Pull your Gusto payroll journal into your own systems

What you can build on Gusto

• Get the payroll journal

  Build this

  Runs the Payroll Journal under Reports with summary and individual payroll details for the date range you give, and reads each payroll's lines.

  Takes

  Start date, end date, employee (optional)

  Returns

  Check date, pay period, employee, wages by type, employee taxes, employer taxes, deductions, employer contributions, reimbursements

• Get contractor payments

  Build this

  Reads the payments made to your 1099 contractors in a date range: who was paid, for which pay period and how much of each payment type.

  Takes

  Start date, end date, contractor (optional)

  Returns

  Contractor, check date, pay period, amount by type (service, commission, tips), total

• List employees and their compensation

  Build this

  Reads your team in Gusto with each employee's job, compensation and pay schedule.

  Takes

  Nothing

  Returns

  Name, job title, compensation rate, rate unit, pay schedule, start date

• Add an outside admin

  Build this

  Opens Add or edit admins under Gusto admins in Settings, adds an admin who is not an employee with the role you choose, and saves it with Add admin.

  Takes

  First name, last name, email, role

  Returns

  Name, email, role, added

Automate Gusto with a workflow

A workflow runs your methods as one process, with nobody at the screen. A schedule or a call from your own system starts it, the steps run in order, and the result arrives in your inbox or in the systems you already use.

• Last month's payroll journal, posted to accounting

  Build this

  Starts

  Monthly on the 5th at 8:00

  Step 1

  Get the payroll journal for the previous month, for all employees.

  Step 2

  Have an AI step total wages, taxes, deductions and contributions by check date.

  Step 3

  Post the totals and the lines to your accounting system's webhook.

• Contractor payments of the week

  Build this

  Starts

  Every Monday at 8:00

  Step 1

  Get the contractor payments of the past 7 days.

  Step 2

  Keep the payments that were not there on the last run.

  Step 3

  Email you the list with contractor, check date, pay period and total.

• Compensation changes, sent to your HR system

  Build this

  Starts

  Every weekday at 7:00

  Step 1

  List the employees with their job, compensation and pay schedule.

  Step 2

  Keep the employees who are new or whose compensation changed since the last run.

  Step 3

  Post each one to your HR system's webhook.

You can run a workflow by hand on every plan, Free included. Schedules and webhook triggers come with the paid plans, from $29 a month.

Once built, one call from your code

Once you have built a method, it is one POST to /v1/runs from your backend, or a tool an AI agent calls over MCP. This is what “Get the payroll journal” would look like.

curl https://api.fous.com/v1/runs \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $FOUS_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "method": "app.gusto.com/get_payroll_journal",
    "input": {
      "start_date": "2026-10-01",
      "end_date": "2026-10-31"
    }
  }'

{
  "status": "completed",
  "data": {
    "company": "Acme Bakery LLC",
    "payrolls": [
      {
        "check_date": "2026-10-17",
        "pay_period": "2026-10-01 to 2026-10-15",
        "employees": [
          {
            "employee": "Jordan Lee",
            "wages": {
              "regular": 2400,
              "overtime": 180
            },
            "employee_taxes": 445.47,
            "employer_taxes": 212.85,
            "deductions": {
              "401k": 129,
              "medical": 85
            },
            "employer_contributions": 210,
            "reimbursements": 42.5
          }
        ]
      }
    ],
    "count": 1
  }
}

An example with invented data, not a ready-made endpoint. The method exists in your organization once you build it, and its name, inputs and fields follow your request.

Gusto’s own options

Gusto's API is for its App Integration and Embedded Payroll partners. Production access is gated and needs an approved pre-approval and security review, and Gusto lists a customer connecting its own systems to its own account as not supported. It points those customers to the Gusto CLI and the Gusto MCP server instead.

Read on November 12, 2026: Gusto API introduction, Gusto CLI on GitHub, Gusto API OAuth2.

Signing in to Gusto

You sign in to your Gusto account and choose the company you want to work in, which matters when you are an admin of several companies. With Fous you sign in once through Gusto's own sign-in with your own account: the login is sealed with AES-256, never returned by the API or written to logs, and code and AI agents never see it.

Worth knowing

The journal is generated, then downloaded

On screen you pick the date range, select Generate report and then Download CSV. Gusto's own report API works the same way: a request returns an id, and you poll it until it has succeeded or failed.

Choose the columns before you generate

The Payroll Journal has options such as employee earnings breakdown by job, employer and employee tax breakdowns, deductions and contributions, and reimbursements. Tick the ones you need before you generate the report.

Gusto's API connects one company at a time

Since API version v2023-05-01, a Gusto access token covers one company, and an admin of several companies authorizes each one separately.

The CLI drafts payroll, it does not run it

Gusto's CLI has no run or submit command for payroll, so it cannot move money. When an agent drives it, every write waits for a confirmation flag.

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