Mastering Payroll and HR: Gusto's Guide to Seamless Business Management with Henry Curell

But before we dive in , a quick word of caution While we strive to provide accurate and up-to-date financial and tax information , nothing you hear on this podcast should be considered as financial advice specifically for you or your business .

We're here to share general knowledge and experiences , not to replace the tailored advice you get from a professional financial advisor or tax consultant .

He works with accountants and small business owners to create a seamless payroll , benefits and HR experience through Gusto People platform . How's it going , henry ?

So I'm excited to be talking with folks that you know maybe are looking to get a business started for this first time , or maybe they're looking to improve efficiencies within their business , and I'm excited to talk all things Gusto with you today .

It's very user-friendly and obviously it does the basic things that you would expect from a payroll platform . Like you can run the payroll , it files all the federal and state filings for you . But it does so much more than that and that's kind of where I think it really excels .

Could you kind of go through some of the things that people maybe wouldn't expect that a payroll platform would actually do that gusto does ?

We bill ourselves as the people , and I think that's a really good description of what Gusto actually does . It's every product that we build , every single tool within our system . The ways that we support small business owners is surrounded about empowering the business owner to support their team to do their best work .

It's a big ethos of the work that we do and it's how we design everything around what we do . So when people always ask me , it's very easy to say , yes , we're a payroll company . That is the core product that we offer , but we do do so much more than that .

So many folks use us to manage their team on a day-to-day basis and that can show up in so many different ways . So a great example is like , how do I keep my team engaged throughout the work week and throughout the work year ? Like , how do I make sure that people are tracking their goals and , you know , growing within the business ?

How do I make sure that I'm providing the right um benefits and different resources for my team so that , like I retain really great employees and I'm able to expand my team and um that can show up in so many different places .

So , and you know , we'll get into this so much more on this uh conversation , but you know there's a ton of different options and excited to share more ?

All of our products are online and part of that process of inviting an employee for the first time , we outline exactly what is needed and we put it in a really clean and approachable user interface so that you're not having to fill out these really sort of tedious tax forms that might be hard to read or understand what's being asked of you , forms that might be

hard to read or understand what's being asked of you . We put everything out in a really approachable way so that , like someone who might be doing this for the very first time or someone who doesn't have a lot of time on their hands to dive in and make sure that they're filling out something the right way .

We make it very clear and approachable on how to do this , and we do it for contractors and we do it for employees . So , for instance , if you were a painting business managing a team of contractors , we have a dashboard that you can set up where you can easily onboard them , store their information , they can track their time .

If needed , they can set up direct deposit information and track their payments . It's very easy to keep their data on file .

If you were to use them maybe today , and then they don't work for you for like six to eight months on a project and then they come back later , it's very easy to get that information back versus storing everything in hard copy or using a system where you can't access that information easily . And then the same goes for employees .

If you want to convert a contractor to an employee , it's very easy to move that information over . It's very easy to hire an employee for the first time and then manage them , and when you hire someone as an employee , that's where there's so much more available in terms of what you can offer to build a thriving team .

So we have a lot that we can offer for contractors and then moving them into that employee sphere . There's a lot of options as well . But , yeah , we provide all the paperwork . Everything is done digitally and you have a lot of options for different ways to onboard .

But you can also add in like a subcontractor agreement that they have to sign off on or something like that . And not only is this setting you up great for Gusto to actually file the 1089s for you at the end of the year which can be a pain in a lot of cases but also for any kind of workers comp audits that come around .

You can actually capture the documents that you need upfront from your subcontractors . So you're not only set for the 1089s but also maybe workers comp audit as well . So that's like really awesome the ability to add those documents into that , that onboarding process .

It works in a lot of ways like a document mapping tool , similar to like a DocuSign , where if you have a handbook or an employment agreement or policy document that outlines what's needed from the employer contractor for their terms of employment , you can map that into Gusto as a template that anytime you hire someone new , you can easily deploy that document .

And what's really great about it is , instead of having to customize it for each employee or contractor , all of their personal information is mapped onto that document and then they sign it electronically and it's stored in their file . So it's easy as a couple of clicks when you're adding someone in for the first time and you have access .

Your contractors access through their account just keeps things really clean and organized .

It's not only just good for the business owner , it's also a good experience for the employee or subcontractor because they can go into their own portal and pull like their pay stub , like you know , instead of you having to figure it out for the employee you know to find where their w-2 is or find their their latest pay stub that the employee can easily log

into guesto , grab that stuff and go .

And we have an app that gives employees and contractors full access to be able to update their tax selections , their bank account information , view documents that they've signed as part of their hiring process , receive any additional documents from the employer and then , if there's need for things like time off requests , time tracking , they're able to manage all of that

through their account . But we also understand that some employees and contractors might not be comfortable with the digital side of things , and we have solutions there too .

We have the ability for a employer to completely manage that side of things and when someone shows up on the job site for their first day of work , they can very easily sit down with the employer , fill out the necessary information within a couple minutes .

As long as there's a computer there with internet connection , the employer can actually facilitate that process versus forcing the employee to do it on their own . So , like I said , we're flexible .

get lost and you can always just like cancel the self onboarding and then just enter the information in manually , which makes it really easy and nothing's lost there . So , yeah , it's a really seamless process for that .

Now , one of the really cool things that I'm excited to talk about is is like the talent management piece , which , again , folks probably don't expect this to be built into something like Gusto , but there's things like performance reviews and retention tools to check in with your team on a periodic basis in anonymous surveys that can give you really good data on what

the climate is in your organization . Could you tell us more about some of those talent management tools ?

Yeah , the performance suite and feedback suite within Gusto is very robust , and it gives employers and employees a space to be able to track and do their best work , set goals for themselves but , almost just as importantly , provide feedback and gain feedback to make the organization and the business healthier , more productive and ultimately more successful over time .

So that can show up in a couple different ways . The first is performance reviews , which is basically an employer being able to set up a performance review cycle any length of time that they wish to commit to , and there can be multiple review cycles that overlay each other .

So you could have a yearly review cycle , you could have a quarterly review cycle , you could have a monthly or even weekly , and those can be in conjunction with one another . It allows the manager so the person reviewing the individual to provide a formal feedback which you can standardize .

You can create templates for responses and prompts of what type of questions are going to be asked on the person's performance . And then , of course , the person being reviewed , the employee

, is able to provide responses as well and review themselves , and then , after that review is done , you can set deadlines for both the manager and the managee . Once the review is complete by both parties , you can deploy it and then , as the employer , you can go through and review that performance review .

That's sort of the end part of it , and there's a lot of steps and tools that we have that feed into that performance review . One of the ones that I really like is called goal tracking .

Goal tracking gives employers the ability to set specific progress targets for an employee and an employee can track throughout their work periods , like how they're measuring up to those specific performance targets , providing real time updates , and it's all within a chronological timeline .

And it's really cool because , as you can see these updates , an employer can adjust that specific parameter and maybe lower it . And those are the types of tools that can inform a performance review .

So some really exciting stuff there , yeah , and I'm curious have you seen any good examples of any of your clients using the performance reviews or , um , you know , being able to utilize those tools .

And so , having Gusto already kind of have a way , you know , a framework and a process to kind of fall in on , we just adjusted the templates for the employee feedback and the manager feedback and then set the deadlines , like you said , and just kind of went through it and so it's just kind of gives you you gives you a way to do it and makes it easy to

fall in on .

And we've seen just having that structure and that regular feedback from the employees and the managers is really great and then , additionally , having that ability to set goals and kind of have those automated reminders to the employees that they have a goal that they need to work towards and then they can update it to show where they are with that goal .

So I know for our own business it's been really helpful . On managing performance Another thing really that I like performance Another thing really that I like seeing the regular surveys , the employees to get feedback on how their experience is with the company to get a gauge on what the morale is , for example .

The 360 feedback feature allows a couple different things , so there's two components . There's the one-to-one feedback , so being able to give feedback to individuals that are on your team that can be incorporated into a performance review . Getting peer feedback I know that's something we do here internally here at Gusto .

That's really effective , but it's a great way to be able to share feedback on the performance of your peers . The other side of the feedback is the surveys .

Surveys are like a monthly anonymous survey that are deployed to all employees where they're able to basically provide feedback on management , workplace culture , benefits , job attributes , many different things , and you can customize some of the questions and responses that are able to be given .

It's a really great thing for someone who's starting a business for the first time or maybe looking to improve the way their team operates , to be able to get really authentic feedback that they can then go and take action on . Sometimes it's a little tougher in the moment to be able to ask an employee to tell you what could be improved .

These surveys give another space for individuals to be able to provide that feedback , maybe in a space where they have more time to think and they feel that they can share it anonymously , which is really effective . I liked what you said earlier , too , about structure , I think specifically with the goal tracking .

I think that's feedback that we hear , and I have a friend who's a small business owner here in Colorado , where we're based out of , that is using those tools and he mentioned the exact same thing to me that his employees actually it's been a really , really positive addition is getting that goal tracking , because they're able to actually come in every day and see

what they're working on and track towards something , and there's almost like a sense of accomplishment when they're able to , like , hit those goal targets and see that all within their gusto app . So definitely hear you there on the structure , we hear that all the time .

They could do it anonymously and I've gotten in my own business really good feedback that I hadn't heard you know before , getting you know through those anonymous surveys and I think people just Some personality types just feel more comfortable just being able to say it anonymously . And sometimes it's a gut check .

You're not expecting it and you're like oh , wow , but it's really good information so you can dig into those issues and try to solve them . Good information to you know , so you can dig into those issues and try to solve them .

Um , now going to like switching gears a little bit , another thing that gusto does really well is integrations with different tech stacks that that folks have . Uh , whether it's , um , you know , most of the folks that are listening are probably using quickbooks online , online , or they're also using time trackers like Clockshark or Busy Busy .

So the great thing is with Gusto , it pretty much integrates with a lot of stuff . Could you kind of go into that a little bit ?

There's so many different pieces of software and data and numbers and just information that needs to be shared for a business to run efficiently , and one of the biggest challenges that small business owners find is developing a tech stack that works for the business , is affordable , that actually works properly and sends the right information , and then being able to pick

and choose the right things , that you understand how to use . Quickbooks Online definitely one of the more popular , if not the most popular , accounting software for small business owners .

We have one of the most robust integrations with QuickBooks Online on the market and we provide a lot of mapping customizability within the Gusto ecosystem and the QuickBooks accounting ecosystem . That allows the two systems to talk to one another . Now , as a small business owner , why is this important to you ?

It reduces errors , it reduces time and it makes sure that everything is talking with one another in a way where , when you run payroll , that information is synced over automatically to your accounting software so that everything is in cohesion .

Makes your life , I'm sure , Daniel , a lot easier having that integration , but I think as a business owner too , it's crucial to have those two systems talking to one another because they are so interrelated .

Those two systems talking to one another because they are so interrelated your payroll costs where those costs are going , mapping those to your classes and charts of accounts within QuickBooks is crucial . So that's probably one of the most robust starting points of integrations , but , as you said , there's a ton of other ones as well .

We have a ton of integrations specifically around time tracking , I think , is where your team and your clients would see a lot of the benefit .

Some of the ones that you mentioned Clockshark and Busy Busy are great integration partners of ours and it basically allows your clients to track their jobs , their projects within their business and that time in attendance that is accurately collected in that time tracking tool is synced over to Gusto automatically .

So then when you go up to run payroll , instead of having to manually sit down , type out all that information it's prone to errors it's all synced automatically . That way you're just going in and just doing a quick spot check and then clicking approve .

Makes makes the payroll experience a lot faster , it makes the payroll experience a lot more accurate and it ultimately is saving people a lot of time and I'm sure , as you know and everyone knows business owners , that's what they need . They need more time back in their day . So having that solution to automate the time to payroll to accounting is huge .

The first is the HR component within Gusto that we offer and what that can do for small businesses , and then the other side is benefits , and benefits is another huge area . That can be it's an entire topic , but I think , starting with HR

, I think it's crucial if you are a small business owner employing contractors or part-time or full-time employees , hourly or salaried , it's crucial to go through an HR assessment in the state that you're working in , make sure that you have your ducks in a row when it comes to labor law compliance , employee compliance , and make sure that all that is documented and

signed by employees and acknowledged so that it's stored in part of the hiring process . It's something that's always neglected because it's not technically a requirement .

However , there's a lot of policies and there's a lot of procedures that need to be acknowledged by employees and if they're not , it can open up the business to things like wrongful termination suits , legal issues with labor and compliance if they're not following the law and labor law within their given state . Gusto provides these types of tools .

We partner with a company called Mineral . They're one of the leading small business outsourced HR providers . They fully integrate into our system . They can take a small business through a full HR assessment . They have handbook templates on hand that you can customize and add policies to .

Customize and add policies to , and then those employee handbooks can be downloaded and put up as a custom document , like we were mentioning earlier for new employees , so that employees are acknowledging those types of things .

A great example would be thick leave or workplace injury , harassment and discrimination policies , jury duty rights , because those vary by state , rental and sick leave so many different policies across different states .

A handbook provides a document that shows employees what their rights are , and then employers what their rights are , what they can and can't do , and it provides that clarity . It's super important and I think it also legitimizes the business .

If you're not providing that type of documentation , a lot of potential employees might see that as a red flag that this business isn't really serious about following labor laws . In my state that might be a concern for me if I'm choosing to work for them . Yeah , and that can change over time too . So Mineral will also provide proactive compliance updates .

So that is , laws do change within a state . They're going to tell you hey , this is updating at the end of the year . This is the change you need to make your handbook . Here's exactly what you need to do . So I'd say that's the first big major thing . I'm curious if you've to do so I'd say that's the first big major thing .

I'm curious if you've had any clients like run into issues there or any folks like utilize those services at all .

So paying attention to this could actually , could actually save you , uh , a lot of headaches and legal problems . So , um , I think it's , and it's a it's amazing . I don't know of any other payroll provider that actually has hr integrated into it , like I guess so does .

So I think it's a really um , amazing opportunity to take care of that piece of your business , if you haven't already using that capability .

There's a lot of trainings , videos , templates , documents , stuff like job description templates , hiring and firing , termination policies . So if you're trying to hire someone , what questions can you ask ? What questions can you not ask ? If you're terminating someone , how do you do that in a way that's compliant , that protects your business ?

It covers all of that , so it's a great one-stop shop . So , yeah , definitely something that I encourage folks to take a look at when they're joining Gusto . And then the other big one is benefits . I mean , I think one of the biggest challenges in all industries today but I'm sure you know painting businesses is no different it's retaining folks .

You find someone who's a hard worker and good at their job and you want to keep them on payroll because they do a good job and help the business . Folks are looking for more than just a paycheck . They're looking for benefits . They're looking for things that improve their livelihood . Gusto can help with things like small business .

Health insurance , health savings account , flexible savings account , 401k , commuter benefits , a lot of health and financial benefits , dental vision , all of that . Now , that's not the best fit for every business .

There's a lot of businesses that aren't quite ready to offer something like that , but for those that are , we provide those options and it's a great way to retain really valuable employees .

So a lot of folks think that they automatically won't be able to afford benefits , because I think everyone thinks providing health insurance or providing a 401k , which are the high cost benefits , but there's a lot of things below that bar that you might be able to afford relatively easily .

I think , especially if you think of the word benefits , there might be some low or no-cost benefits that I think Gusto has some capability for , even a no-cost benefit .

Just being able to track the employee , tracking their paid stuff and having that experience is kind of a benefit just by having the guest out platform , the experience of working with somebody that has those capabilities built in .

And then there's some low cost benefit things that you can do , like the QSERA program with a health reimbursement costs and things like that , that aren't super expensive .

But you could still incorporate it to say that , hey , we do have a health health costs uh , you know , health reimbursement costs benefit which can be integrated into into guest , and I know the guest has a lot of um , you can either , you know , uh , track it within guest or sometimes just to actually has the benefits built right in and it's managed in guest ,

which is kind of cool .

I think there's this stigma and a lot of it is rightfully justified benefits being really expensive . I always tell folks don't count themselves out . There's so many low cost options . You mentioned one of them . Qser is a great option for a new employer that's looking to get into the benefits sphere without necessarily breaking the bank .

What's really cool about Gusto is that we have advisors here that are going to consult you through that process and show you different options . They're going to show you high cost options with a lot of different coverages . They're going to show you low-cost options that give you more affordability and flexibility .

There's not a one-size-fits-all approach and we have really great folks here that can very easily speak with the business , give them options no pressure , no upfront cost and be able to say hey , if you want to offer this today , if you want to offer this next year , these are your options and I think it's a really great service that we provide .

So definitely something . Don't want folks to shy away from that . Although oftentimes people feel that it will be expensive , there's a lot of low cost options out there .

There's a ton of resources on our website . Of course , daniel , you and I work together all the time . You know . If someone is interested in that , feel free to make that introduction to my team and I can get them set up on the right track . We can do a live demo over Zoom .

We can get them connected with any other services that we talked about today , especially if they wanna learn more about things like HR and benefits . We have folks here that we can loop in . Help folks get the right tools that they need .