Payroll, benefits, and HR solutions company Gusto announced new products and features aimed at small businesses during its Fall Showcase on Oct. 22, introducing LLC formation and a business bank account, AI connectors, expanded compliance and payroll tools, and new benefits and HR support.
“Small business owners wear every hat, and they shouldn’t have to carry every burden too,” Chris Cosgrove, chief product officer at Gusto, said in a statement. “Our goal is to make the hard things easier, starting on day one.”
Small business owners can now form an LLC, open a business bank account, and see where their money stands in Gusto, before they hire anyone.
“Starting a business has typically meant figuring it out alone, and every one of those steps is a place where a good idea can stall,” Cosgrove said. “Our bet is simple: if it’s easier to get started, more people will, and more of them will succeed.”
Gusto’s new features also help business owners stay compliant, automate payroll and contractor payments, and put AI to work on time-consuming tasks.
They include:
- Gusto Business Compliance handles obligations that trip up owners, especially when they hire in a new state, including state tax registration, annual report filing, and government mail monitoring.
- Multi-location payroll runs one payroll for hourly employees who work across state or city lines, calculating and filing taxes for each work location.
- Intelligent payroll automations gather hours, flag anomalies, anything unusual, and turn payroll into a quick review and sign-off.
- More control over pay, with same-day pay for off-cycle bonuses and corrections for eligible businesses, custom semi-monthly schedules, and printed, mailed paychecks with delivery tracking.
- Contractor tools that let owners hire and pay U.S. and international contractors on one platform. With invoice ingestion, Gusto reads an uploaded invoice and prefills the paysheet for review and approval.
- Project tracking lets owners tag hours to projects, clients, and tasks and see the true labor cost of every job.
Business owners can now connect Gusto to Claude, ChatGPT, and other AI tools to ask questions about payroll and teams, prep payroll, and generate reports. They have full transparency and control over the output, with the ability to approve every change before it’s final. Developers and power users can also connect through Gusto’s MCP server or install the Gusto CLI in one command so an agent can prepare what it can before each payroll and send a prioritized list of decisions that need the owner’s approval.
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“Owners shouldn’t have to learn a new tool to put AI to work. Gusto works where they already do,” Cosgrove said. “AI does the prep, and the owner stays in control of every decision.”
In addition, Gusto is putting additional HR department expertise inside its platform so business owners can invest in their teams for the long term. This includes:
- Gus, the AI Benefits Assistant gives personalized, real-time guidance on benefits and builds a ready-to-submit package covering medical, dental, vision, and more. A licensed advisor reviews it before anything is finalized.
- Gusto 401(k) built into Gusto helps business owners manage retirement plans directly on Gusto, without switching platforms.
- Health reimbursement arrangements give employees the flexibility to choose health coverage that works for them, while employers maintain complete control over costs by setting a monthly allowance. Employers can seamlessly manage reimbursements alongside payroll in Gusto.
- Voluntary life and disability benefits provide employee-paid coverage added through automatic payroll deductions, at no additional direct cost to the business.
- Guided benefits renewal provides cost-optimized options, side-by-side comparisons, and direct access to a licensed benefits advisor.
- New HR resources let owners build an employee handbook and generate documents like performance improvement plans and termination letters. Owners also get proactive alerts when employment laws change, written answers from a human HR expert, and instant answers from Gus.
- Gusto HR Partners gives business owners access to an experienced, fractional HR professional without the cost of a full-time hire.
- Gusto Professional Employer Organization (PEO) helps take on much of the day-to-day HR, payroll, benefits, and compliance work for owners.
Finally, Gusto announced Thursday its biggest-ever updates for accountants, including:
- A redesigned Gusto Pro dashboard with AI-assisted workflows.
- A multi-client Model Context Protocol that lets firms work across selected clients in a single AI conversation.
- An expanded partner program with marketing and partner development funds.
- Solo advisory tools, helping firms advise solopreneur clients with calculators for S corp election and reasonable compensation estimates.
More information about Gusto can be found here.
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