Gusto
Modern payroll, benefits, and HR management platform for small and medium businesses
Verdict
Common use cases
- Check PTO balances before approving time off
- Pull contractor payment history for tax filing
- Audit benefits enrollment ahead of open enrollment
- Generate headcount reports for board decks
- Verify pay stub details for employee inquiries
Integration
- Vendor
- Gusto
- Category
- developer-tools
- Auth
- OAUTH2
- Composio slug
gusto
Tools
Setup
Setup guide
- 11. Open your Switchy workspace and navigate to Settings > Integrations > Developer Tools. 2. Click 'Connect' next to Gusto and you'll be redirected to Gusto's OAuth consent screen. 3. Sign in with an admin account that has access to payroll and employee data. 4. Review the requested scopes — typically 'employees:read', 'payrolls:read', and 'time_off:read' — then authorize. 5. Switchy confirms the connection and displays the Gusto MCP in your integration list. 6. Inside any Project, type '@Gusto show me current headcount by department' to test. 7. The AI invokes Gusto's employee lookup tool and returns a summary in the chat thread. 8. If the response is empty or errors, return to Settings > Integrations and verify your Gusto admin account has the necessary permissions in Gusto's dashboard.
What teammates see: by default, memories from Gusto are scoped to the Project (PROJECT visibility) - you can mark any memory PRIVATE or share it ORG-wide.
Works well with
Top models
Compatibility data appears once enough Projects have used this MCP together with a given model.
How Switchy teams use it
Starter prompts
Headcount by Department
@Gusto show me the current headcount broken down by department, including full-time and part-time employees.Open in a Project →
Upcoming PTO Summary
@Gusto list all approved PTO requests for the next 30 days, grouped by team, with employee names and dates.Open in a Project →
Contractor Payment Audit
@Gusto pull all contractor payments made in Q4 2024, including names, amounts, and payment dates.Open in a Project →
Benefits Enrollment Check
@Gusto show me which employees have not completed their benefits enrollment for the current plan year.Open in a Project →
Recent Pay Stub Lookup
@Gusto retrieve the most recent pay stub for [Employee Name], including gross pay, deductions, and net pay.Open in a Project →
Example outputs
Illustrative - representative of the model's voice and quality, not literal recordings.
@Gusto show me all employees hired in the last 90 days with their department and start date
Based on your Gusto account, 7 employees joined in the last 90 days: • Sarah Chen (Engineering) – started March 15, 2024 • Marcus Williams (Sales) – started March 22, 2024 • Priya Patel (Product) – started April 1, 2024 • James Rodriguez (Engineering) – started April 8, 2024 • Emma Thompson (Marketing) – started April 15, 2024 • David Kim (Operations) – started May 3, 2024 • Lisa Martinez (Customer Success) – started May 10, 2024 This list reflects active employees only; terminated records are excluded by default.
This example demonstrates read access to employee roster data. Requires OAuth scope for employee directory access. The MCP returns current snapshot data — historical changes (like department transfers after hire date) won't appear in this view unless you query payroll history separately.
@Gusto create a time-off request for employee ID 847392 from June 10-14 as paid vacation
Time-off request created successfully: • Employee: Jordan Lee (ID: 847392) • Type: Paid Vacation • Dates: June 10–14, 2024 (5 business days) • Status: Pending manager approval • Balance after approval: 8.5 days remaining The request has been routed to Jordan's manager (Alex Rivera) for approval. You'll receive a notification once the decision is recorded in Gusto.
This write operation requires elevated OAuth permissions for time-off management. The MCP submits the request but cannot bypass your company's approval workflow — managers still need to act in Gusto's UI or via their own integrations. Side-effect: this action is immediately visible to the employee and their manager.
@Gusto pull total payroll cost by department for Q1 2024 and draft a summary comparing it to our $2.1M budget
Q1 2024 payroll totals by department: • Engineering: $847,200 (40.3% of total) • Sales: $512,600 (24.4%) • Product: $298,100 (14.2%) • Operations: $223,400 (10.6%) • Marketing: $156,700 (7.5%) • Customer Success: $62,000 (3.0%) **Total: $2,100,000** — exactly on budget. Engineering's share grew 3.2 percentage points vs. Q4 2023, driven by four mid-level hires in February. Sales compensation held steady despite two departures, suggesting higher per-rep costs or commission acceleration. All other departments tracked within 1% of prior quarter.
This synthesis example pairs Gusto's payroll data with AI reasoning to produce budget analysis. Requires read access to payroll reports, which may be restricted to admin roles in your Gusto account. The MCP provides raw figures; the AI generates the comparative narrative and percentage calculations.
Use-case deep-dives
When Gusto MCP fits payroll-driven onboarding flows
A 12-person remote startup hires two engineers in one week. HR needs to provision payroll, benefits, and tax forms without toggling between Gusto's web UI and Slack threads. The Gusto MCP lets an AI agent pull employee records, verify I-9 status, and confirm direct deposit setup in a single conversation. This works if your onboarding checklist lives in a tool like Notion or Linear and you want the AI to cross-check Gusto state without manual lookups. The threshold: if you're hiring fewer than one person per month, the OAuth setup overhead outweighs the time saved. For teams onboarding weekly, the MCP turns a 15-minute admin task into a 2-minute query.
Gusto MCP for end-of-month payroll audits
A finance lead at a 30-person SaaS company closes the books on the last Friday of each month. She needs to confirm that Gusto's payroll run matches the accrual in QuickBooks and that no contractor payments are missing. The Gusto MCP can surface payroll totals, tax withholdings, and contractor 1099 data in a shared AI workspace where the rest of the finance team reviews discrepancies. This scenario assumes Gusto is the single source of truth for comp data. If you're also running ADP or Rippling in parallel, the MCP won't reconcile across vendors. For single-vendor shops doing monthly close, the MCP cuts reconciliation time by half.
When Gusto MCP helps HR answer benefits questions at scale
A 50-person agency runs annual benefits enrollment in November. Employees ping HR in Slack with questions about HSA limits, 401(k) match schedules, and PTO accrual. The Gusto MCP lets HR reps query plan details and individual enrollment status without leaving the conversation. This works if your benefits are fully managed in Gusto and you're fielding more than 20 questions per week during enrollment. The MCP won't help if your benefits are split across Gusto and a separate carrier portal. For teams where Gusto owns the full benefits stack, the MCP turns a 5-minute lookup into a 30-second inline answer.
Frequently asked
What does the Gusto MCP do in Switchy?
The Gusto MCP connects your Gusto payroll and HR account to Switchy's AI workspace, letting your team query employee data, run reports, and automate payroll tasks through natural language. Your AI can pull headcount numbers, check PTO balances, or surface benefits info without logging into Gusto's dashboard. Useful for finance and ops teams who need payroll context in their daily workflows.
Do I need admin access to connect Gusto via OAuth?
Yes. Gusto's OAuth flow requires account admin permissions to authorize the connection. If you're not an admin, you'll hit a permissions error during setup. The person who connects it controls which data scopes Switchy can access — typically payroll, employee records, and time tracking. Non-admins can use the MCP once it's connected, but they can't install it.
Can the Gusto MCP process payroll runs or change employee salaries?
No. The Gusto MCP is read-only by design. It can surface payroll data, employee details, and benefits info, but it won't submit payroll, adjust salaries, or modify tax settings. If you need to make changes, you'll still open Gusto directly. This keeps your payroll operations safe while giving your team fast access to the data they reference constantly.
How is this different from using Gusto's API directly?
Gusto's API requires you to write code, manage tokens, and parse JSON responses. The MCP wraps that complexity so your team asks questions in plain English instead. You get the same underlying data, but without building a custom integration. If you already have engineering resources and want full control, use the API. If you want payroll context in your AI workspace today, use the MCP.
Who on the team should connect the Gusto MCP?
Your finance lead or HR admin — whoever owns your Gusto account and understands which employee data your team needs access to. They'll authorize the OAuth connection and confirm the scopes. Once connected, anyone in your Switchy workspace can query the data through AI, but the admin controls what's exposed. One connection covers your whole team.