Enter previous payrolls during account setup
If you don't have any previous payrolls to report, but you're being prompted to enter them, please contact our Sales Team at 415-918-2367 or [email protected] to have this step removed.
Note: If you need to edit or remove a previously entered historical payroll, please reach out to us through the Help or Priority support section of your Gusto account.
If your company is starting with Gusto after the start of a year, it's important to enter your previous payrolls when setting up your Gusto account to ensure your year to date filings are accurate. Use the dropdowns below to learn more about entering these payrolls.
If you've already run payroll with Gusto and still need to report a missing payroll processed outside of Gusto, check out this article.
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It's critical that you provide previous payroll information to Gusto when setting up your account because an employer can only issue one W-2 per employee per year.
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For the current quarter, gather all paystubs for every employee.
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For previous quarters in this calendar year, gather quarterly payroll summaries for each employee. Use the last paystub issued in the quarter with a check date that precedes the last day of the quarter (i.e. 3/31, 6/30, 9/30,12/31).
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There is a difference between a check date and the pay period:
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The check date is the date the employee was paid. This date determines your payroll tax liability and will be the date you’ll enter when reporting previous payrolls. The pay period is the period of time during which the wages were earned.
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For example, if an employee worked from December 15th to December 31st and was paid on January 15th, the pay period is the December 15th - 31st and the check date is January 15th.
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Reimbursements: Business-related expenses incurred by the employee that are reimbursed on a non-taxable basis. Enter zero when reporting previous payrolls if no reimbursements were paid.
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Exemptions: If your employee has tax exemptions, you’ll need to return to the employee setup before entering the employee’s paystubs. Check out our article on how to add exemptions for more details.
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Social Security and Medicare: Social Security and Medicare are flat tax rates of 6.2% and 1.45% of taxable wages, respectively.
- Do NOT enter Gusto’s values if your figures don’t match. Double check that the employee wages, deductions, and reimbursements as well as employer contributions are all properly allocated.
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If you cannot find the source of the error, please reach out to our Success team at [email protected] and they'll assist with troubleshooting.
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Errors saving paystubs: This can be due to several reasons.
- Not entering year-to-date values: Be sure that you’re entering year-to-date values, not just the values for the current pay period. Most providers include these details on each paystub. If not, you may need to add up the previous paystubs to get the year-to-date values.
- Entering employee and employer paid benefits in the wrong box: Check that employee deductions haven’t been entered as employer contributions and that pre-tax/post-tax deductions are entered in the corresponding boxes. All post-tax deductions should be grouped in the “Post-Tax Deductions” field. If you’re unsure what to enter, hover your cursor over the box to view tooltips.
- Forgetting to enter a value: Double check that all boxes are filled in, including the reimbursements field. If you didn't pay out any reimbursements, put a zero in the box.
If you're entering previous payrolls during the setup of your Gusto account, you'll need a few documents first—click the Documentation needed to report previous payrolls dropdown in this article to learn more.
If you've already run payroll with Gusto and still need to report a missing payroll processed outside of Gusto, check out this article.
- Click Previous payrolls.
- Click the Report previous payrolls button.
- Ensure all of your active employees are entered and click Confirm active employees.
- Ensure all of your dismissed employees from the current year are entered and click Confirm dismissed employees.
- This is very important as we need this info to generate all required W-2s at the end of the year.
- Click Add Paystubs for your first employee.
- Gusto will default to paystubs having been issued for all employees, unselect the check box if no paystubs were issued, and click Save Changes.
- Enter in the check date. This is the date the wages were paid.
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For the current quarter, gather all paystubs for every employee.
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For previous quarters in this calendar year, gather quarterly payroll summaries for each employee. Use the last paystub issued in the quarter with a check date that precedes the last day of the quarter (i.e. 3/31, 6/30, 9/30,12/31).
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- Check that the applicable taxes and the correct state taxes are present.
- Enter the employee’s year-to-date earnings, taxes, and deductions.
- For the current quarter, gather all paystubs for every employee.
- For previous quarters in this calendar year, gather quarterly payroll summaries for each employee.
- Once you have entered the details for the first paystub, click Save Changes.
- Continue entering the information for the remaining paystubs and employees.
- Once you’ve entered all paystubs, review your previous payroll provider’s report of your YTD totals. Check for any missed employees and/or payrolls, like supplemental or bonus payrolls.
- If all employees and paystubs have been entered, click Finished all paystubs.
Note: If you indicate there are no taxes outstanding ($0.00) for all taxes, Gusto will report all tax amounts as having been paid to the agency. We'll still report the total wages (for all payrolls for the year - both outside of Gusto plus amounts paid by Gusto), and all the taxes owed for the year (for all payrolls outside of Gusto and tax amounts for payrolls processed by Gusto), but we won't debit or pay the taxes again for historical payrolls.
What's next? E-sign forms in Gusto.
Troubleshoot issues encountered while entering previous payrolls
To get additional information that may help resolve the issue, review the information in the "Overview of reporting previous payrolls" section of our Help Center.
Before you enter your previous payrolls when setting up your account, please gather the following items:
- Year-to-date (YTD) paystub information from each prior quarter for active and dismissed employees paid this year.
- YTD paystub information from the current quarter for active and dismissed employees.
