Payroll transfer automation

Payroll Transfer Automation (PTA) helps automatically transfer company, employee, and past payroll data into Gusto. This saves time, reduces mistakes, and helps your firm and clients get started with Gusto quickly.

Reminders

Required documents

Each provider has specific reports for employee data and another for historical payroll data that Gusto can accept and process. If you try to import a report type that Gusto does support, the import will fail, and you'll be asked to try again.

The table below shows the reports that we'll ask for to export and import to Gusto for employee information.

Provider Employee report name
QuickBooks Online Payroll "Employee Details" (PDF only)
QuickBooks Desktop Payroll "Customize Report" (CSV only)
ADP Run "Employee Summary" (PDF only)
Upload an Employee Details report from QuickBooks Online Payroll
  1. In the main menu, click Reports.
  2. Search for Employee details.
  3. Click Customize and choose All Employees and All Locations.
  4. Click Run Report.
  5. Click View next to any Social Security number (you might need to complete 2FA to see it).
  6. Click Export and save it as a PDF.
  7. Upload the PDF file—Gusto only accepts the PDF version of the "Employee Details" report. Other formats will not work.
Upload an Employee Contact List report from QuickBooks Desktop Payroll

Watch this video on how to export the Employee Contact List from QuickBooks Desktop.

 

  1. Click Reports on the main menu.
  2. Hover over "Employees & Payroll" and select Employee Contact List.
  3. Click Customize Report.
  4. Under the Display tab use Search Columns to select the following fields:
    • First name
    • Last name
    • SSN
    • Email
    • Date of Birth
    • Street 1
    • Street 2
    • City
    • State
    • Zip
    • Hire Date
    • Release Date
    • Salary
    • Workers' Comp Code (applicable to WA only)
    • Earning Rate(s)
    • Job Title
  5. To pull both active and terminated employees on the same report:
    • Click the Filters tab.
    • Select Active Status.
    • Click Remove Selected Filter.
  6. Select Ok.
  7. Save it as a CSV file.
  8. Upload the CSV file—Gusto only accepts the CSV version of the "Employee Contact List" report. Other formats will not work.
Upload an Employee Summary report from ADP Run
  1. Click Reports and select Run single report.
  2. Search for "Employee Summary", and then click Employee Summary. 
  3. In the upper-left, click Edit to choose report options.
  4. Select the current year, the most recent quarter, All under "Status", and All under "Employee".
  5. Click View report. 
  6. Click Download and download as a PDF.
  7. Upload the PDF file—Gusto only accepts the PDF version of the "Employee Summary" report. Other formats will not work.

This may miss some employees who were paid/terminated in previous quarters, since you need to select a specific quarter. You might need to pull multiple summaries because of this issue. 

Contractor details

  1. Contractors will pull on the "Employee Summary" report listed above.
  2. The report does not contain the following: 
    • SSNs
    • Multiple pay rates
    • Account numbers for direct deposit will be masked