Product updates

December is always a busy time of year in the payroll world, but that didn’t stop our team from releasing key features like the Run Payroll Component and support for ‘Applied for’ parameters in Onboard and Console. We're very excited to head into the new year strong, with even more features coming down the pipeline to help you build faster and more elegantly on top of Check.

Happy holidays from the Check team! 

A quick recap of December

• Launch of the Run Payroll Component
• Support for ‘Applied For’ status in Onboard and Console
• Edit support for child support remittances
• Create new hire contractor reports
• Add workplaces to contractor payments

Run and preview payrolls using the Run Payroll Component

You can now use the Run Payroll Component to create, edit, preview, and run payroll. This component offers your users an easy way to set up employee pay rates, add earnings, and preview payrolls all in one embeddable flow. 

We’re committed to helping you build a world-class payroll experience. With the use of the Run Payroll Component, you will be able to embed a preview and run payroll flow that is compliant, well-tested, and user-friendly.

To learn more about the Run Payroll Component, and all other Check Components, see our documentation here. If you would like to see how Check Components can help speed up your payroll product build, please reach out.

Mark Console and Onboard parameters as 'Applied For'

We have updated Console and Onboard to allow employers to indicate that certain company parameters are not yet available but have been applied for by the company. This may be useful for a new business that hasn't received its state-specific employer identification number from the state agency.

When marking parameters as “Applied For,” certain state forms may be deferred for signature in Check Onboard and Check Components — this is normal and won't block implementation or payroll.

Edit Child Support Remittance

You can now PATCH the `managed` field on a Post-Tax deduction to `false`, and Check will not include the funds in the `cash_requirement` (found in the Totals object) or attempt to make payment on behalf of the company.

This is for employers who prefer to keep their current process for remitting deductions and not have it paid through Check.

Create new hire contractor reports

Check has added optional fields `dob` and `start_date` to the contractor object and `workplace` to the contractor payments object to facilitate new-hire reporting for contractors.

Add a workplace to a contractor payment

You can now associate a workplace with a contractor payment. This allows Check to complete the appropriate state filing of 1099s for Year-End.

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We’ve been hard at work this month and are excited to share some of the latest features that shipped at Check! Our team has made many improvements across our platform, specifically around bank account verifications, FEIN validations, benefits support, and Console features. Below is a recap of our November launches.‍

Launched bank account verifications

To ensure the highest payment success rates, Check now verifies all bank accounts. You can view the status of these verifications via the `status` and `disabled_reason` fields in the bank account object and bank account webhooks.

To learn more, check out our guide on bank account verifications.‍

Released company W-4 exemptions endpoint

You can now get federal and state withholding exemption status for all employees at a company via this endpoint. With a Form W-4, you are able to determine the amount to withhold from an employee’s paycheck for federal tax purposes. This form needs to be updated annually for employees marked as exempt, so this new report can help you understand which employees to notify.

Please see our reference documentation for more information, and feel free to reach out with any questions.‍

Released support for effective dated tax withholding settings in Console

This feature provides more visibility and granularity on when settings are effective. For example, tax rates may go into effect only on January 1 of next year. Prior to this launch, users could only define settings once, and needed to make changes to those values on the day they went into effect. Now, users can update current and past setting values as well as create new ones in the future.

As always, you can visit our Console guide for a product overview and can also request an API key to gain full access to Console and its guides.‍

Added validation for FEIN inputs

‍We now enforce all FEIN input values to be in the following format: ##-#######. This validation occurs in Console, Check Components, and Check Onboard to ensure consistent and compliant FEIN inputs from your employers.‍

Added ability to define multiple benefits of the same type for an employee

You can now define multiple benefits of the same type for an employee with non-overlapping effective dates. In addition, you can now define concurrent benefits of the same type for the same employee for Section 125 benefits. For these benefits, a maximum of 10 can exist at the same time for an employee.

For all other benefits, only one benefit of a given type can be effective for a given employee.

This month, Check shipped several new features to make building and operating payroll even simpler than before. These features include several new updates to our API, encompassing the Earning Rate API, W2 preview report endpoints, and support for setting an employee’s primary workplace. We’re also excited to announce Console enhancements that will allow your operations team to perform historical payroll audits more efficiently and bulk create up to 25 employees in one fell swoop.

Released Check's Earning Rate API

Developers now have the ability to store employee salary and hourly wages in Check as earning rates. With earning rates, you can calculate the correct gross pay directly via Check’s API when running payroll. This drastically simplifies what developers need to build to launch payroll with Check, saving time and reducing complexity when getting your payroll integration live.

To learn more about Check’s Earning Rates API, check out our guide and our official release blog post.

Launched support for defining benefits at a company level

With the launch of company-level benefits, implementation and benefits administration have never been easier. Prior to this launch, users could only create benefits defined at the employee level. Now, you can define a single company-level benefit and then create multiple employee-level benefits that inherit from that company benefit in a single transaction.

Note: You can still create benefits at the employee level as you’ve done to date — we’ve made this a non-breaking change to our API.

To dive deeper into our company-level benefits, see our reference documentation and Defining Benefits guide.To learn more about Check’s Earning Rates API, check out our guide and our official release blog post.

Added support for Primary Workplaces

Check now supports setting primary workplaces for employees. This enables Check to calculate taxes for employees in multi-state situations more accurately. For employees with a single workplace, their primary workplace will default to that location. For employees who have multiple workplaces, their primary workplace can be assigned via the API or in Console. 

Launched W2 Preview Report Endpoint

With this report, you can get a preview of all of the W2 data for a given company's employees, which will help your team ensure W2 data is correct for end-of-year reporting.

To get more information on the W2 preview report endpoint, see our API reference documentation here.

Launched Payroll Audit revamp and Bulk Employee creation in Console

We are excited to add two new features to Console to support your operations team as they scale your payroll business. 

• Payroll Audit Revamp
• Run multiple audits at once
• Save progress so you can come back later
• Re-run individual audits with one click
• Bulk employee creation
• Employees can be bulk uploaded 25 at a time
• This removes the manual key-in of information such as employee name, address, date of birth, start date, etc.
  

Interested in learning more about how Console can help accelerate your payroll product development? See our Console guide for a product overview. You can also request an API key to gain full access to Console and its guides.