Running payroll is only half the story. For businesses to maintain accurate financial records, comply with regulations, and make informed decisions, payroll data must seamlessly flow into their accounting systems. Yet for many embedded payroll partners, this critical connection has remained a manual, error-prone process that requires significant customer support overhead.
Today, we’re excited to announce two new features that solve this fundamental challenge: Xero and Quickbooks Online accounting integration flows and the General Ledger API.
The Embedded Payroll Reality
In the embedded payroll space, accounting integrations aren’t nice-to-have features—because payroll often represents a business’s largest expense, they’re critical. According to Statista, 64% of small businesses use accounting software, with the remainder largely relying on bookkeepers who also use these systems. When businesses evaluate payroll solutions, they expect seamless integration with their existing accounting workflows.
Until now, Gusto Embedded partners faced a difficult choice: build their own accounting integrations from scratch (a months-long engineering effort) or rely on manual workarounds that added overhead for customers and support teams.
Two Solutions, One Mission
We’ve built two independent yet complementary features that bring Gusto’s proven accounting functionality to the embedded world:
Accounting Integration Flows: The Complete Connection Experience
These embedded flows are perfect for partners whose customers primarily use Xero or QuickBooks Online and want the “set it and forget it” experience. The flows handle the full customer journey from authentication to ongoing sync of payroll ledgers to Xero and Quickbooks Online, meaning no more support tickets for connection setup or manual data entry.
What makes them powerful:
- Seamless OAuth authentication with Xero and QuickBooks Online, including secure token management that happens transparently.
- Intuitive mapping interface where customers visually connect payroll categories to their chart of accounts, with built-in validation and bulk update capabilities.
- Automated sync options that post journal entries (both platforms) or bills (Xero only) directly to the customer’s books.
- Flexible configuration supporting job and department-level customization for complex organizational structures.
General Ledger API: Programmatic Access to Structured Payroll Data
For partners building their own accounting platform integrations, generating custom reports for customers, or platforms that need to incorporate Gusto payroll data into broader financial products, our API provides the same structured ledger data that powers Gusto.com’s reporting.
Key capabilities:
- Familiar API pattern using POST-to-request and GET-to-retrieve, consistent with our existing reports APIs.
- Flexible aggregation options that generate reports by job, department, or accounting platform format depending on your use case.
- Rich JSON structure with comprehensive breakdowns including account types, debits, credits, and totals for complete financial transparency.
Flexible Implementation Options
Both features work independently, so you can implement one without the other based on your specific needs:
- Use the accounting integration flows alone when your customers primarily use Xero or QuickBooks Online and want a complete “set it and forget it” experience with automated syncing.
- Use the General Ledger API alone when you’re building custom integrations, serving customers with diverse accounting software, or need to incorporate payroll data into broader financial products.
- Use both together for maximum flexibility. The accounting integration flows enhance the General Ledger API by enabling platform-specific formatting in API responses. Set up connections through the flows, then pull reports via the API that are already formatted for your customer’s specific accounting platform.
This approach transforms the accounting integration from a complex engineering project into a competitive advantage that you can deploy exactly how your business needs it.
Ready to Get Started?
Both features are available now for all Gusto Embedded partners:
- Get started with Accounting Integration Flows: Follow our step-by-step implementation guide with instructions for testing using Xero trial accounts or QuickBooks Online developer environments.
- Explore the General Ledger API: Check out the complete API specification, including request formats, response structures, and error handling details.
These features represent a key milestone in our mission to provide embedded payroll partners with the complete infrastructure needed to serve businesses of all sizes. We’re excited to see how you’ll use these tools to deliver truly comprehensive payroll solutions that handle the full financial lifecycle.
If you’re an existing partner who’d like to learn more about the accounting integrations and the general ledger API, reach out to your partnership team. If you’re considering embedded payroll and would like to learn more, contact our sales team.
