Gusto alternatives: keep payroll, move everything around it

Short answer: Gusto is a payroll and HR platform for small US businesses: it pays your people, files payroll taxes, and offers benefits, time tracking, hiring and onboarding on top. Alori does not run payroll, so it is not a replacement for that part. If you are looking at Gusto alternatives because the hours, time off and paperwork live apart from your jobs, Alori is the all-in-one app for service businesses: it logs hours from the jobs your crew works, handles time off, hiring and onboarding, and exports approved hours for whoever runs your payroll, Gusto included.

Who Gusto fits well

Gusto is a strong fit when:

• You want one company to pay your employees and contractors and file payroll taxes for you.
• You offer health benefits, retirement plans or workers' comp and want them handled with payroll.
• You want HR, payroll and benefits from the same vendor, with little setup.

For running payroll itself, Gusto is built for the job, and Alori does not try to do it.

Why service owners look for alternatives

Most owners keep payroll where it is. What they want to change is everything that feeds it:

• The hours come from the jobs. Technicians start and finish jobs all day. Clocking in again in a payroll app is double work, and the hours on a job never match the hours on the timesheet.
• Time off has to meet the schedule. Approving a day off in the payroll app and moving the jobs in another tool means someone forgets one of the two.
• Paying for add-ons. Time tracking, hiring and onboarding features often sit in higher plans or cost extra per person.
• Labour cost per job. Payroll knows what you paid each person. Owners want to see what each job cost in labour, next to its price.

Side by side

What Alori replaces, and what it does not

For a service business, the Employees module replaces the time clock and the HR tools around payroll:

• Hours from the jobs. Put a crew on a job: when it starts, their clocks start on it, and when it is finished, they stop. Approve each person's week under Timesheets, fix a line or add forgotten hours.
• A pay summary for payroll. Click Export to CSV for one line per person per week: regular hours, overtime and total hours. Pay rates are never in the file.
• Labour cost on each job. The owner sees the hours on a job, what they cost at each person's hourly rate, and the margin left.
• Expenses. Technicians add an expense from the job with a photo of the receipt. You approve what the business repays, and it counts in the job's cost.
• Time off. Employees ask from their phone, you approve or decline, and each file shows what is left.
• Hiring and onboarding. Openings on your website's career page, a bot that texts each applicant your questions, and a First day list that starts by itself: contract, tax forms, direct deposit details, app invite, equipment and safety training.
• Documents to sign. Upload a contract and click Ask to sign. They sign in the app with their finger.
• The work around it: customers, quotes, schedule, jobs and invoices, and Ask Alori for "how much overtime did Marc do last week?".

What it does not replace: payroll itself. Alori does not pay employees or contractors, file payroll taxes, make W-2s or 1099s, or run benefits. Keep Gusto, or whichever payroll provider you use, for that, and send it the hours Alori approved. If you mainly want a payroll provider, Alori is not the answer.

How to switch

1. Describe your business. Alori builds the app with Employees, jobs and the schedule.
2. Add your team. Click Add an employee for each person, pick Hourly, and add their hourly rate to see the labour cost on jobs. Invite them by email so they can clock in and ask for time off.
3. Put crews on jobs. Pick the lead and teammates on each job. Their hours log themselves as jobs start and finish.
4. Run payroll as usual. Each pay period, approve the weeks under Timesheets, click Export to CSV, and enter the hours in your payroll provider.

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