Add collaborators and manage people's permissions (for Primary admins)

A person’s roles and permissions control what they can see and do in Gusto, as well as the emails they'll get. You can manage access for paid team members, and outside collaborators (accountants, brokers, etc).

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The people you can add to Gusto

You can add all of your contributors to Gusto. In general, we'll refer to types of users as:

Assign or edit individual permissions for team members (US employees)

Account owners (aka Primary admins) can assign individual permissions by going to the team member's profile, or by adding a new custom role and assigning it to them. 

Users with individual basic roles will never see sensitive information like social security numbers (SSNs), bank account info, or tax elections. 

  1. Go to People.
  2. Click the name of a US employee.
  3. Under "Additional", click Permissions.
  4. Click Grant permissions to set up new permissions.
    • To edit existing roles or permissions, click it's name, and then click Edit role.

Account owners (aka Primary admins) can choose Basic access levels for less-sensitive functions:

  • Team members
    • Basic information
      • Control access to team members’ information like email, phone number, emergency contact, reporting details, and birthday.
    • Pay and work
      • Control access to team members’ compensation and work history.
    • Documents
      • Control access to team members’ documents including I-9s and other onboarding documents.
  • Time & Attendance
    • Team time off
      • Control access to team members’ time off including balances, accruals, and requests.
    • Time tracking
      • Control access to viewing and approving team members’ timesheets.
    • Scheduling
      • Control access to team members’ schedules.
  • Expenses
    • Team expenses
      • ​​Control access to team members’ expenses
Add a collaborator and assign Limited or Global permissions

Only the Account owner (Primary admin) can add collaborators to Gusto.

  1. Sign in to your Account owner (aka Primary admin) profile in Gusto.
  2. Go to People.
  3. Next to “Add team member”, click the Caret, and choose Add collaborator.
  4. Let us know what their relationship to the organization is:
    • Accountants
    • Bookkeepers
    • Broker
    • Other collaborator
  5. Enter some personal details, like:
    • First name
    • Last name
    • Email
      • This will invite them to your organization—make sure this information is correct.
    • Personal note (optional)
  6. Select the type of role you want them to have—learn more about each here:
    • Limited admin
      • Choose the access levels for each of the functions available.
      • Collaborators will only be able to view the parts of Gusto that correspond to their permissions.
        • Ex. If they don’t have the “Benefits” permissions, they will not be able to access the Benefits section in Gusto.
    • Global admin
  7. When you’re ready, click Save

We’ll email collaborators about their new access and roles—if they do not see the email, have them:

  1. Check their spam folder and/or;
  2. Make sure the email they’re checking is the one associated with the admin role.
Change or remove collaborator access or permissions

Only the Account owner (Primary admin) can manage other collaborators in Gusto.

  1. Sign in to your Account owner (aka Primary admin) profile in Gusto.
  2. Go to People.
  3. Click the Collaborator tab.
  4. Click their name.
  5. Next to their access, click Edit or Remove.
    • Edit: Next to each permission, click Edit to change. When you’re ready, save the new permissions. 
    • Remove: Removing them will revoke access and remove their role.
Update an admin's or collaborators personal details—name, email address, etc

How you update personal details for admins depends on how they were set up in Gusto:

  • The person was already a team member in Gusto when you made them an admin
  • The person was set up as a Collaborator, or "not a team member"
    • Remove their current admin-access, and then add access again with the new info (name, email, etc).