As someone who used to work at Gusto:
Two separate opt-ins are required - one from the employer for adding Truework to their account, one from the employee to share the information for every request.
This is a REALLY good question and something that's hard to appreciate until you actually to build a payroll system. I think a common misnomer is that if you're not doing ML/AI/AR/blockchain/[insert latest technology here], you're not doing R&D.
The domain of Payroll turns out to be an incredible complex business domain. I think Ron Jeffries says it best in his post: http://wiki.c2.com/?WhyIsPayrollHard
The software design of such a complex business domain at scale turns out to be an incredibly hard engineering challenge, and something that is often overlooked when we think about big engineering challenges.
A little known fact is XP and Agile were developed by Kent Beck while working on a Payroll system for Chrysler (In fact, Kent now works at Gusto to help us with our payroll system).
I'm CTO of Flip (https://flip.lease), we handle a lot of rent payments each month.
I get the same question a lot. Most people could not imagine the amount of complexity that exists underneath the seemingly simple guise of paying rent. Just wanted to say I can sympathize and I respect what you've been able to do, specifically from the technical perspective. (We use Gusto and it's been absolutely fantastic)
Unrelated, my whole team was very impressed by the attention to detail in your rebrand. It's so difficult to transition the landing pages and internal product so seamlessly, again coming from the technical perspective. I imagine you're running a tight ship over there, and it shows.
Would love to see the API open up/be offered again!
We don’t use Quickbooks, but currently we are hacking the Quickbooks export with a bunch of JSON in the configuration UI, to provide extra context and more detail for team breakdowns, etc.
Is that new? Last year I had an employee in Washington and I had to call the State of Washington to set it up, for example. If it's new, that great! You should have told me. :)
Then maybe we aren't talking about the same thing. When I added an employee in Washington, I had to apply online and then call them directly to get the employee set up. One of the things I had to do was buy Worker's Comp insurance through the State of Washington, because no one else will sell it. Also, I had to get my UBI number from them.
Ideally I would tell you guys "I have a new employee in Washington!" and that would be the end of the story, you'd do all the rest. That's what I'm hoping you can get to at least!
(To be clear, the part you can do today is already amazing and super helpful, I'm just being greedy because I'd rather spend time on product than on calling the State of Washington
Now you just need health insurance in all 50 states.. maybe build up association health plans that cross state lines by industry, etc. The lack of health insurance for small businesses is such a devil, and keeps so many people from even trying to go out on their own. Really our only options start at about the 5 employee mark, and even then the rates are often not much better than the individual market (which is more than a house payment in many states).
CTO and co-founder of Gusto here. This has actually been on our mind for many years now, and it's a problem we've seen that hurts paycheck to paycheck employees the most. We've recently taken a first step towards rethinking how payroll should be for a modern workforce, and launched a pilot for a new product called Flexible Pay (https://gusto.com/flexible-pay).
Flexible Pay enables employees to cash out unpaid earned wages, without any changes to how payroll runs. Happy to answer any questions about it. Also, if this is a space you're passionate about, we're actively hiring engineers for that team!
Fun fact we took over the lease at 425 right after y'all. That picture on the blog with the couches does not do justice to how packed the office was when we did our site tours!
Yeah, I found a few mentors who I would feel comfortable asking questions and getting advice. I met some though investor introductions, and others through friends of friends.
That certainly did happen. In fact, I would say its quite necessary for growing startups to continually hire people with more management experience than anyone else in the company. There isn't a sense of ego associated with that. Many of them are really just excited to be on this mission together.
It's great to hear that you found the Masters invaluable! I personally didn't do any formal education myself beyond reading, finding mentors, workshops, some coaching, and experience along the way.
