Speed up the payroll process and improve accuracy using Smart Import—upload a spreadsheet or CSV file, and we'll import your employee's hours for you. There's no need to reformat your spreadsheet—we’ll automatically match all your columns and rows to the payroll.
Smart Import can be used on:
Regular payrolls
Off-cycle payrolls
Bonus payrolls
Expand the sections below to learn more, or use CMD + F (or CTRL + F) to search for keywords throughout the article.
If you already use software to track your employees’ hours—like a spreadsheet or time-tracking software—you can upload that file to run payroll faster and with better accuracy. To run payroll with Smart Import, follow these steps.
Click the Pay section and select Run payroll.
Choose a payroll to run.
Above the employee table (beside Filter and Columns), click Import payroll data.
Click Upload, or drop your file into the box.
Upload the information in its original format—Smart Import can handle all sorts of file types*.
If you are not sure what to include, click Download the CSV template below the upload box to get a blank template with the columns Gusto expects, fill it in, then upload it.
Once you have uploaded a file, click Upload and continue.
Review the information—once imported, it will replace any existing entries for the same payroll.
Click Import.
If everything looks good, continue with any next steps and submit the payroll.
*Supported file types: .csv, .xls, .xlsx, .123, .dbf, .dif, .et, .fods, .html, .numbers, .ods, .qpw, .slk, .sylk, .txt, .uos1, .uos2, .wb1, .wb2, .wb3, .wk1, .wk2, .wk3, .wk4, .wks, .wq1, .wq2, .xlr, .xml.
If any of your non-exempt employees will earn overtime this payroll, you can add a “workweeks” column to your file with each week’s date range (we accept ISO dates, MM/DD, or written-out date ranges) along with that week’s hours and earnings. We’ll use this to allocate pay to the correct workweek for Regular Rate of Pay (RRP) calculations, instead of treating your file as one pay-period total. Learn more in How to record weekly pay while running payroll. If a date in this column falls outside the pay period, or doesn’t line up with your account’s workweek settings, we’ll flag it for you to fix before the payroll can be imported.
Zeros override previously entered information—if your spreadsheet includes zeros, they replace the existing information.
Blank values have no impact on previously entered information.
Quickly upload US contractor payment information using Gusto’s CSV template. To pay US contractors by uploading a CSV file, follow these steps.
Click the Pay section and select Pay contractors.
Click Create payment.
Above the Total amount column, click + Upload CSV.
Click Download CSV template, or create your own file.
Learn more about the required and optional fields, or how to create your own CSV file below.
Once the CSV is ready, click Upload, or drop your file into the box.
You're all set to review and submit the payments.
Required information in the CSV
Contractor type—individual or business
For individual contractors:
First and last name
SSN (only required for contractors who have the same first and last name)
For business contractors:
Business name
Employer Identification Number (EIN)
Invoice number
Optional fields in CSV
Hours worked
Wages
Bonus
Reimbursement
Memo
Vacation hours
PTO
Sick time
If you're not using Gusto's CSV template (that's already formatted for you), use the formatting guidelines below to create your own CSV.
What goes in the CSV
Required info (*)
What to title the column in the CSV
Additional info
Contractor type*
contractor_type
Enter one of the below:
Individual
Business
The field is not case-sensitive
Contractor name*
For individual contractors, enter both:
first_name
last_name
For businesses, use:
business_name
The field is not case-sensitive
Example: “Smith”, “smith”, or “SMITH”
Invoice Number*
invoice_number
The field is not case-sensitive
Social Security Number
ssn
Required if there are two individuals with the same first and last name
Enter the last four digits of their SSN, preceded by an asterisk (*).
Example: *4387
EIN*
ein
Enter the last four digits of the EIN, preceded by an asterisk (*).
Example: *7856
Pay
Enter one or more of the below:
hours_worked
wage
bonus
reimbursement
Positive numbers only
Decimals are optional
Example: 40.00
Memo
memo
Can contain numbers and letters
Example: Thanks for giving it 100%
Note: If your import does not go through after a few tries, download a fresh copy of Gusto’s CSV template and move your data into it. Custom or reformatted files sometimes lose formatting that Gusto needs to read them correctly. If the file still does not import, contact Gusto support and share the file you are trying to upload.