Edit company details

The tax returns Gusto files to IRS must include the company name and FEIN that's on record with the IRS to avoid rejected filings.

• Find out more about the importance the IRS places on employer name accuracy.

You can use your preferred name as your DBA/trade name in Gusto, but it's recommended use the company name on file with IRS as your legal/official name in Gusto to prevent filing issues.

If you've changed your legal business name, or need to correct it, follow the below steps to have this reflected in your Gusto account:

1. Submit your name change to the IRS and relevant state agencies.
2. Confirm with the IRS if this also requires a new Federal Employer Identification Number (FEIN).
   • If you're receiving a new FEIN, change your FEIN using the related dropdown below in this article.
   • If you're using the same FEIN, contact us from the Help section of your account and attach relevant correspondence from the IRS and state agencies showing this company name change.

Once we receive your request and correspondence attachment, we'll update the company name in your Gusto account.

• Note: We cannot make this change until we receive the IRS documentation reflecting the change. 

DBA and spelling update requests

If you're adding or updating your DBA (doing business as) name, or need to correct a misspelling, please contact us from the Help section of your account requesting the DBA update.

Troubleshooting company name issues

If Gusto reaches out regarding an error with the name you're using in Gusto, it's likely because we're using your DBA (doing business as) name instead of the official name that is on record with the IRS. To resolve this issue:

1. Contact us from the Help section of your account and attach the correspondence from the IRS showing your current official company name. If you want to use a DBA in addition to your official name, just include in the email both your official name and your DBA.
2. Gusto will review and update the company name (and DBA, if applicable) in your Gusto account.
3. If you want to officially change your company name with the IRS, follow these instructions.
4. Once you receive IRS documentation showing your official name has been changed, contact us from the Help section of your account and attach the correspondence from the IRS showing your updated company name. 

Change in ownership/structure:

If you've changed your business type, or experienced a change in ownership or structure with your business, check with the IRS to see if this requires a change to your company's Federal Employer Identification Number (FEIN). You will also need to reach out to your state agency regarding this change to see if you need new state and local tax account numbers. Please note that a change in your business name alone does not typically require a new FEIN. Please see our Help Center for more information on company name changes.

In order to generate the required tax filings for your old FEIN and new FEIN, two separate customer accounts are needed for each filing. Follow the below steps to set this up.

Step 1: Create a new Gusto account.

Step 2: In your new Gusto account, input your new company info:

• Legal entity name
• FEIN
• State tax IDs and corresponding deposit schedules and rates
• Company address (if changed)
• New bank account (if changed)

We can assist with migrating employee info over to your new account as long as your employees haven’t changed work locations.

Step 3: contact us from the Help section of your account about the FEIN change. Let us know which employees you DO NOT want migrated over, if any, so we can make sure your accounts are accurate. If we also manage your benefits, please let us know in your email so we may put you in contact with our Benefits team so that your benefits are not terminated with your carrier.

• Note: If you'd like to migrate employees sooner than the expected time frame for completion provided by our team, you can also onboard employees yourself. We will also assist with suspending your old company account once we ensure all tax payments are correct.

Important: If you need W-2s generated for the account you're closing, you'll need to select that Gusto process your quarterly and yearly filings, we will file returns for the current quarter and year-end with payroll amounts. We will also file any remaining quarterly returns for the year with $0 amounts.

FEIN Errors:

If you realize you added an incorrect FEIN in your customer account, go to the Help section in your customer account to request that we update your existing account with the correct FEIN.  

For more information on the different entity types, check out our blog.

If you've changed your company type, complete the below before updating the information in Gusto: 

• Check with the IRS to see if this requires a change to your company's Federal Employer Identification Number (FEIN) and;
  • If your company type changed because you received a new FEIN, follow the steps in the Change your FEIN dropdown of this article. 
• Make sure to contact all state agencies to see if you need new state account numbers.
  • If you're given new state account numbers, sign in to your Gusto account and go the Help or Priority support section to contact our team so we can help with the updates. 

If you did not receive a new FEIN, you change your company type using the following steps:

1. Click the Taxes & compliance section and select Tax setup.
2. Next to Federal Tax Setup, click Edit.
3. Under Company Type, make your new selection.
4. Click Save.

A company location can be any address where your employees work (or live, for employees working from home), your legal filing address, or your legal mailing address. If you've added a new company location, you should enter it into your Gusto account by following the instructions below.

• Important: Be sure to notify the IRS of your legal or mailing address change. Also, you’ll need to notify the states where you have previously registered so they are aware of changes to your mailing address. If you’ve never registered with the state government where you now have employees working, you’ll need to register your business in the new state. If you do not properly notify the IRS and/or state agencies prior to the update in Gusto, it may result in failed payments or filings.

Add a company address

1. Navigate to the Company section and click Company details.
2. Under Locations, click Manage your company locations.
3. Click the green plus sign under Company Work Locations. 
4. Enter the new work address—this should be a physical location and not a PO Box or other mailboxes.
5. Check the box at the bottom if this is a work location.
6. Click Save.

Before paying your employees, make sure each of their individual employee profiles now reflects the appropriate work address (new or old).

Gusto will file tax returns for the newly added location after you pay an employee at that location. You typically don't need to resubmit prior filings if the filing address is the only information that was updated.

Do not delete old work addresses if employees ever worked there. Gusto will need historical work addresses for taxation purposes.

You can switch your filing and mailing address easily in Gusto—before you can switch, make sure you've added the new company address following the steps in the Add a company address dropdown, then follow the steps below.

Switch your Main Company Location (Filing & Mailing Addresses)

1. Click the Company section and select Company details.
2. Under the "Locations" headline, click Manage your company locations.
3. Under "Main Company Location," click Switch Filing & Mailing Addresses.
4. Choose the company address you're switching to, and click Save.

Edit or deactivate a company address

1. Click the Company section and select Company details.
2. Under the "Locations" headline, click Manage your company locations.
3. Next to the applicable address, under the "Actions" column, click Edit address. A few reminders:
   • For addresses that can be edited and need to be deactivated, scroll to the bottom of the popup box and click the Deactivate this location link.
     • If you still have employees working there, you won't be able to edit the address. To deactivate this location, create a new company location, then move your employees' work address to that location.
       • Once a new company address is added, you can choose to Edit employees at this location or manually change an employee's address to move them to the new location.
     • If you used to have employees working at that address, the address cannot be changed. If the location is permanently closed, scroll to the bottom of the popup box and click the Deactivate this location link.
4. Click Save.

At this time, you'll need to contact us from the Help section of your account to request a phone number update.

Customers on the Premium plan, or Plus plan with the priority support add-on, can contact us from the Priority support section.

The company signatory is responsible for electronically signing all government forms Gusto creates and is generally a member of the partnership/business.

Each time a signatory is added or updated, we’ll file a new Form 8655 with the IRS—your signatory must be authorized by the IRS to give Gusto the “Reporting Agent Authorization” we need to file and pay your taxes. Authorized signers by entity type:

• Sole proprietorships.
  • The individual owning the business.
• Corporation—including a limited liability company (LLC) treated as a corporation.
  • An officer having legal authority to bind the corporation,
  • Any person designated by the board of directors or other governing body,
  • Any officer or employee on written request by any principal officer, and
  • Any other person authorized to access information under section 6103(e).
• Partnership (including an LLC treated as a partnership) or an unincorporated organization.
  • A member of the partnership.
• Single member LLC treated as a disregarded entity.
  • The owner of the LLC.

Important: if you're adding or changing your company’s signatory, please also notify the IRS by completing Form 8822-b.

Step 1. Delete the current signatory

1. Click the Company section and select Company details.
2. Next to Company Signatory, click Edit.
3. Click Delete This Signatory.

Step 2. Assign a new signatory

Once this signatory is deleted, add the new signatory.

1. Click the Company section and select Company details.
2. Next to Company Signatory, click Assign a Signatory.
3. Select if you are the signatory.
   • If you are the new signatory, enter your information.
   • If you are not the new signatory, enter their email address so that we can send them a notification to fill out their information.

Once the new signatory is added, they will be prompted to electronically sign a few forms by clicking the Company section and selecting Documents.

When you add or change your company bank account, we will need to verify your new bank account before you can process a payroll or contractor payment using it.

• Heads up: Your company bank account cannot be the same as an employee or contractor's bank account.

If eligible, you can use instant bank verification to get set up right away. If you do not use instant bank verification, you will get two test transactions sent to your account for verification—this may take 2-3 business days.

Credit payments and credit cards are not accepted—the account must be linked to a bank checking account. 

• If you have tax-advantaged accounts with Gusto (like FSAs, HSAs and/or commuter benefits), you’ll see a non-refundable $1 test debit under MBI/Med-I-Bank. If you offer an HSA, you’ll see an additional $0.01 test debit.

What to know before you add multiple bank accounts

• Only the following types of admins can add, remove, or assign bank accounts to specific payrolls or payments:
  • “Full access” admins
  • Admins who can “Run payroll”
  • Admins who can “Pay contractors”
• Gusto uses your default bank account for your monthly invoice.
• Admins will need to remember the last 4 numbers of the bank account(s) you want to use when making payments—at this time,  you can’t add nicknames to the accounts.
• If you’re using Payroll on AutoPilot®, we’ll debit the ‘default’ account set in your profile, unless you set up a different bank account (learn more below).
• If you modify or reverse a past payroll, any funds owed back to you will be returned to the bank account associated with the payment, so long as that account is still active in Gusto.
  • If you’ve removed the account, we’ll send the money to the default account.
• Sometimes Gusto has to refund or debit funds due to wage corrections, tax reconciliations, cancellations, etc—in these scenarios, we’ll use the default bank account. 

Add an additional bank account

1. Sign into your admin account.
2. Head to the Company section and select Company details. 
3. Scroll to the “Bank Accounts” headline and click Add bank account.
4. Enter in the new Routing Number and Account Number.
5. Click the checkbox to acknowledge this change may block payroll for up to 2 business days until bank verification is complete.
6. Click Continue.
7. To securely and instantly verify your bank account, click Verify Bank Account—you'll be asked to link your bank account to Gusto.
   • You can also select to manually verify your bank account with two micro-transactions, this could take up to 2 business days.

Set a bank account as your default account

Gusto will debit the default bank account for monthly invoices and for any international contractor payments. 

1. Sign into your admin account.
2. Head to the Company section and select Company details. 
3. Scroll to the “Bank Accounts” headline, find the bank account, and click Manage.
4. Click the checkbox to Set as default account for payments.
5. Click Save and close.

Assign a bank account to a Payroll on AutoPilot (for multiple bank accounts only)

If your company uses the Payroll on AutoPilot feature, we'll debit from the 'default' bank account on file. If you want AutoPilot to debit from a different bank account, you can change this in your Gusto admin profile.

1. Click the Payroll section and select Payroll settings.
2. Next to the AutoPilot section, click edit.
3. Select the desired bank account from the dropdown box.
4. Click Save.

Going forward, all Payrolls on AutoPilot will debit funds from the selected bank account.

Remove a bank account

If you choose to delete a bank account from which payments are scheduled in the future, we’ll warn you that the future payments will be canceled and you’ll need to reschedule the payments again. 

1. Sign into your admin account.
2. Head to the Company section and select Company details. 
3. Scroll to the “Bank Accounts” headline, find the bank account you'd like to remove, and click Manage.
   • If you don't have another bank account verified already, you'll need to add, verify, and set an alternate bank account to default before deleting this account.
4. Click Delete.

FAQs

Q: Can I add multiple company bank accounts?

A: Yes—you can add multiple bank accounts and individually select which bank account to use on payroll(s) and contractor payments.

Gusto will use the default bank account for monthly invoice payments.

Q: I paid people from the wrong account, what do I do?

A: If Gusto has not already debited your account, you can cancel the payroll or contractor payment and reschedule the payment from the right bank account. 

If Gusto has already debited the bank account, you’ll want to contact your bank to transfer the required funds into the bank account.

Q: Can we split the payments between multiple bank accounts?

A: No. All payments come from one bank account. if you want to split payments, we suggest running multiple payrolls and selecting different bank accounts for each.

Q: Can we have a bank account associated with each employee? 

A: No—but you can allocate employees to departments and set up pay schedules per department and then each pay schedule can have a bank account associated with it.

Q: Does Gusto support alphanumeric bank accounts?

A: Yes. We allow users to use bank accounts with both letters and numbers.

Enter a new tax account number by heading to the Taxes & compliance, selecting Tax setup, and scrolling to the applicable state tax section.

Due to the potential tax implications of having an incorrect account number on file previously, you'll need to contact us from the Help or Priority support section of your account to assist with the update.

When contacting Gusto, please provide any supporting documentation you may have that includes the correct/updated account number—this includes agency notices, screenshots from an online agency portal, or similar.

Learn how to update your SUI rate by heading to this article.

Admins with the required permissions can now change the transaction description that appears on employee’s bank statements. 

Historically, the description next to an employee’s direct deposit would reflect GUSTO. Now, there are three description options to choose from. 

Note: The description will default to GUSTO if no changes are made.

Change the direct deposit bank description

1. Click the Payroll section and select Payroll settings.
2. Next to Bank descriptor, click edit.
3. Choose between the three options:
   • GUSTO
   • Your company’s name
   • Custom
     • If custom, enter the description you’d like employees to see on their statements.
4. Click Save.