, and local tax calculation, payment, and filing |
Benefits | Benefits tracking in the HR platform; full administration is a paid add-on, and the employer retains its broker | Gusto can act as a broker or support certain eligible existing broker arrangements |
Time tools | Time off in the HR platform; worked-time tracking and scheduling are an add-on | Availability depends on the selected plan or add-on |
Recruiting | Native applicant tracking system with plan-dependent limits | Hiring and onboarding tools: confirm whether they replace your current recruiting workflow |
Performance and compensation | Available in specified BambooHR plans | Available through selected Gusto plans and products |
Contracts | Month-to-month or extended-term arrangements | Primary payroll subscriptions are offered on a month-to-month basis |
Data migration | Product-specific reports, documents, and exports | Prior payroll history can be entered during setup; no BambooHR-specific automatic transfer should be assumed |
For a deeper product comparison, see [INTERNAL LINK: Gusto vs. BambooHR].
Switching may make sense when payroll becomes the central workflow
A BambooHR-to-Gusto switch may be appropriate when your business wants payroll, onboarding, payroll deductions, tax filing, and benefits administration organized around the same payroll record.
BambooHR may remain a better fit when your organization relies heavily on its:
Applicant tracking system
Custom HR fields and workflows
Performance-management processes
Compensation tools
Employee surveys and experience features
HR dashboards and reporting
Broader HR system-of-record functionality
Do not assume every BambooHR workflow has an exact Gusto equivalent. Complete a feature inventory before canceling any product.
Compare complete quotes, not individual starting prices
BambooHR publishes prices for its base HR packages, while Payroll, Benefits Administration, Time & Attendance, Managed Payroll, and other products may require separate quotes. Gusto publishes prices for its primary employee payroll plans, but some benefits, tax registration, retirement, insurance, payment, and HR services carry additional charges.
Compare both providers using the same:
Employee and contractor counts
Work states and tax jurisdictions
Payroll schedule
Benefits arrangement
Time and scheduling requirements
Recruiting and performance needs
Accounting integrations
Support level
Contract term
Required add-ons
A payroll-only price should not be compared to a quote that covers HR, payroll, benefits, time, and managed services.
How to switch from BambooHR to Gusto
A controlled migration has 10 stages:
Choose the scope and cutover date.
Audit your BambooHR account.
Review your agreements.
Export and validate records.
Assign payroll-tax responsibilities.
Configure Gusto.
Add workers and prior payroll history.
Recreate deductions and operating rules.
Reconcile the setup.
Run the first Gusto payroll and close the old account.
For a task-by-task plan with owners and completion criteria, use the [INTERNAL LINK: Payroll Migration Checklist].
Step 1: Choose what you are moving and when
Identify every BambooHR product you use and classify it as:
Move to Gusto
Keep in BambooHR
Replace with another application
Archive for historical reference
Retire
Record the intended final BambooHR check date and first Gusto check date. The check date—not the dates when employees performed the work—determines the payroll tax period.
A January 1 start reduces the amount of prior payroll history that must be entered. However, businesses can switch payroll providers during the year as long as they maintain complete year-to-date records and coordinate filing responsibilities.
Your migration plan should also identify:
The internal migration owner
Payroll and HR reviewers
The accountant or payroll adviser
The benefits broker or administrator
The final date for employee data changes
The benefits and deduction activation date
The accounting approval date
The deadline for employee onboarding
Step 2: Audit your BambooHR account
Document every BambooHR product, workflow, integration, and report your organization currently uses.
Review:
Core, Pro, or Elite
BambooHR Payroll
Managed Payroll
Benefits Administration
Time & Attendance
Physical time-clock services
Applicant tracking
Onboarding and offboarding workflows
Performance and compensation records
Custom reports and dashboards
Accounting connections
Benefits carriers and broker access
Retirement or workers’ compensation partners
Application programming interface connections
Employee documents and e-signature workflows
Employer of Record services, if applicable
A payroll migration can fail operationally even when every paycheck is correct if the organization loses a recruiting workflow, an approval process, a document archive, or a required report.
Step 3: Review the BambooHR agreement
BambooHR customers may have month-to-month or extended-term subscriptions.
Under BambooHR’s published standard terms, month-to-month cancellation generally becomes effective on the last day of the cancellation month, and partial-month refunds are generally unavailable. Extended subscriptions are generally noncancelable during their term and may renew for another 12 months unless the required notice is delivered at least 60 days before expiration.
Your order form and product-specific terms control your account. Review:
Subscription type
Current term and expiration date
Renewal provisions
Required notice method
Employee or product minimums
Early termination obligations
Remaining implementation or service charges
Bundle discounts
Product-specific addenda
Final billing terms
Hardware obligations
Employer of Record terms, if applicable
Additional products may be coterminous with the base subscription or governed by separate terms. Ending one product can also affect discounts on products you keep.
Ask BambooHR to confirm in writing:
Which products are being canceled
Which products will remain active
The effective termination date
The final invoice
The last payroll to be processed
Outstanding tax payments and filings
Year-end form responsibility
The deadline for downloading records
The contact process for later notices or corrections
Step 4: Export and validate your records
Export records before sending the final cancellation notice whenever possible. Do not depend on post-cancellation access as your primary backup plan.
Organize the files into folders such as:
Company and tax accounts
Employee census
Payroll history
Tax filings
Benefits and deductions
Time and paid leave
HR documents
Recruiting and performance
Accounting
Contracts and cancellation correspondence
Open a sample from every export. Confirm that it includes the expected employees, dates, fields, and totals.
A downloaded file is not necessarily complete. Compare the export with the source dashboard and document any unavailable fields that must be collected elsewhere.
Step 5: Create a written payroll-tax handoff
Ask BambooHR and Gusto to identify who will handle each outstanding obligation.
The responsibility matrix should cover:
Final BambooHR payroll-tax deposits
Returns for completed quarters
The return for the quarter containing the first Gusto check date
Federal unemployment tax
State unemployment tax
Local payroll taxes
W-2 and W-3 forms
Applicable 1099 forms
Corrections and amended returns
Tax notices received after cancellation
Funds collected but not yet remitted
Gusto’s published midyear onboarding guidance generally assigns completed quarters to the former provider and the quarter containing the first Gusto check date, plus later quarters, to Gusto. Complete prior payroll history is also needed for Gusto to prepare the applicable year-end forms.
BambooHR does not publish one universal outbound filing procedure for every cancellation date. Confirm the arrangement for your account rather than assuming the general Gusto process automatically resolves every BambooHR obligation.
Only one provider should file a return for a given period. Duplicate returns or year-end forms can produce notices and correction work.
Step 6: Configure Gusto
Select a Gusto plan based on the functions you need, not the lowest advertised price.
Gather:
Legal business name
Federal Employer Identification Number
Entity type
Business and worksite addresses
Federal tax deposit schedule
State withholding account numbers
State unemployment account numbers and rates
Local tax registrations
Payroll bank account
Authorized signatory
Pay schedules
Worker classifications
Earnings and deduction types
Departments and reporting categories
Accounting chart and general-ledger mappings
General-ledger mapping connects payroll categories—such as wages, taxes, benefits, liabilities, and cash—to the correct accounting accounts.
State tax-registration assistance is a separately priced Gusto service. Do not assume that opening a Gusto account automatically creates every required state or local agency account.
Step 7: Add employees and prior payroll history
Add:
Active employees
Employees terminated earlier in the current year who received pay
Contractors whose current-year payment history is needed
Work locations and tax jurisdictions
Employees can use Gusto’s onboarding process to enter or verify personal information, withholding elections, and direct-deposit instructions.
Do not assume direct-deposit credentials will transfer automatically from BambooHR. BambooHR’s public materials do not confirm the availability of a standard bulk export of bank details. Employees should enter the information through an approved secure process rather than through an ordinary spreadsheet.
For a mid-year switch, gather prior payroll information for every person paid during the year, including:
Check dates
Gross and taxable wages
Hours, where required
Employee taxes
Employer taxes
Pre-tax deductions
Post-tax deductions
Employer contributions
Reimbursements
Proof of tax payments already made
Compare the totals entered in Gusto with your BambooHR source reports before marking the prior payroll setup complete.
Step 8: Recreate deductions, benefits, time, and accounting rules
Rebuild the rules that determine each paycheck.
Review:
Health, dental, and vision deductions
Retirement contributions and employer matches
Health savings account and flexible spending account deductions
Commuter benefits
Life and disability deductions
Workers’ compensation arrangements
Garnishments and child-support orders
Multiple pay rates
Bonuses, commissions, and reimbursements
Paid-time-off policies and opening balances
Holiday policies
Departments and reporting categories
Accounting mappings
Approval permissions
Payroll reminders and deadlines
Do not transfer a deduction based only on its name. Confirm:
Whether it is pre-tax or post-tax
Which taxes does it affect
Whether an annual limit applies
Whether the employer contributes
The effective and end dates
The remaining year-to-date amount
Step 9: Reconcile the setup
Do not submit two live payrolls simply to compare the systems. That can create duplicate employee payments, tax withdrawals, and filings.
Instead, conduct a parallel comparison using the final approved BambooHR payroll and the Gusto payroll preview.
Compare:
Employee roster
Pay rates
Regular and overtime hours
Gross wages
Federal, state, and local withholding
Social Security and Medicare
Federal and state unemployment taxes
Pre-tax and post-tax deductions
Garnishments
Employer contributions
Paid-time-off balances
Net pay
Payroll liabilities
Accounting entries
Year-to-date totals by employee
Year-to-date totals by jurisdiction
Investigate every unexplained difference. The cause may be a missing payroll, an incorrect tax rate, a changed work location, an employee address issue, or a deduction with the wrong tax treatment.
The setup is complete when the material totals match or every difference has a documented and approved explanation.
Step 10: Run the first Gusto payroll and close BambooHR
Before submission:
Confirm the payroll bank account is verified.
Confirm employee onboarding is complete.
Confirm the check date and pay period.
Review funding and direct-deposit deadlines.
Review the payroll preview.
Obtain internal approval.
Save the final payroll summary and accounting entry.
After submission, verify:
Gusto accepted the payroll.
Employees received the correct net pay.
Tax liabilities appear in the correct jurisdictions.
Deductions and employer contributions posted correctly.
Accounting entries synced or exported correctly.
Paid-time-off balances are correct.
Benefits deductions match enrollment records.
Complete the BambooHR cancellation only after the new payroll, records, and filing handoff have been verified.
Monitor the next several payrolls for issues involving annual deduction limits, unemployment wage bases, leave accruals, and deductions that may not be apparent from the first payroll alone.
What to export from BambooHR
The records required depend on the BambooHR products you use and the functions you are replacing.
Company and tax information
Collect:
Legal business name and Federal Employer Identification Number
Entity type
Federal tax deposit schedule
State withholding accounts
State unemployment accounts and rates
Local tax accounts
Work locations
Payroll-tax payment records
Agency correspondence and notices
Signed payroll agreements and amendments
Confirm the account numbers and rates against filed returns and agency records rather than relying on a single spreadsheet.
Employee information
Use BambooHR reports or other available exports to collect:
Legal names
Home addresses
Contact information
Hire and termination dates
Employment status
Worker classification
Department and manager
Compensation and pay rates
Scheduled hours
Work locations
Tax-withholding elections
Paid-time-off balances
Active deductions and contributions
Field availability depends on permissions, the report selected, and the BambooHR products purchased.
Payroll and tax records
Download or request:
Payroll history
Payroll registers and summaries
Individual pay statements
Quarter-to-date and year-to-date totals
Employee and employer tax totals
Deduction and contribution totals
Payroll-tax payment records
Quarterly and annual filings are available in the account
Amendments
W-2 and W-3 records
Applicable 1099 records
State and local filings
Payroll journals and liability reports
BambooHR Payroll History supports Excel or CSV exports, and payroll tax documents are available for download from the account. Confirm that you have all required periods and jurisdictions for the migration. Do not assume that the presence of a single tax-document area means every historical federal, state, and local form is available there.
Benefits and deductions
Preserve:
Employee elections
Coverage tiers
Effective dates
Employee premiums
Employer contributions
Carrier and plan identifiers
Broker information
Qualifying life-event records
Health savings and flexible spending elections
Retirement deductions
Life and disability deductions
Continuation-coverage records
Workers’ compensation information
Compare BambooHR’s administration records with records from the broker, carrier, retirement provider, or other plan administrator.
Time and paid leave
Collect:
Paid-time-off policies
Opening balances
Accrual and carryover rules
Time-off history
Approved timesheets
Overtime rules
Schedules
Project or task codes
Pending manager approvals
Resolve pending time entries and leave requests before setting opening balances in Gusto.
HR and talent records
When leaving the full BambooHR platform, preserve:
Employee documents
Offer letters
Signed policies
Onboarding and offboarding records
I-9 and employment-verification records
Performance reviews
Goals and feedback
Compensation history
Applicant and recruiting records
Employee survey history
Custom fields
Workflow documentation
Available audit records
Not all historical HR information belongs in a payroll platform. Some records may need to be moved to a secure archive or to a separate recruiting, performance, or document-management system.
How to switch from BambooHR to Gusto mid-year
A mid-year switch is possible, but Gusto needs complete current-year payroll history to calculate taxes and prepare year-end forms correctly.
Gather completed-quarter and current-quarter records.
Gusto’s onboarding instructions call for prior-quarter summaries and more detailed current-quarter payroll records, such as individual pay statements.
For every employee paid during the year, including former employees, collect:
Gross and taxable wages
Federal income tax withheld
State and local taxes withheld
Social Security wages and tax
Medicare wages and tax
Federal and state unemployment wages
Pre-tax deductions
Post-tax deductions
Employer contributions
Reimbursements
Check dates
Hours were required
Confirm the transition-quarter filing
Gusto’s standard midyear process generally assigns:
Completed quarters to the previous provider
The quarter containing the first Gusto check date to Gusto
Later quarters to Gusto
Year-end forms to Gusto when complete current-year history is supplied
Confirm this division with BambooHR before cancellation. Obtain written confirmation of the provider responsible for every quarterly return, annual form, correction, and payment.
Protect unemployment wage-base calculations
Federal and state unemployment taxes generally apply only until an employee reaches the relevant annual wage base.
If prior wages are missing, the new payroll system may calculate unemployment tax as though the employee had earned nothing earlier in the year. Reconcile year-to-date unemployment wages and state rates before the first Gusto payroll.
Prevent duplicate year-end forms.
When Gusto has complete current-year history, its year-end forms should account for wages processed by both providers under the migration arrangement.
Confirm that BambooHR will not also issue a form covering the same wages unless an account-specific or legal reporting arrangement requires separate forms. Compare the final forms with combined payroll totals before distribution.
Assign amendments to the original filer.
A payroll provider generally cannot amend a return filed by another provider. Preserve support contacts and account records for both systems.
A notice received after the switch may relate to:
A BambooHR payroll or filing
A Gusto payroll or filing
Incorrect starting balances
A duplicate return
A missing tax registration
A payment applied to the wrong period
A discrepancy between agency and payroll records
For broader midyear planning, see [INTERNAL LINK: How to Switch Payroll Providers].
How to move benefits, paid time off, and HR records
Decide whether to change the benefits arrangement
Changing payroll providers does not automatically require changing insurance carriers.
Depending on eligibility, you may be able to:
Keep the current carriers and brokers while connecting eligible plan information to Gusto.
Appoint Gusto as broker for an eligible existing plan.
Select new plans through Gusto’s licensed advisors.
Keep benefits outside Gusto and configure the payroll deductions separately.
Before ending BambooHR Benefits Administration, confirm:
Carrier and plan eligibility
Renewal date
Coverage effective dates
Broker-of-record requirements
Employee and employer contributions
Open-enrollment timing
Continuation-coverage responsibilities
Deduction start dates
New-hire waiting periods
Do not cancel existing coverage until the replacement or continuing arrangement has been confirmed.
Recreate paid-time-off policies
Record each policy’s:
Eligibility rules
Accrual method and frequency
Maximum balance
Carryover rules
Waiting period
Calendar-year or anniversary basis
Negative-balance rules
Opening employee balances
Ask employees and managers to review opening balances after migration.
Decide where recruiting and performance records will live
Moving payroll does not require abandoning BambooHR’s applicant tracking, performance, compensation, or HR reporting tools.
Some businesses may keep BambooHR as the HR system while using Gusto for payroll. In that arrangement, define:
Which system is the authoritative employee record
How new hires and terminations are communicated
How pay-rate and address changes are transferred
Who reconciles the two systems
Whether a third-party integration is required
Which vendor supports integration failures
The total cost of maintaining both systems
No first-party BambooHR-to-Gusto connection was confirmed in the official directories reviewed. A third-party connector may be available, but its fields, data direction, update frequency, security, and support model must be evaluated separately.
What happens to your BambooHR data after cancellation
BambooHR’s standard terms generally provide 30 days after expiration or termination during which customers can download customer data. Exceptions may apply, including certain terminations involving nonpayment or contractual violations.
After that period, BambooHR states that it has no continuing obligation to maintain the customer’s data and may delete it, subject to legal requirements.
BambooHR may retain payroll data internally for 7 years for legal and tax purposes. That internal retention period does not guarantee seven years of customer or employee portal access.
Before cancellation:
Export records.
Keep at least two secure backup copies.
Restrict files containing Social Security numbers, tax data, or bank information.
Record the date and scope of each export.
Test that files open correctly.
Preserve tax forms separately from general HR files.
Follow applicable record-retention requirements.
Document who will control the archive after the migration.
Do not promise continued BambooHR access unless BambooHR confirms the access period for your account.
What changes after moving to Gusto
Payroll becomes the central subscription.
Gusto’s primary employee plans include payroll, eliminating the need for a separate payroll add-on. The specific state, HR, time, support, and payment functions depend on the selected plan and add-ons.
Prior payroll history becomes part of the live tax record
Gusto uses the prior payroll information entered during setup to calculate year-to-date totals and prepare applicable year-end forms.
An incorrect starting balance can affect:
Payroll taxes
Unemployment wage bases
Deduction limits
Employer contributions
W-2s and other year-end forms
Treat the imported history as part of the active payroll system, not merely as an archive.
Employees receive Gusto accounts.
Employees can enter or verify personal, withholding, and direct deposit information, and access their pay statements and tax documents.
Self-service reduces some administrative entry, but the employer still needs to verify completion and resolve discrepancies before payroll.
Benefits can connect to payroll.
Gusto-brokered plans and certain eligible existing broker arrangements can link benefit elections and deductions to payroll.
Retirement, health savings accounts, flexible spending accounts, commuter benefits, life and disability insurance, and workers’ compensation can involve separate providers, charges, eligibility rules, or agreements. Review each benefit individually.
The subscription structure changes
Gusto describes its primary payroll plans as month-to-month, while BambooHR also offers extended-term subscriptions.
Month-to-month billing does not eliminate insurance commitments, retirement-plan obligations, add-on charges, tax responsibilities, or the work required to end a payroll relationship correctly.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to switch from BambooHR to Gusto?
There is no universal timeline. The schedule depends on contract deadlines, employee count, work status, payroll history quality, benefits changes, tax registrations, bank verification, onboarding, and whether the switch occurs midyear.
Will I lose data when switching from BambooHR?
You may lose routine access if you cancel before exporting and validating the records. BambooHR’s standard terms generally provide a 30-day post-termination download period, subject to exceptions. Export records before cancellation rather than treating that period as the primary migration window.
Can I switch from BambooHR to Gusto in the middle of the year?
Yes. Supply complete current-year payroll history, including prior-quarter summaries and current-quarter payroll details. Confirm which provider will file the transition quarter and issue the year-end forms.
What happens to employees’ direct-deposit information?
Do not assume bank information transfers automatically. Employees can enter direct-deposit instructions through Gusto’s secure onboarding process. Verify completion before the first payroll, and avoid sharing bank credentials via an unsecured spreadsheet.
Does Gusto replace BambooHR’s performance and recruiting tools?
Not necessarily. Gusto offers hiring, onboarding, performance, and compensation functions through select products, but its workflows may not align with BambooHR’s applicant tracking system, performance records, custom fields, or reporting. Inventory the exact functions your organization uses.
How does BambooHR pricing compare with Gusto pricing?
BambooHR publishes base HR prices while quoting several major operational products separately. Gusto publishes prices for its primary payroll plans and separately prices some services. Compare complete quotes for equivalent HR, payroll, benefits, time, support, and tax needs.
Can Gusto manage benefits currently administered through BambooHR?
Potentially. Gusto can act as a broker or support certain eligible existing plans and broker relationships. Availability and fees depend on the plan, carrier, location, Gusto tier, and broker arrangement. Confirm the transition before ending BambooHR Benefits Administration.
Can I keep BambooHR for HR and use Gusto for payroll?
Yes, but you need a controlled process for synchronizing employee information. Define the authoritative system, assign responsibility for changes, and evaluate any third-party connector before relying on it.
Should I cancel BambooHR before setting up Gusto?
No. Configure Gusto, enter prior payroll history, onboard employees, rebuild deductions and policies, reconcile the payroll preview, and confirm filing responsibilities before ending the BambooHR account.
Who handles tax notices after the switch?
Responsibility depends on the payroll and filing period involved. Keep records and support contacts for both providers. Route each notice to the provider associated with the affected payroll or return and involve your accountant or payroll adviser when appropriate.
