There are a lot of reasons why people choose Gusto for their Payroll Provider even when they use QuickBooks Online as their accounting software. It might be the convenience of running payroll, with an average of less than 5 minutes for most users. Other users find the easy set-up the most attractive reason for choosing Gusto. The combined offering of payroll, benefits, and HR tools linked around a common platform serves as the driving factor for some user selections. Whatever the reason, a growing number of businesses are turning to Gusto for their QBO integrated payroll application.
But when it comes to you as an accountant, bookkeeper or business advisor who provides payroll services to your clients, you want a payroll solution that is going to meet the needs of those clients and your firm. With Gusto for Partners, accountants receive dedicated support and exclusive perks and discounts as they onboard their clients onto Gusto’s full-service payroll, benefits, and HR tools. Gusto’s partner program offers cutting-edge technology empowering you to grow your practice.
As I mentioned, getting started with Gusto is easy. So, once you’ve signed-up you just follow a few simple steps to get connected to QuickBooks Online:
Settings > Integrations > Add New Integrations > Connect to QuickBooks
Then enter your QBO credentials and click Authorize to allow Gusto and QBO to sync.
(Gusto integrates with QuickBooks Online via OAuth like other Apps with access via the Intuit QuickBooks App Center.)
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The next step involves Mapping your QBO accounting data to Gusto. This will include your accounts, classes and departments as shown below.
(Integration mapping controls how total wages, taxes, benefits, deductions, contributions, reimbursements and payments sync between Gusto and QBO.)
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This is also where you will determine which payroll transactions will sync to which QBO accounts, whether you want future syncs between Gusto and QBO to sync automatically or manually, and exactly how all aspects of your payroll will be recorded in your accounting, after you have set-up the rest of your payroll in Gusto.
Gusto pulls in your company and employee data from QuickBooks Online to streamline your setup process, but there are still some things you will need to configure in Gusto. This article isn’t intended to be a detailed set of instructions, so we are not going to look at all the steps of configuring Gusto Payroll, but we are going to give you an overview of how Gusto looks, and how simple it is to set-up and use.
(Gusto Payroll Set-up Wizard takes you step-by-step through the set-up of your payroll from company address to employees to bank account and benefits.)
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You will start out by adding your Company address for your primary business address and each of your company (location) addresses.
(Set-up your main and all 'other' company locations where employees work for payroll purposes.)
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When you have finished you are ready to add your Employees. Gusto can import basic employee information from QuickBooks Online like name and address, but there are multiple other details that either you or your employees will need to provide for payroll purposes.
(Employee Basics, compensation and time-off information, the information you need to provide or confirm during the process of on-boarding personnel.)
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Like many larger, sophisticated Payroll systems costing much more, Gusto has an option to allow employees to Self-onboard by entering most of their own information once you invite them via email to enter their personal information and to execute authorization forms.
(Initiate the employee self on-boarding process by inviting your employees to enter their own information.)
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You will then be able to enter Federal information.
(Enter the federal tax information for your business including EIN, business type and legal name.)
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Now it's time for your State information. You may have one state, or multiple states depending on the number of states in which you have employees working.
(Enter the information for each state you have employees performing payroll duties within. Because each state is different, the screens may look slightly different, but pretty much appear the same.)
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As you continue to work your way through the easy steps you will designate the Bank Account that Gusto will debit the necessary funds from to pay your employees and all the necessary taxes. 'Hint: I always recommend setting up a unique bank account for doing this rather than my regular business checking account.'
(Set-up the bank account you want Gusto to debit for your payroll and payroll tax payments.)
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You will also set-up your Employee Pay Schedules.
(Configure Employee Pay Schedules for pay periods/frequencies, first pay dates, payroll deadlines, and payroll work periods including ending dates.)
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Now you are ready to run your first payroll. On average it takes from five to seven minutes to run a typical payroll using Gusto. Let’s look at how easy it is by starting with Hours & Earnings (at top of next page).
(Run Payroll Step 1 Update yours employees' hours, reimbursements and additional earnings.)
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Review and approve any Time-off.
(Run Payroll Step 2 - Finalize time-off approval for current pay period.)
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Final review and Submit Payroll for Payment.
(Run Payroll Step 3 - Review & submit your payroll for final processing.)
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The following is an example of the Payroll Journal Report showing the details of the payroll period earnings, deductions/contributions, employee and employer taxes and totals.
(This is just one example of the reports available within Gusto, there are literally dozens of reports and report options that come standard with Gusto Payroll.)
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Each time you run payroll, cancel payroll, or make a correction, your total wages, taxes, and reimbursements will appear in QuickBooks Online based upon the 'sync' configuration you set-up when you linked Gusto with QBO. Remember, even if you set-up automatic updates you can always perform a manual update as well.
While we have just taken you through the steps to set-up and run your first payroll using Gusto, you should be aware that a lot of Gusto users choose Gusto for their payroll because of what Gusto calls AutoPilot®.
AutoPilot® is a feature that allows you to process your payroll automatically without logging into Gusto. Your payroll will automatically process each pay period 1 day before the deadline. Once payroll is processed, you'll receive an email notification. You'll also be reminded that you have 24 hours to make changes to your payroll or cancel it if needed. Once you make the changes they will apply to the next payroll. With Gusto AutoPilot®, you can eliminate the time it takes to pay your employees.
Gusto also offers payroll solutions that work with QuickBooks Desktop, Xero and other accounting solutions.
Gusto is proud to partner with thousands of accountants, bookkeepers and business consultants to help them seamlessly manage their client's payroll, compliance, and benefits, so they can get back to doing what they can to build closer than ever advisory relationships with those clients. If you would like to see a demonstration of Gusto or find out more about how you can partner with them to benefit your clients, just check out the Gusto Partner website.
Publishers disclosure: While this content is not a sponsored article or paid advertising, the URLs provided within this article are associated with paid promotional advertising displayed on this website or linked therefrom. Gusto is also a contributing sponsor of Insightful Accountant's ProAdvisor of the Year and Top 100 ProAdvisor Awards for 2019.