Hey everyone, welcome and happy Wednesday. Um, we’re going to give it another minute or two um as people are starting to trickle in, but we will get started in just a few moments here.
Okay, think we’re seeing some people joining. That’s great. Um, yeah, I think we could go ahead and get started. Before we do any sort of formal intros, wanted to just begin with um, uh, some housekeeping. Um, first and foremost, you know, we’re super excited that you guys are here for what will be an informative and engaging session. Um, so to the housekeeping point, we want this session to be as valuable and interactive as possible. So, please use the chat function. Um, you’ll see that in your on 24 console. We do have a team of really outstanding guest guesties and folks from the BlueVine team, Caleb, Fiona, Liz, Ryan, Candace. definitely wanted to shout them out and they’ll be monitoring the chat. Um so any questions that you guys might have, they um will answer them and if we don’t get to them, we do have a live Q&A session right at the very end. Um secondly, don’t forget to check out some of the links that we have there in the resources section um right there in your console as well. We have linked out several resources related to the content today as well as links to book a meeting or get started with us at Gusto um if you so please. So be sure to take a look. Um and then lastly um all attendees and registrants. So, if you have teammates that have not been able to join uh quite yet or may not join um because of any sort of conflicts, just know that they and you guys will all receive a or an email. Um and within that email, this recording of the webinar will will be in there for you guys as well. Uh keeping keep your eyes peeled on that over the next few days. Um and then I would not be doing my job if I didn’t give you guys this one final legal disclaimer. Um, this webinar is intended forformational purposes only and does not constitute tax, legal, financial, or HR advice. And so, with all that being said, I’m excited to officially welcome all of you to the webinar today. Um, and we can start with some intros. Next slide, please. And so, I am Gerard. I’m a partner marketer here at Gusto. Um, I’ve been here for about 18 months and my role here is really to work with our top strategic partners, BlueVine of course being one of them. And for us as a tandem to really figure out and determine how we can best serve growing businesses such as yourselves. Um, I will now pass it over to Rachel.
Hello friends. My name’s Rachel. Um, I’m a payroll and HR adviser here at Gusto. I’ve been with Gusto for about eight years now. So, I’ve onboarded tens of thousands of companies and I’m here to help you understand um payroll and cash flow a little bit better and how it relates to your payroll. Um but I will go ahead and pass it over to Lena. Hi everyone, my name is Lena. I lead enablement here at Blue Vine. So, I spend a lot of my time really close to the conversations our teams are having with small business owners uh every single day. So, I’m super excited to talk about the banking side of this today, especially the simple ways uh owners can create more structure around payroll and make their day-to-day a little less complicated. So, thanks for having me.
Great. And so, just to kind of ground ourselves into what we’ll be talking about today and thank you for the intros ladies. Um each section will be about 10 minutes. Um so the first is you know we’ll talk about payroll as a cash flow problem the banking layer um where payroll and banking meet and our ladies here will give us some takeaways on you know what you guys can actually all do today literally after this webinar and then we’ll close with a live Q&A next slide. And so before we actually jump into said content, I think we’d be remiss if we didn’t actually introduce our organizations as well for those of you who might not be as familiar. So I’ll toss it over to Rachel and she’ll give us a quick walkthrough of who Gusto is. Thank you so much, Gerard. So if you folks aren’t some aren’t familiar with Gusto, Gusto is a full-ervice payroll provider. What that means is that we calculate, file, and pay all of your federal, state, and local taxes for you. Gusto services 500,000 American businesses and there are over two million employees that use Gusto to get paid. If you’re not familiar with Gusto’s origin story, it was actually built out of a labor of love from a son to his mother. Our founder and CEO Josh Reeves saw his mom staying up late every two weeks to process payroll. It would take her hours to manually calculate the taxes. And even with all that hard work, she was still really struggling to get their filings straight. their small family-owned business was getting thousands of dollars in fines. And Josh just thought, there has to be a better way. So, when he started looking for solutions, he saw that a lot of payroll providers would service small businesses, but they don’t specialize in them. They didn’t cater to them. They were either way too difficult to use or way too expensive for small businesses. So, he built gusto for his mom. So, we pride ourselves in servicing small and growing businesses that we know are the backbone of the American economy. We help uh automate payroll, benefits, HR, all of that ugly, boring back office stuff, so you can put more time back in your day and more money back in your wallet. We have really simple and transparent pricing, very easy to use platform, and I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but we’ve got a great promo for new Gusto customers that I’ll tell you about in a couple of minutes. Next slide, please. Thank you so much. I think um for those of you who aren’t familiar with BlueVine, the best way to describe Blue Vine is that Blue Vine is built for small business owners who need their banking to do more than just kind of hold their money. So, a lot of the owners we work with are uh you know, juggling payroll, vendor payments, incoming customer payments, taxes, reserves, and sometimes access to capital all at once. So the goal is to really help that make make that feel like a little less organized, less reactive. Um so a very high level, Bluebine brings together business checking, payments, invoicing, lending all in one digital platform. Um so thinking about it from a cash flow perspective, the pieces that I think are especially helpful are things like interest bearing checking accounts, uh sub accounts, which we’ll talk a lot about today, automated transfer rules, account payable tools, and lending options. uh if a business needs additional working capital. So uh I guess the way that I would frame it is Bluebine helps owners create a cleaner system uh for where their money comes in, where it needs to go, and what should be protected before it accidentally gets spent somewhere else.
All right. And we have a poll question right now and that is how are you currently managing your payroll? Um I’m using Gusto. We’ve got two I’m using gustos here. I’m using a combination of tools. I’m not using any online tools at all or other. Please throw some more in the chat there. Um, but I’ll go ahead and talk about the promo here while you folks are filling that out. So, Gusto is offering a great promo where we’re offering 50% off for 12 months for new Gusto customers. So, it’s basically six free months on Gusto. um at the end of this presentation and this will be recorded of course we’ll send it out um we’ll have the link to sign up and we will also have a link to schedule a call with our two onboarding specialists here Caleb and Fiona they’re answering chats in the background but just wanted to throw that out there oh I see a lot of ADP and paychecks we can fix that I won’t hold that against you’ve got plenty of time to get this done and the good news is is that on Average for customers that switch to Gusto, we save about $5,100 in their first year without any promos. So, you would be getting the Blue Vine promo on top of that. So, I think it’s worth having a conversation if you’re not entirely happy or maybe you just want to see uh what else is out there. Um, please schedule a call with us. We can help you compare invoices, apples to apples, and break it down and see if we can save you some money. All right, and let’s see what the results are. I’m using Gusto. I love to see it. This is so exciting. We love our customers. All right, let’s go ahead and go on to the next slide.
All right, so in this next section, we’re going to talk about payroll as a cash flow problem. Payroll is probably the most predictable expense in your business. same people, similar amounts, regular schedules hopefully. But it’s also one of the most common sources of cash flow stress for small business owners. Today, I want us to change how we think about it because the problem usually isn’t payroll itself. It’s the gap between when the money comes in and when the payroll goes out and the details of how you have your payroll set up. Next slide, please.
So actually Rachel I wanted to interject here and hoping hoping that you were cool with it. Um you know in this section there’s a lot of really great content but within this content I’m sure there’s you know some of the attendees might have some questions. So do you think it’s cool if we maybe do like a little sing song Q&A format here? Please. I would love to do that. Okay. Dueling. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. All right. So, I wanted to actually start with something that you alluded to on the previous slide, which is, you know, something that you think or we think that surprises a lot of business owners, the idea that, you know, payroll isn’t just a compliance task, it’s actually one of the biggest cash flow events in their business. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Yes, absolutely. So, thinking about how payroll can impact your business is something that I genuinely wish small business owners would think about earlier in their journey. you know, you’re getting it set up for the first time. You’re kind of rushing through things. You’ve just hired your first employee, you’ve got to pay them. But, you know, I think we can think about things a little bit more thoughtfully in terms of getting that cash flow management under control. Um, when most people think about payroll, they think, I’m underwater. I need help. I need to hire a new person. And then it’s did I pay my people on time? Did I file it correctly? Am I staying compliant in that order? And all of those things matter. But the question I’d add is the did the timing and the extra work of the payroll actually surprise my bank account? And those are a lot of complex questions that business owners don’t prepare for when they’re going through a hiring spree. Um, a fun fact for you is that most small business for most small businesses, payroll is the singest single largest incurring cash flow outflow. Um, so often between 50 to 70% of your operating expenses are going to go into payroll alone. It’s a huge huge cash sync, excuse me. And depending on your payroll provider, the cash might not leave in a clean pool or on the same day. If you use the wrong provider, it can happen in waves. So you fund the net pay and then federal tax deposits follow within 1 to three business days after that. State taxes have their own separate deposit schedules. It might be quarterly, it might be semi-weekly, who knows depending on what state you’re in. So, a single payroll run can trigger two or three separate cash pulls over the course of a week. And most owners have only planned for one. With Gusto, you actually when you run payroll, it all comes out at the same time. The net pay and taxes go out together in one pull. And that’s actually the goal. uh having a known amount on a known date, no surprises. The cash flow challenge isn’t that it’s unpredictable with the right tools. It’s that many owners haven’t set aside the amounts in advance. So, even a single clean debit can sometimes cause problems if your operating account isn’t running clean. Another potential surprise to watch out for is payroll corrections. If something gets run incorrectly, hours, a bonus, mclassification, you may need to run an offcycle payroll correction. Um, some other providers charge extra fees for that as well. So, that’s an extra cash event outside of your normal schedule, often on really short notice. It’s not common, but it happens. And one more reason why automation and accuracy is upfront to help you from scrambling later down the road. Um, the last thing that I want to flag that’s chronically underbudgeted from the payroll side is employer side payroll reports. Employees see their gross pay, but as the employer, you’re also paying your share of FICA taxes, which is social security and Medicare on top of that. That’s 7.65% 65% right off the bat, plus federal unemployment, state unemployment, any extra state taxes like family and medical leave, state disability, education and training taxes, and those are just examples. All the states have different taxes. So, if you’re only thinking about the number of the paycheck and planning for that when you’re hiring your employees, you’re systemically underestimating the cost of your true payroll by roughly 10 to 15%. um without even factoring things like time off and benefits. Next slide, please. All right, so here is a spooky statistic that stopped me when I first saw it. 17% of small businesses have either missed a payroll or come dangerously close. Not because the business was failing, but because a customer paid late. And I know all small business owners know that happens. So that’s from Blue Vine’s own payment gap report this year. Um, and when you think about that actually how that actually looks, you did the work. You invoiced the client. The money is coming, but it just hasn’t landed yet. And the payroll is on Friday. So you’re like sitting there refreshing your bank account, moving money around, calling in a favor, all to cover something that was never actually in question. The cash was earned. The timing just didn’t line up. So I want to be really clear about something. If this has happened to you, it is not a sign that your business is struggling. It’s a sign that running a normal small business where revenue and expenses don’t line up perfectly in sync. The owners who hit this wall aren’t bad at running businesses. They just haven’t built the structure to buffer against it. And that’s what we’re here to talk about today. Next slide, please. So, actually, Rachel, if I could chime in here. I was actually just thinking about this and I’m glad that we have this slide. So just given everything that you’ve laid out um you know the multiple cash hits, hidden employer costs, the risk of off off cycle corrections, excuse me, like how do we actually like fix this? Like what would a small business owner need to do to get ahead of all this rather than constantly being reactive? Yes. So like I said, I’ve onboarded tens of thousands of companies here at Gusto. So this is a slide that details the three most common mistakes I see our customers making on payday. The good news news is that automation solves this not by adding complexity but by removing it. When a payroll runs on a fixed automated schedule, you always know exactly when the cash will move and exactly how much. Gusto’s autopilot does the scheduling. We handle the tax calculations for you as the rules change. You know, that’s something that small business owners have to keep up with. They’ve got to keep on top of the news and be like, “Oh, we’ve got this new family and medical leave tax.” Gusto handles that for you. So, and all of this files and deposits on your behalf. Our new cash flow dashboard gives you an actual forwardlooking view into upcoming payroll cash movements so you’ll never be caught off guard. We also can do uh expense reporting over time as well, so you can see trends and be like, “Oh, it’s that time of the year again. I need to start bringing on extra staff.” So, payroll should be predictable, boring, on schedule, not contain any surprises. Um, something that I want to end this segment on that I think is worth highlighting is that missing payroll is always the first sign that a business might be in trouble or that’s kind of what people think. um it’s not necessarily the cause it hap or the cause of the trouble but by the time it happens the cash flow problem has usually been quietly building in the background for months. Um and that’s the moment where the problem’s undeniable. People depend on their paycheck and when it doesn’t come they start looking for other jobs. And on top of that it carries legal and state penalties for missed wages. Um I bring this up not to be alarmist but to kind of reframe why this matters. We’re not just talking about tidying up your accounting. We’re talking about protecting something that your team depends on and what your business’s reputation is built on. The structure and automation we’re discussing today specifically exists. So that line is never even approached. All right, let’s go to the next slide. Great. So Rachel, on on this topic, um you know, you mentioned earlier that payroll timing can catch, you know, some small business owners, you know, offguard. Um would love kind of your perspective on when it comes to choosing an actual pay schedule, weekly, bi-weekly, semionthly. How does that decision um how does that decision actually affect cash flow? And is there a right or preferred answer for most small businesses? Yes. So the other lever that has a huge effect on cash flow is the actual pay schedule itself. That’s the that’s a decision that a lot of business owners make early on and they never revisit it like they just go with what feels normal without really num running the numbers. So if you pay run payroll weekly, you have 52 pay periods a year. That’s great for employees, but it means that you’re constantly keeping a high cash reserve. bi-weekly or every two weeks is the most popular choice with 26 pay periods. Um, that’s a really good schedule for hourly employees because it’s predictable. You like submit your hours um every Monday and it’s very easy to remember. What a lot of small business owners don’t realize until it hits them is that for two months a year, you’re going to have three payrolls instead of two. that third run shows up in your bank account and it surprises people who budgeted for two instead of three. Um, semionthly, the first and the 15th as an example or 15th and last day of the month gives you 24 equal pay periods and aligns more naturally to monthly billing cycles and rent if that’s how you bill your clients. And it can be a better structure for cash flow predictability if that’s something that can be unpredictable in your field. Now, I’m not saying you should change your pay schedule tomorrow, but if you haven’t revisited it since you first started your business, it’s worth a second look at the cash flow lens. Next slide, please.
All right, I will chime in here. I think before we get into my section on the blue vine banking side of things, I would like to do a little poll. I want to understand, you know, what the group wants to improve about their payroll management. Um, so we’re going to have a poll pop up any second now. But yeah, I’m just really curious to see where everyone lands here because I think there’s there’s really no wrong answer for business owners. You know, it usually starts with one pain point. Maybe payroll feels really stressful. Maybe the cash is all kind of sitting in one place or budgeting feels super manual. So, um, yeah, maybe you have the tools, but they just don’t feel connected. curious to see um yeah what kind of responses we get. So we’ll give that a little bit of time here. Looks like some are coming in.
Maybe you have more than one response. Maybe it’s everything. But would love to hear in the chat if it’s anything that we don’t have listed here.
All right.
All right. I think we can move to the results probably. All right. Yeah, it’s a little bit of everything. Seeming like the better budgeting system and funds more organized. It’s definitely up there. So cool. This definitely ties into what I’m going to chat about today. So, we can kind of go to the next slide. Uh but yeah, so we set the stage for why payroll is a cash flow event. I think it’s time to kind of bring in the banking side of that. And when I thought about this topic for the webinar, I immediately my brain went to sub accounts, which is a very popular feature that we have here at BlueVine. Uh so I’ll go into that on my next slide. Um so what are sub accounts? Uh the way I think about sub accounts is pretty simple. They really help give every dollar in your bank account a job before it accidentally gets spent somewhere else. And so with Blue Vine, customers can create up to 20 sub accounts and each sub account has its own dedicated account number. Uh so instead of having like one big operating balance where everything blends together and owner can create separate buckets for things like payroll, that’s definitely our most popular one that people start with. um taxes, vendor payments, owner straw, emergency reserves, or just like any specific project, it’s super easy to kind of uh open them up, close them down as you need them. Uh and I think the part that makes this really useful is that you can set up these automated transfer rules. So, for example, you know, if payroll runs every other Friday, you can build a rhythm where money kind of moves into a payroll sub account ahead of time, uh instead of waiting the day before to kind of check if everything is covered. Uh, and if payroll is coming Friday, you don’t want to have the funds kind of sitting in the same bucket as the day-to-day spending on Wednesday. So that’s when uh, you know, owners start doing the mental math and it gets a little confusing. Um, and so I think sub accounts remove a lot of the guessing. It turns payroll from one big like balance checking exercise into just a clearer system. Um, and it’s super simple and easy to set up. So it’s probably the most popular part of Bluebine account for a lot of our customers today. And I think hearing our sales team, they always describe it and they have a habit of describing it as like the main account is a tree trunk and the sub accounts are the branches, which I really love and I think it’s a good uh visual to kind of give you a way of how you can organize your money. Uh so we can go to the next slide. Uh so interesting statistic here, but I think yeah, most owners aren’t holding as much as uh as they think. This is one of those stats that feels really important because it reflects what we hear from owners all the time. Many small businesses, they’re not sitting on these huge reserves. And you know, like Rachel said, it it doesn’t mean they’re bad operators. It just means that cash is moving constantly. Uh so money comes in from customers, money goes out for payroll, taxes, rent, software, supplies, and you know, everything else. Uh so even when a business is healthy, the timing is what the super stressful part. So I think that’s you know where the structure really matters. Uh a reserve does not have to be one big giant savings goal uh you know sitting somewhere off to the side. It can be something an owner gradually uh you know moves inside their normal banking setup. So you might have you know one sub account for payroll, one for taxes, one for general cash reserve. That way uh you know when you’re looking at your operating balance you’re not accidentally counting on money that is already kind of spent or has a job somewhere else. So, uh, goal is not to make owners feel like they’re behind. It’s to kind of help build this system where payroll is protected first, even if a customer payment comes in late, uh, or an unexpense unexpected expense hits.
Cool. Uh, and yeah, this is where I think owners can get a little bit more strategic as well without making things too complicated. So, if you’re already setting aside payroll money, tax money, or reserve funds, that cash does not necessarily have to sit idle. The key is just keeping it separated, accessible, and easy to use when it’s time. So, uh sub accounts can really help those funds feel organized while still keeping them connected to the rest uh the business checking setup. So, you’re not like locking money away or creating a complicated new process. You’re just giving that money a clear purpose until it waits to be used. So like this cash in these sub accounts is just as liquid as it is in the main checking. It’s not you know sitting aside and and taking days to to move when you need it. It’s um you know it’s there and because Blue Vine offers this interest bearing checking account those balances can still be kind of working towards that same APY uh in the meantime. So you will earn interest on all the funds across the accounts not just that main checking account. And I think um that’s the kind of balance that owners usually need like organized enough that the money is protected but super accessible in case anything happens and they can you know easily still run the business. Cool. Well, thank you Lena and thank you Rachel for walking us you know through those first two segments. Obviously a lot of really good information there. Um but thinking through you know this next segment here where payroll and banking meet you know what I find most interesting and I’ve heard similar sentiment from other small you know business owners is that you know the most interesting stuff happens at the actual intersection of payroll and banking. You know, one thing that I’d like for us to talk about, and I’ll open it up to to you, Rachel and Ulena, again, is what does it actually look like when payroll and banking work together? And not to be an alarmist to to say what, you know, to use Rachel’s words, but where do things also like break down when they don’t? Um, so next slide. All right. So, I love this question because I think the breakdown is actually way more common than people admit. Um, one failure I see pretty frequently is having a single operating account. Everything runs through it. Revenue in, rent out, office supplies, subscriptions, everything. And payroll just hits on top of all that. Um, as Lena was telling y’all, uh, the more complications this create, um, the more difficult it is for you to get transparency into your cash flow and into your business. So, as an example, when a slow revenue week lines up with a payroll week, and that is a when, not an if, that’s when panic sets in. Um, owners are refreshing their bank account balance on Thursday night, hoping a client’s payment cleared in time. And the mind shift, the mind, excuse me, the mindset shift that I’d encourage every owner on this webinar to make is to stop asking, do I have the money right now? and start asking, have I already set aside the money that I need for the next cycle? Um, reactive cash flow management is really stressful and fragile. Proactive is structured and predictable. The day you run payroll, you’re going to set aside the reserve for the next payroll. It sits in a separate account. Like Lena said, it earns interest in the meantime. You know, that’s money on the table. Don’t do that. Um, and when payday comes, it’s already there because it was never at risk. All right, next slide.
Sorry, I didn’t realize I wasn’t off mute. Yeah. So, I think when uh payroll and banking talk to each other. So, like the practical version of this is use Bluevine as the funding structure and gusto as the payroll engine. Like as an owner, you can connect Bluevine checking account to Guso and um as the account that kind of pulls from and then use BlueVine sub accounts to organize the money ahead of time and set it up in the same rhythm as your payroll. So a simple setup could look something like, you know, customer payments come into one main operating account. Then the owner uses sub accounts to separate the payroll funds, tax money, maybe a general cash reserve. Uh and with automated transfer rules, money can kind of move into those buckets on a schedule that matches the payroll rhythm. Uh so by the time Gusto runs payroll, the funds are already planned for. Uh and the benefit is just that the two tools are are connected. You know, they uh and and that’s a big part of it, but that also that the owner, the the small business owner isn’t waking up uh before payroll uh and kind of wondering where is the money uh sitting and what does it need to cover. It’s uh it doesn’t have to be chaotic.
Cool. Thank you guys. Um, so we’ve heard a lot of really great content and I’d like to take a few mo uh moments here before we get into the Q&A. And I know I realize there’s a lot of activity there. So keep it up attendees. Thank you so much for your engagement. Um, but wanted to get into some takeaways. Some takeaways that you, Rachel, and you Lena, if you could be so kind, could bestow upon the webinar attendees both here live with us in the room, but also those watching in the future. um takeaways that they could bring with them in their small business adventures. And so to narrow our focus a bit, if someone is listening right now or in the future and thinking, I need to get just all of this under control, uh what are the first two or three things that they should actually do this week? Uh next slide. All right, I’ll go ahead and go first. So, I’ll give you two things that you can do today, and both take less than 30 minutes. Um, the first is a quick audit that I call a payroll balance check. Pull up your last three months of bank statements and mark every day where a payroll debit went out. Then look at your cash balance on those exact days, not the day before, not the day after, that actual day. If you’re consistently seeing the balance at its lowest point, right before payroll, that’s telling you that there’s a structural mismatch between when money comes in to your business and when the payroll goes out. And usually the fix is a lot simpler than you think. Sometimes shifting your payroll day by a run day or just a few days um or switching from bi-weekly to semionthly, semionthly to monthly can dramatically reduce that pressure. Um, that’s usually a pretty quick change that you can make inside your payroll provider. Um, which is hopefully gusto based on what we’ve heard here. And our team can help you set up whatever makes sense for you. The second thing is if you’re still manually kicking off every payroll run and have um salaried folks or folks with recurring paychecks, aka no variable hours, turn on autopilot. Uh, manual initiation means that payroll can get delayed when you’re busy traveling, just having a chaotic week, and you run a late payroll, even by a day, and that erodess employee trust so fast and can lead to fines and penalties in your state. Um, and this happens so much more frequently than people imagine. You know, you’re a small business owner. You’ve got a million things going on in your head and you forget, oh, Junth is a bank holiday. And I didn’t have that growing up. So, I don’t think of it as a holiday. I don’t take it off. So, I don’t need to run payroll early. Actually, you do. You do because the banks are closed and we need to move that money earlier. With autopilot, it’s going to run on a fixed schedule, on time, regardless of what’s happening in the banking holiday world or what’s happening in your world, so you can focus on putting more energy back into your business. So, you should definitely pair that with Gusto’s cash flow dashboard. It shows your next payroll date and the exact debit amount coming out in advance. Um, the habit I’d encourage everyone to build is simple. every Monday morning, open it, confirm what’s coming, make sure the cash is already set aside, takes 60 seconds to do, and we’ll put years back on your life from sparing you that Thursday night panic. Um, and another thing that I wanted to point out is that at least with Gusto, we offer different direct deposit schedules. So, if you want to do a 4-day direct deposit payroll, let’s say you run payroll on Monday, want it to deposit on Friday, you can do that. We also offer two-day, next day, and same day. Um, so you basically have a little bit more flexibility with Gusto in terms of that cash flow. Uh, you’ve got more wiggle room to push that out later if you need it. And all of that can change from pay paycheck to paycheck. Like let’s say you do run into a situation where you’re like, forgot about Junth. Like, I’ve got to run payroll. It’s already late. You can always switch your direct deposit speed very easily within your Gusto account. So that way people still get paid on time and that’s the most important thing. Lena, how about you? Well, I like this section because I think uh you know it does not need to be a huge project. You know, most owners obviously don’t have time to rebuild their entire cash flow process in one week, but I think you can take a couple practical steps like you were mentioning uh to make it feel a lot more organized. So, probably sound like a broken record now, but I think opening um a payroll sub account, starting small there uh is a great first step. You know, with Bluebine specifically or or wherever you bank, that could just mean a sub account specifically for payroll, you know, with Bluebine customer can uh uh open up to 20 sub accounts. Uh like I said, so this can be uh as simple or as detailed as the business needs. Um some owners may only need payroll and taxes. Others might want to do do more than that. So even if you don’t fully automate it on day one, just separating the funds I think makes it easier to see what’s truly available uh for the rest of the business. It’s like a mental uh thing and I know that I personally do that with my own personal banking. So um you know and just to mention again I think the because each sub account has its own dedicated account number it gives owners a lot more flexibility on how they organize and route the money to um depending on you know how they operate their business. And then uh the set a cash reserve target. I think I like the 1.5 times payroll run target because it feels really practical. It gives owners like a clear goal without saying you know go build 6 months of reserves overnight. Uh for many small business owners that advice just does not feel realistic. So uh instead just you know start in start with payroll. Uh look at what the typical payroll run costs set a target and build towards it over the next couple of cycles. uh even if you’re not there right away, just having a named reserve account makes it just visible. It’s in front of you. And I think that visibility uh matters because you’re making fast decisions in your business all the time. And when a reserve is clearly separated, it’s easier to know what is actually available and what uh it’s there to protect payday.
Cool. Thank you both. Um that was a lot a lot of really great tips, expertise, and advice. Um, obviously we’re now in Q&A. Um, before I start, um, picking some really thoughtful questions and thank you again attendees for being so engaged. Um, wanted to call out some of the resources that we have there in the platform. Once again, uh, we have a one-page leave behind that summarizes a lot of what we’ve discussed today. So, please take it, download it for yourself, take it to your teammate, share it with your wife, husband, girlfriend, whatever. No need to be shy and sharing that out. We also have a link to BlueVine’s cash flow management report. Um, a few of the presented statistics have referenced that report. So, if you wanted to take a look at it uh in deeper length, uh, by all means, click on it. And we also have two links. Um, one link for those of you who are actively ready to get started with Gusto. Um, and if you’re not quite ready yet, uh, we also have a module that says I I believe literally it says book a meeting. Um, so if you’d like to learn more about Gusto, it’ll actually connect you directly with one of our business development reps. Um, so with that out of the way, let’s hop into the Q&A. Uh, let’s see here.
Okay, so one question from Raj, thank you for your question. Um, I am trying to understand what differentiates BlueVine from other banks, let’s say Chase or the Wells Fargo of the world. What is the incentive for me to move from Chase to Blue Vine? Lena, I believe that one should probably be for you. Oh, wow. So many things. This is my favorite question. Uh, well, you know, I think the most obvious thing to point out first is Bluebine is a fully online bank. And I think um if you’re not used to banking online, it can feel a little different, but it’s also I think our biggest strength where um you know where we lack our brickandmortar locations. We have great people on our side, you know, dedicated customer support and um you know, obviously the biggest thing that customers come to us for is our interest bearing checking account. because we don’t have brick and mortars, we’re able to, you know, be really um I think generous with what we’re uh what owners can earn on their actual checking balances, which is uh I think something a lot of people aren’t used to in in business banking. Uh a lot of the first conversations we have uh with our our customers that are new are like, “Hey, where did you bank from and why did you leave?” and they usually don’t even know if they were earning interest on their former account um or they were probably paying to to keep the account open. Uh and so we eliminate a lot of those pain points and just make it easy for them to move faster. They’re not, you know, waiting in line trying to get access to a bank teller or things like that. So, uh just the speed at which we’re able to move and support our customers is a big part of that. That’s awesome. Thank you for the question. Um, and obviously the answer, uh, I have another question here from, uh, Douglas Dukes. Thank you for the submission. Uh, what are the consequences for missing a payroll aside from angering employees? Rachel, I know in your section, you talked about that quite a bit, but perhaps if you can resurface, you know, the impacts of missing a payroll, like let’s let’s talk about it. Yes. So, all of that depends on what state you’re located in. Um, different states require that you pay employees uh at different schedules at a minimum as an example. Um, we’ll use California because as everyone on this Zoom knows, California has a lot of worker friendly laws. Um, they’re kind of I think the gold standard for for payroll compliance and making sure that everyone gets paid on time. Um, on average, the firsttime penalty for a small business owner that does not pay employees on time and they get a complaint filed against them is $7,000 right off the bat from the state. Um, and that can actually snowball from there. So, uh, you know, the the financial consequences can be pretty steep depending on which states you’re located in. Uh, New York is another really friendly worker state. Um, so even just doing things like um, as an example, Gusto does offer same day direct deposit and I saw a question in the chat that was like, is there an extra fee for this? I believe we charge $90 for that payroll if you do run a same day direct deposit, but $90 versus $7,000. You know, an ounce an ounce of prevention is worth a cure of pound. So definitely make sure you’re staying on top of that. Um, worst case scenario, I think always cutting checks is a good option as well. So, you know, you can write those out in your office, you can hand that to them that same day. And if you need to retroactively run that payroll with Gusto, you can. FYI, full disclosure, if you retroactively run that payroll with Gusto, your taxes might be late, and at that point, you assume fines and penalties, but your employees will at least be paid on time. So, I think those are some good options if you are having some cash flow issues. Uh, but definitely stay on top of it, especially if you’re in California. Thanks, Rich. Um, I have a question here from Natasha Hamilton. Thank you for the for the question, which is kind of like a hybrid of the two previous questions, the one that you answered, Lena, and the one just now, Rachel. um if we want to move from if she wants to move from their brickandmortar bank, how does BlueVine handle paper checks? She mentions that, you know, they routinely get get checks that are printed in a format that many online deposit apps don’t recognize. Well, yeah. I was going to say we we do a lot of mobile check deposits. So, I would I want to see um maybe her specific scenario if she’s saying other online banks don’t offer it, but we um you know get this question all the time and customers who aren’t used to to doing uh mobile check deposits and would would love to hear more about her situation specifically and potentially uh work with her on that. But um yeah, but usually mobile check deposit uh and uh it’s through our app. Take a picture on your phone and um do a signature. Super simple. Cool. Um question here from Steve. Um do I have to and I just Yep. Do I have to move the funds from my payroll sub account into my primary account in order to conduct payroll or can I draw directly from that payroll sub account? you can draw directly from that payroll sub account. That’s why uh each account has its own unique account number and the same routing number that your other bluepine accounts will have. Um but it’s it’s visible and accessible through that main login which I think is what makes it really cool. Uh you can also have debit cards attached to them, checkbooks. So it’s really like a true sub account underneath the main account which I think is awesome. Sweet. Uh, similar to that, a lot of sub account activity and questions here, which is great because clearly the the content is landing. One from Alexand, sorry if I pronounced that incorrectly. Uh, but her question is, is the best way to funnel revenue or expenses in or out of sub accounts to assign those cash events to the individual sub accounts or is there another option?
I’m trying to think about how to answer this question. I guess the way I would uh explain it is there’s a lot of features attached to sub accounts that you can customize based on how your business runs. So we have like minimum balance rules where you can say you know no matter what happens I always need to have at least $10,000 in my payroll sub account and if I don’t move it from this account um or you can do like a simple transfer on a schedule and say every Friday I want to put $500 into the payroll uh one. So, I think it really is dependent on on how you run your business, but we could probably find a solution for sub accounts to work for you. Um, you can make them as sophisticated or as simple as you want usually. So, yeah, would love to hear more about that uh specific example, but yeah, cool. Um, have another one here from Natasha. Does Blue Vine offer credit card or business line of credit options? We do. Um we do not currently offer a credit card product. We have a um business line of credit option um up to $250,000 I believe for our highest line and then we work with a um you know different group of partner lenders for uh different kinds of needs like term loans and things like that. And so we have a lot of different options available.
Cool. Thank you. Um, this one’s for you most likely, RA. Uh, coming in from Sicily. Uh, can I switch from ADP to gusto with ease? Yes, absolutely. It’s going to be a breeze for you, Sicily. Um, so I I did see a lot of questions about people saying, I want to switch from paychecks, how easy is it to onboard to Gusto, all of these different things. Um, so the answer is um it depends on how many employees you have. you know, the more employees you have, the longer it takes to move over. But we’ve got two different options at Gusto. Um, one is to self onboard, and you can do that at your own pace, but that’s you moving data over from your previous provider into Gusto. We also offer the option to go through a full service migration. Um, that’s where Gusto does the heavy lifting for you. 90% of the work is on our plate. It’s not totally handsoff, but you know, um if you’re really strapped for time and you’re like, I know I want to move forward with Gusto. I just need help with the data entry, that is something that our migration team can handle for you. Um that’s a totally free service. Most of our competitors charge between $500 to $5,000 for it depending on the size of your business. So, it’s a really great value um that can again give you more time back in your day. Another really neat thing about going through the migration service is we’re basically doing a tax audit for the last year of your payroll expenses. And um you know, I certainly don’t want to say bad things about a competitor, but there are times where we’ll go through another payroll provider’s reports and we’re like, “What were they doing here? This is not correct.” And so that’s great because at that point we can say, “Hey, it looks like unnamed payroll provider should have been paying this tax. They weren’t. Let’s go ahead and generate the reports to get you caught up with the state. Here’s what you need to do.” So it’s a totally free audit. And I think that’s another great value. Um, if you’re starting a business for the first time and you’re like, “Well, I don’t I don’t need help, you know, migrating from anywhere, but I just want to hit the ground running.” You can have your Gusto account set up in 30 to 45 minutes at the most. Um, it’s very easy to get started. And I did see a few questions in the chat about how long do I have to activate this promo. If you are interested in uh in running payroll with Gusto and let’s say you’re not quite ready to pull the trigger, you’re still waiting for some funds to come in. Um, you know, it might be a few weeks or even a few months until you’re profitable, that’s totally okay. Go ahead and start the sign up process now. Lock in that discount and you’ll be good to go. Once you start the sign up process using this link, it will automatically lock that discount into your account. So, when you start the sign up process, it’s going to show you plans and pricing associated with it. But, as long as you use that link, you’re taken care of. Um, I would also recommend for anyone who is switching from a payroll provider, please schedule a call with my colleagues Caleb and Fiona uh on this on this call right now. They work on our sales and onboarding team and they can help get you directed to the right place um and hopefully get set up with Gusto. So, make sure to schedule a call. Sweet. And another question. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I just saw this come through. Can we get% off? Ariana, can we get 50% off the first 12 months if we already have a Gusto login but have not started using it? Ariana, shoot me an email. My email is just Rachel gusto.com. r a celgusto.com. I will make sure we honor that promo for you. Okay. So, just shoot me an email. As soon as we get off here, we’ll get you taken care of. That’s great, Rich. And I I will also plug that same thing to Jod Woods who had a very similar question around they just joined Gusto in May would be be eligible for the discount. Jody, if you’re still on the line, please by all means email RA and we’ll we’ll also get you set up. Thank you guys for the questions. Um let’s see here.
It looks like Christa also had a question that was kind of similar. If I signed up with Gusto and haven’t filled out any of the information, can I still lock in the promo? Christa, shoot me an email. [email protected]. We’ll get you squared away. Awesome. Um, I think we could take a few more here. Um, I’ll I’ll pull this one from Beatatric and I think this will this one will go to you, Lena. I have Blue Vine currently and earn 1.3% APY. How do I actually increase it? Oh, what another great question. Um, so we have different uh bluebine plan. So 1.3% APY is part of our standard plan uh which comes with uh you know great features you know our invoicing and um you know all the the standard bank account features and then they kind of go up from there. So uh API APY will increase on our plus plan and then our premier plan. Um and they they’re a little different. So, you earn APY uh upon just upgrading to them, but there is a monthly uh fee either $30 or $95. A lot of customers, if they kind of fit the balance requirements and the spend requirements, end up either waving that fee or out earning the interest so that the fee doesn’t really matter. Um, it’s not like, you think seeing it in front of you in your Blue Vine account is actually a great way to kind of compare them. So, if you’re actually logged in, you can click that profile button in the top right corner and click your plan, and it’ll show all three plans, compare them, what you’re getting between each, between the APY and the discounts on payments and uh uh outgoing payments and things like that. So, uh definitely take the time to to compare them and uh let us know if you have any questions. But, um yeah, there’s definitely ways to earn more.
Cool. So I think with that I know you know we have um reached close to the top of the hour. A lot of really great questions for those of you where um who’ve submitted questions and we haven’t answered them either in the chat or live. We actually get a report of you know these questions that that went unanswered and we will get back to you either on the gusso side or the bluevine side. But you know wanted to you know wrap us up here. Um you know thank you so much for just sticking with us. I know it was a lot. You guys are all very busy. you took literally 53 minutes out of your day to listen to myself, to Rachel, to Lena. Um, and we are so appreciative of your time. Um, also wanted to extend a massive thank you to Rachel and Lena, to our wizards in the background making the magic happen. You know, Ryan, Caleb, Fiona, Liz, Candace, u making sure that, you know, the chat is being tended to. Um, and then also the just the entire BlueVine team for co-hosting this with us, promoting this. you know, we obviously could not have done it without you. Um, and for me, as I just kind of wrap this up, you know, two things that I’m thinking about as I, you know, take away some of the content from today, it’s it’s really these two things. It’s number one, every single payroll run is a major cash event that deserves its own dedicated strategy. So, definitely keep that in mind. And second, implementing a clear subac account structure is one of the easiest ways to completely eliminate that, as Rachel said, Thursday night kind of cash flow anxiety mindset. Um, so with those two takeaways, I will point you guys into the, you know, resources section of the platform, the one-pager, the, um, blue vine report, uh, book a meeting. Um, uh, sign up for gusto if you’re ready. And again, no worries if you missed a slide or if you hopped in late or for those of you in the future if you missed entirely this entirely, you clearly have received the email with this recording in it. So, by all means, you know, rewatch as you see fit. Um, and thank you again for all of you uh speakers, you know, people in the background for taking the time and yeah, taking your time out of the busy out of a busy Wednesday. have a fantastic rest of your day. One last thing. Yes, please. Yes, go. I didn’t want to want it to end. Um, yeah, I’m having such a good time. Uh, I’ve seen a few questions posted that were like, “Hey, if I’m interested in Blue Vine, how do I get in contact with someone?” Lena, do y’all have someone on your side or a place we can point them to to get them squared away? Yes, I think we um we’ll have the attendee list and anybody who has has mentioned anything. So, our team is going to reach out and we will um we’ll definitely hear from us uh and get them in touch with somebody. So, don’t worry about it. We have your names and your emails and you’ll hear from us. So, perfect. Yes. Thank you for flagging that, Rachel. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you guys. Appreciate the time. Have a great rest of your Wednesday and we’ll see you at the the next one. Bye, everyone. Bye guys.