Create and share custom documents with teammates

Documents supported by the Gusto Custom Documents feature

• Employee handbooks 
  • If you’re a Gusto customer with a Priority support plan, you can request an employee handbook from your HR Resource Center portal in Gusto. In order to contact the HR Pros, you must be the designated HR Resource Center admin in Gusto. 
• IP agreements
• Waivers
• Documents that need an employee and/or employer signature
• Form acknowledgement
  • An option to acknowledge forms without having to map fields exists in the upload custom documents process.

Other documents supported by Gusto

• Offer letters
• Some government forms (ie. Form W-4 and I-9)
  • Support for these documents occurs during employee onboarding

Unsupported documents

• Employment agreements
  • Job applications
• Tax forms, including state withholding forms

Do not include items

• Radio buttons (also known as option buttons)
• Prefilled text or highlighted fields
  • You will not be able to remove or cover these up after the form is uploaded.
• Security Settings
  • For example: password protected files
• Hyperlinks to outside resources (ie. employee training videos, etc)
  • Custom docs are read-only once finalized.

Hiring a team member often comes with a lot of paperwork. Gusto helps you digitally manage all the documents your team needs. 

This feature is available if you're on Gusto's Plus or Premium plan. If you do not see the option to add a new document, upgrade your plan at any time. 

1. Click the Company section and select Documents.
2. Click +Add Document.
3. Select the New document tile.
   • This tile is only available for Plus and Premium plan members.
4. Make sure your document is supported by reviewing the criteria in the dropdown above. 
5. Select the file you would like to upload.
   • Upload one document at a time.
   • Make sure that your document is in PDF format.
6. Name the document.
7. Select whether the document needs to be filled out:
   • If it does, select Yes.
   • If it only needs to be read and acknowledged, select No.
8. Click Continue.
9. Use the drag and drop fields to map your form - see the table below, describing the fields.
10. Click Save & Continue once you've completed the mapping.
11. Preview the document. If you need to go back to make edits, click Back, otherwise, select Continue to proceed.
12. Select how you plan to use this document–you cannot change this selection later:
    • Team document—a shared document visible for multiple recipients.
    • Individual document—a customized document for a single recipient.
13. Let us know who should receive the document.
14. Click Send document.
    • Once sent, you can view the document in the employee(s) profile.

Keep in mind: Once a form has been signed by a team member, we cannot edit it or remove it from their profile. You can archive the form to avoid additional signings, but any signed agreement will remain visible in Gusto accounts.

To see which employees still need to acknowledge/sign the document, click the “action” icon next to the document in the Employee section of the Documents tab and select view details. This allows you to preview the document, view when it was approved, rename the document, view which employees have completed it on what date, and the employees that still need to complete it.

Custom document notifications

Employees receive an email notification letting them know that they have a document available in their Gusto account that needs to be reviewed and acknowledged or signed.

• This email is only sent once. You can communicate directly with your employees if you want to remind them to complete this task. 

Once you've approved the document, you'll have two options, depending on whom the document is available for: 

• New hires: The document will be stored in your account so you may select to send it to new hires during onboarding. It will not be sent automatically.
• Existing employees: The document will automatically be sent to all of your existing employees.

Custom doc fields

Requested fields	These fields are manually completed by the individual signing the form
Signature	Manually entered field by the signing party
Text	Custom field to enter information not captured from the other mapping options Ex. employee title
Text (Optional)	Allows the document-signer to input information or leave the field blank without it causing an error.
Initials	Signing parties' initials
Checkbox	Optional selection field These display as checkmark during the preview stage
Admin fields	Information to be completed by the account administrator mapping the form
Automatic fields	This information will autocomplete based on the signers existing information in Gusto
Signing date	Date the form is completed by the signing party
Company name	If a trade name is on file, this is the name that will be used. If not, the legal company name is populated
Auto fields	Fields automatically filled based on information already in a person's Gusto account There's an auto field for SSN and EIN as it relates to contractors (individual and business) - if not applicable, this will show as "N/A" in the uploaded doc.

If you no longer want to share a document with recipients, follow the steps below to archive it. At this time, custom documents can not be fully deleted.

Once you archive a document, you will no longer be able to send it to recipients. Archiving a document is not reversible.

1. Sign in to your Gusto admin account.
2. Go to the Company section and select Documents.
3. On the “Team” tab, scroll to the document.
4. Under the “Actions” column on the right side of the page, click the three-dot menu.
5. Click Archive document.

If a recipient has already signed an archived document, their signed copy will remain in their Documents section of their profile. If they haven’t signed it, the document will be removed.

If you downgrade your plan, and you have custom documents, the following will happen:

• You and your employees will keep access to signed and awaiting signature documents.
• Employees can still complete documents.
• No new custom documents can be created.
• When you click Add Document, the option for New Document will not be there and you'll be routed to the Offer Letter flow. 
• We will not destroy any existing data.