Even with the technology available today, many HR teams are still heavily reliant on spreadsheets and manual documents to onboard employees and manage payroll and benefit plans. This means these teams are not only spending more time than they should on simple tasks, but they can’t introduce expanded benefit options or new financial wellness programs because it comes with such a large admin burden.
Payroll Integrations is changing this.
Payroll Integrations automates the administrative hassles employers face around benefit plans by seamlessly connecting payroll systems to employee benefit plans, including retirement and health benefits. This allows companies to focus more on expanding employees’ benefits and introducing financial wellness programs, rather than completing all the administrative work behind it.
Pulse 2.0 spoke with Payroll Integrations CEO and co-founder Doug Sabella to learn more about how the company is powering employers to best support employees’ financial well-being.
Formation Of Payroll Integrations
How did the idea for Payroll Integrations come together? Sabella said:
“Back in 2016, my good friend–and now co-founder–Andrew Hallengren was a registered investment advisor working in the benefits space and I was a product manager at Salesforce. In his role, Andrew was working with employers on their benefit plans, the majority of which were still managed via spreadsheets and manual documents. Andrew saw first-hand how HR teams would spend hours on mundane administrative tasks to onboard employees and manage payroll and benefit plans, and unknowingly make mistakes with important details like retirement contributions.”
“With my experience in product management and Andrew’s background in the benefits space, Payroll Integrations came out of conversations about how there had to be a better way to simplify payroll and benefit processes. So, we joined together to build technology that would automate them.”
“We knew it was not going to be an easy feat to bring technology to an industry that was stuck in its manual ways for decades, but we were passionate about solving a problem that would improve how employers delivered critical benefits and improved their employees’ financial wellness.”
(Payroll Integrations executives, from left, Jeff Kayajanian, Doug Sabella and Kevin McCarthy)
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Sabella explained:
“All of our products revolve around our platform’s ability to seamlessly connect payroll systems and benefit providers for employers. Our individual solutions are each focused on connecting payroll with specific benefits like retirement/401k and HSA/FSA providers. But at their core, all of our products solve the same problem: remove the administrative hassles of managing payroll and employee benefits.”
“Most companies still manually track payroll and employee census changes each pay period, managing deductions, contributions, and more through spreadsheets and manual files. Our technology automates these tasks for employers for simpler processing and fewer errors in employees’ benefit plans–in a fraction of the time. Specifically, our technology captures employee census and payroll data from payroll companies and converts relevant data into a structured, ready-to-use format for employers to easily connect with employee benefit plans.”
Partnerships
You have established a significant partner network, working with 70% of the payroll provider landscape and 90% of the largest 401k providers. Can you tell us a bit more about your partners? Sabella noted:
“We work with payroll providers like ADP, Paychex and Quickbooks Online and benefit providers such as Empower, Transamerica, Principal, Voya and John Hancock. We currently have the largest amount of partnerships with 401k/retirement providers as our 401k product was the first one we launched.”
“Our partnerships are extremely important as they power our growth in the benefits market. Following our recent $20 million Series A funding round, we’re focused on establishing new partnerships and bolstering our current relationships with these providers. The more payroll and benefits providers we work with, the more companies we can work with.”
Funding
Can you tell us a little more about the recent Series A funding round you mentioned? Sabella revealed:
“With our recent $20 million funding round, led by Arthur Ventures, we’re primarily focused on expanding our product line to connect with new benefits and growing our network of payroll and benefit providers. This will help us to reach even more companies with our products. We also plan to invest in our operations to meet the needs of the companies adopting our technology.”
“After eight years of building our company, technology and partner ecosystem, this funding is a testament to the success we’ve seen in the market so far. It’s also a strong vote of confidence, especially from Arthur Ventures, in our team, our technology and our future.”
Differentiation From the Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Sabella affirmed:
“We built our platform with employers in mind, introducing communication between benefits providers and organizations where none existed before. This is different from platforms that are built for developers and focused more on the backend, rather than the business advantage that automating payroll and benefit provides.”
“Our technology is also designed specifically for the benefits space, whereas others are more generalized platforms for work across industries. Because Payroll Integrations was created for the benefits space by people who have been in the industry, we understand its detailed nuances. Our technology is built to solve the specific problems that our industry faces, including staying up-to-date on new regulations.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges have Sabella and the team faced in building the company? Sabella acknowledged:
“The biggest challenge has been introducing a completely new way of doing things with our technology. Like many industries, the payroll and employee benefits markets have been reliant on the same processes for decades, defined by spreadsheets and manual communications. And while some have been slow to embrace new technologies because of the learning curve and onboarding process that comes along with them, many HR teams simply don’t know that there is a solution that can save them hours of administrative work.”
“We’ve taken the role of not only building our technology to solve the administrative hassles of payroll and employee benefits, but educating these teams that they have these problems in the first place. Many have simply accepted that it’s part of their job and we have to convince them otherwise.”
“While it’s a challenge we’ll continue to face in the industry, it’s certainly one we’ve overcome now working with 5,000+ companies to connect their payroll systems and benefit providers.”
Evolution Of Payroll Integrations’ Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Sabella noted:
“We started our company with 401k benefits–connecting providers with payroll so companies could more seamlessly onboard employees to plans and manage both employee and employer contributions. Now, we’ve used this initial product to expand payroll connectivity into other benefits like health savings (HSA/FSA).”
“Our partnership with 70% of payroll providers has also allowed us to introduce new offerings based on our existing integrations. For example, we launched our Third-Party Administrator (TPA) Connect Platform, which automates the process of collecting payroll and employee census data for TPAs for compliance testing. Typically, TPAs must manually e-mail and chase down each of their customers to get all the information they need. Our platform can quickly obtain the data reports TPAs need to ensure compliance, unlike other tools that need to build the integrations first.”
“We’ll continue to evolve our technology as we introduce integrations to new providers and employee benefits, and power new use cases in the benefits space.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of Payroll Integrations’ most significant milestones, beyond the recent funding round? Sabella cited:
“We recently surpassed one million yearly employee benefits processed through our platform for the 5,000+ companies we work with, which has been one of our most significant milestones to date.”
“In 2023, we increased our revenue by 2.5x, and we’re on track to surpass that growth this year. We also saw 2,500 employers sign up for our platform last year, which is nearly double the amount of employers that signed up the year prior.”
“And there are still many milestones to come.”
Upcoming Products
What are you currently working on? Any new products or partnerships on the horizon? Sabella emphasized:
“We’re working on furthering the benefits we connect to payroll, including introducing integrations with insurance, student loan repayments, 529 plans and more in the coming months and years. We’re also developing a software development kit to help streamline and automate the payroll and benefits experience even further for our customers and partners.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future goals? Sabella concluded:
“In the next 5 years we’d like to grow 10x bigger, with Payroll Integrations being everywhere in the benefits and payroll connectivity space.”
“Everything we do now and in the future will be in support of our mission to simplify payroll and benefits management. The more we can make these processes easier for employers, the more opportunity they have to offer increased financial wellness offerings and personalized benefit plan options for employees. We’ll continue to innovate and evolve our technology so that employers can continue to improve employees’ financial well-being.”
