Gusto Reviews Better Business Bureau® Profile

In a crowded market, Gusto stands out as the best HR software for businesses most concerned with payroll processing. To find the best HR software around, we investigated dozens of human resources systems. We watched product videos and participated in demos when possible. Paychex Flex is made for small businesses that need a simple, easy-to-use payroll software solution that doesn’t include extra bells and whistles. The platform offers three customizable plans, integrations with accounting software and a self-service employee portal, so employees can view their pay stubs and tax forms. Being more bare-bones than Gusto means Paychex Flex charges extra for things such as W-2 and 1099 filing and time tracking.

• Justworks is a professional employer organization, or PEO, solution, meaning it partners with individual companies that want to outsource their payroll and HR functions.
• It offers service plans that include a number of human resources services, such as access to an HR professional who can provide advice on all employment-related issues.
• One of the things I appreciate about Gusto is that it extends compliance assistance, tax filings, and HR resources to ensure businesses remain compliant with regulations and requirements.
• A link in the upper right corner says, “I need help with this.” When you click on it, you can watch a video or click on links to other help content.
• Gusto will also send you an end-of-year report if you qualify for the FICA tip credit, a restaurant-specific tax incentive.
• You can view them directly or download them as a CSV or PDF (in some cases, you can only download them).
• The cost of Gusto depends on how many people you employ and which plan you select — the lowest plan, for example, starts at $40 per month plus $6 per employee per month.

We tested Gusto’s Simple plan features using the Google Chrome browser on a Windows laptop and the Gusto Wallet app on an Android mobile device. Our ability to test the features was limited, as they required entering real bank account information and signing into external accounts. You can give access to your company’s Gusto administration to an employee within your company or someone outside your company. So, anyone you hire for HR, accounting or bookkeeping can get the information they need without going through you. As the admin, you can see outstanding expense reimbursement requests on the dashboard.

Review from Gail V

Once everything is in, your Dashboard is the first page you encounter. It has a to-do list, which suggests that you might want to complete other areas of setup, approve time-off requests, and invite your accountant or other team members to access the site. Important reminders, like turning on multi-factor authentication, and the due date for your next payroll run, appear here. There are also recommendations for tasks your business should complete, like setting up a Workers’ Compensation policy. The Personal page contains data like social security number, birthday, address, and emergency contact. If you’ve integrated Gusto with a performance-management application (there’s a new 15Five integration option, for example), you can see that data here.

When we tested Gusto, we appreciated that it has an in-app applicant tracking system (ATS), so businesses don’t have to pay for a separate ATS, as they would with some vendors. The Gusto ATS features might not be as extensive as many third-party ATS options, but the system is comprehensive enough to handle standard recruiting and onboarding gusto login processes. Onboarding tools include offer letters and e-signature documents, employee directories, organizational charts, custom onboarding checklists, software provisioning and document management. We like how Gusto can also streamline onboarding by allowing new employees to fill out their own information within the platform.

Payroll Tax Support

Gusto has a ton of features that help businesses quickly and accurately run payroll. You can use the system to pay full- and part-time W-2 employees, as well as freelancers, consultants and other 1099 contractors — a capability that not all HR solutions offer. Furthermore, Gusto allows for multistate payroll, as well as multiple pay rates and schedules. Below, we break down the additional reasons Gusto sets itself apart in the HR software space regarding payroll. When analyzing price, ADP comes out on top with the Essential plan pricing, with a $29 startup fee and $5 per employee.

• It was easier to request time off in the Gusto Wallet app, as we didn’t have to choose the time-off type first.
• The Gusto Wallet mobile app is primarily intended to help employees learn how to save money, and it comes with limited time-tracking and paycheck features.
• You can view which benefits you currently offer, which ones you don’t, what you have enrolled for, and when the coverage begins.
• This means you can test the service for a couple of months and if it isn’t meeting your needs, cancel without incurring any penalties.
• Gusto bills itself as a full-service payroll solution and delivers on that claim.

And if you want free multi-state payroll, a provider like OnPay (or one like SurePayroll, which charges just $10 per month per additional state) might suit you better than the Gusto payroll service. Gusto Simple, the payroll company’s cheapest and most basic plan, lets you run payroll in one state only. If you pay employees who work in multiple states (a situation more employers than ever are finding themselves in), you’ll need Gusto Plus, which includes multi-state payroll. The software has a rating of 4.7/5 stars on Capterra (based on 3,200+ ratings) and 7/10 stars on TrustRadius (based on 270+ ratings).

How Does Gusto Compare To Other Payroll Software?

Help us to improve by providing some feedback on your experience today. Gusto is trustworthy when it comes to handling secure and sensitive data. Information regarding a business’s commitment to promoting ethical trade throughout their supply chain will be shown here, if applicable. Information regarding a business’s commitment to reducing their environmental footprint and meeting sustainability goals will be shown here, if applicable. However, the difference between applications is usually how these features are presented. Each benefit integrates with its respective administrator, making it easy to manage information from one location.

The call center has no authority to do anything other than read help articles to you. For example, during my open enrollment period I had an employee who intended to waive coverage because he was getting married and getting on his wife’s plan. He happened to be out of the country (getting married) when the open enrollment period was closing. I called Gusto to find out what to do in that situation and the call center assured me not to worry that they would automatically waive coverage if he took no action. Instead, I found out days later that Gusto automatically enrolled him in the previous years plan. Its been three days and I cannot get anyone from Gusto (by phone or email) to provide actual assistance on this issue.

What is the best payroll service?

The software puts onboarding in employees’ hands, so each team member can fill out their own contact information and details directly within the platform. This not only speeds up implementation, but can also help reduce data-entry errors. A Gusto representative told us a company could implement the platform in as little as one weekend if all of the necessary information is on hand and employees onboard themselves. This was notable, seeing as some competitors’ systems can take weeks or months to fully implement. When testing the product, we liked that the platform’s homepage prominently features important to-do items, such as payroll run dates and time-off requests.

This simplifies the procedure and lowers the possibility of errors, making it especially useful for companies with many employees or complicated payroll obligations. While Gusto payroll is not technically free, the cost of processing payroll is already included in the platform’s monthly per-employee fee. In other words, Gusto plans come with full-service payroll and there is no added processing cost. Keep in mind that the payroll features included in the contractor-only plan differ from those in the other packages. Besides offering full-service payroll solutions that include HR, time tracking, benefits tracking, employee self-service, and hiring tools, Gusto also offers accountant partnerships. Gusto allows employees to access and manage their own information by offering individual profile accounts.

Review from keith r

Check out the rest of our picks in our guide to the top payroll solutions. For instance, say you work with more than 50 clients at once. You get a 20% discount on all your Gusto services and access to all of Gusto’s payroll and HR tools.

• Gusto lets you easily customize many of its reports with a variety of filters.
• You prepare this report by selecting the columns you want to appear from a few dozen options, like employment type and payment method.
• It was also nice to pull up the right reports for our insurance audit and not have to search.
• Square Payroll’s monthly fee starts with a $35 base price plus $5 per person, compared with Gusto’s monthly fee starting at a $40 base price plus $6 per person.
• Gusto has a couple limitations that you should consider before purchasing.