Employee payment details

Your paystubs become available in Gusto on the check date of the payment your employer submitted. If you're not seeing your payment, or your company previously used another payroll provider, contact your admin for those previous paystubs. 

1. Sign in to your Gusto account.
2. Go to the Paystubs section.
   • If you're an admin and don't see this section, you may need to switch to your employee account. 
3. Click the paystub you wish to view.
4. To print it, click Download PDF in the top right corner and print directly from your browser. 

Each paystub includes gross earnings, employee and employer taxes, employee benefits and deductions, employer contributions, time off taken and accrued, reimbursements, and your check amount. The taxes on your paystub may vary if your gross pay changes paycheck to paycheck. Your net pay is the remaining amount of gross pay after taxes, benefits, and any deductions are made.

If your employer takes pre-tax benefits taken from your pay, your taxable wages will be lowered, giving you more take-home pay than if the benefit were post-tax. Under federal law, many pre-tax benefits are not subject to FIT or FICA taxes. However, there are exceptions. For example, 401(k) contributions are subject to FICA taxes, but not to FIT. 

Wages defined

Payroll defines wages in several different ways. 

Gross Wages	The total amount of pay before taxes and deductions. Gross wages can include not only the hourly or salary wages but also tips, bonuses, commissions, vacation pay, sick pay, and holiday pay.
Taxable Wages	The part of gross wages that must be taxed for income taxes. This means gross wages minus any pre-tax deductions, and any amounts that are over the wage base limits for the particular tax. Pre-tax deductions are not necessarily pre-tax for all taxes, for instance a deduction may be considered pre-tax for federal tax but not state tax.
Subject Wages	These wages are similar to taxable wages. The difference is subject wages must be reported on specific tax returns as wages based on federal and state guidelines, but taxes are not withheld from subject wages.
Excess Wages	Wages that are subject to be taxed, but are over the wage base
Exempt Wages	These are wages that are considered not taxable. Wages could be exempt because they exceed the wage base limit for a particular tax, or it could be a payment such as a reimbursement which is not considered taxable.

 

Ultimately, when you get paid depends on when your employer ran payroll (for employees) or processed your payment (for contractors). Gusto cannot share in-flight payment details with employees or contractors before the pay date–you must reach out to your employer with questions if there is not a paystub already in your Gusto account for the payment in question.

Once you've confirmed with your employer that they've run the payroll/payment through Gusto, use the information below to help troubleshoot missing payments. 

• If you're an international contractor with payment issues, have your employer reach out to us from the Help or Priority support section of their Gusto account.

For direct deposits

After your employer submits payroll, we’ll electronically send any payments processed as direct deposit—on payday, you'll get an email from Gusto and your paystub will be available in your account. After the banks receive our electronic payment, they have until 5 pm local to make funds available to you in your bank account.

• Payment processing speed is unique to each employer—contact your admin directly for questions about your specific check date. Gusto cannot answer questions about in-flight payments until the actual payday (check date). 

For check payments

Your employer is responsible for sending or manually distributing the check to you—check your paystub in Gusto to determine how your employer processed the payment (via direct deposit or check).

Troubleshooting payment issues

If you don't see the money in your account on the pay date and believe there’s a delay with your payment, follow the steps below to troubleshoot:

1. Make sure you're in the correct account.
   • If you have multiple Gusto accounts you can easily switch to a different profile.
2. Check if your payment method is set to direct deposit. 
   • If you’re set up for a check payment method, your employer should issue you a check for your net pay (the money won't appear in your bank account if you were set to be paid by check). 
   • Even when direct deposit information is set up in your profile, your employer has the option to process the payment as a check—view your paystub in Gusto to determine if your employer processed the payment as direct deposit or as a check.
3. Verify that your bank account information is correct.
   • Check your bank account transactions and look for the $0.01 test credit from Gusto.
     • If you don’t see the test credit within 1-2 business days after adding your bank information, your bank information may have been entered incorrectly.
   • If the bank routing or account number is incorrect:
     • [Employees] Update your bank info.
       • If you decide to delete the bank account (rather than update the existing one), you’ll need to add a new bank account and then contact us from the Help section of your account in order to resend the payment.
     • [Contractors] Update your bank info.
       • If you decide to delete the bank account (rather than update the existing one), you’ll need to add a new bank account and then contact us from the Help section of your account in order to resend the payment.
   • If you recently changed your bank account, your payment may have been sent to the previous account. 
     • Check your previous bank account’s transaction history to see if funds were deposited there.
       • If you no longer have access to the old account, first contact us to obtain the ACH trace ID for the payment, then contact your bank to have them track down the payment.
4. Sign in to your bank account or contact the bank directly to check if there are any pending payments (credits) incoming.

Still need help?

Contact your administrator with any questions or issues. 

• Ask about the expected payment date.
• Ask them to confirm the payment method (direct deposit or check).
• Review bank account details.
• Review payment details (as needed).

If your employer is unable to help, they can contact us from the Help or Priority support section of their admin account—our team is able to provide more explicit details about in-flight payments or any errors to admins.

You can view how you're being paid (salary, hourly, etc.), your job title, and your wages at any time in your account.

1. Sign in to your employee profile—or switch to your employee account if you have multiple accounts.
2. Head to the Job & pay section. 
3. On the right-side of the screen, look for the gray box titled "Compensation."

Note: When you first enter your bank account in Gusto, we'll verify we can successfully deposit your paychecks with a penny verification test.