Finally picked a payroll service after months of indecision

I run a small shop with 8 employees and kept going back and forth between Gusto and a local bookkeeper who does it manually. Gusto seemed easier but the monthly fee bugged me. I ended up going with the local lady after she showed me a spreadsheet of tax deadlines she hadn't missed in 12 years. Three months in now and she actually caught a mistake Gusto would have charged me extra to fix. Anyone else find that cheaper isn't always better with ops stuff like this?

3 comments

3 Comments

blake30224d ago

I gotta push back on that "cheaper isn't always better" line because in your case it SOUNDS like you're paying more for the local lady, not less. Gusto's monthly fee is usually around $40 for small shops and that includes automated tax filings and wage calculations. Your local person might charge $200 a month and if she messes up ONE quarterly filing the penalties are on you, not her. Payroll mistakes can cost THOUSANDS in IRS fines and you're basically trusting one person's memory vs a system that updates automatically.

taylor_flores24d ago

You're putting a lot of FAITH in a piece of software that can't look at your specific business and say "hey, you should set up this deduction for your seasonal workers" or catch when an employee's address changes midyear and needs a new filing status. Gusto is great until it isn't - like when it auto-files something wrong because your employee entered their birthdate wrong in the system and now you've got an EIGHT-HOUR phone chain with support to fix it. Meanwhile, my local person texts me when she sees a potential issue before it becomes a problem. That $200 a month covers her knowing my employees by name and remembering that one guy switched from salary to hourly two months ago, which is stuff software just doesn't track.

kevin_schmidt9722d ago

Isnt Gusto's base plan like $40 a month plus $6 per person though, so $200 could be close to break even depending on how many employees you have @blake302? I get your point about automation, but for a small shop with seasonal workers that software doesnt always catch the nuances.