Switch from another payroll provider
How Arketa migrates your payroll from another provider, why year-to-date history matters, and when in the year to switch.
If you already run payroll somewhere else, Arketa handles the migration for you, including importing your year-to-date history so your tax filings and year-end forms stay accurate. Most studios are live within 10 business days.
Why a switch takes more than setup
A studio that has never run payroll only needs current information: the company, its workplaces, its team, and their pay rates.
Switching needs all of that plus your payroll history for the year so far. That history isn't paperwork for its own sake. Payroll taxes depend on what a worker has already earned, since several taxes stop once someone passes an annual wage threshold. Without the history, Arketa would recalculate those taxes from zero and withhold amounts that are wrong for the rest of the year.
Your 5-step implementation
- Implementation introduction call. Meet your onboarding specialist and grant access to your current system.
- Access to your current payroll provider. You provide login access or the necessary credentials.
- We pull your payroll reports and load them into Arketa. No manual work needed from you.
- We run a free, full payroll audit. We validate that all wages, taxes, and year-to-date amounts balance.
- Your first payroll run call. A guided session where you run payroll together with our team. After this, you're fully live.
Reports to have ready
- Year-to-date payroll reports
- Your most recent payroll register
- Recent tax filings
Arketa has step-by-step guides for pulling this history out of most major payroll systems, including ADP, Gusto, and Paylocity. Your onboarding specialist sends you the guide for your provider, and helps with the upload once you've collected what it asks for.
If something is missing, send what you have and our team will follow up on anything else we need.
When in the year to switch
You can switch at any point. Some timing is simpler than others.
- January 1 is cleanest. The tax year resets, so there's no year-to-date history to import at all. You'll still want records from your old provider to close out the prior year and confirm everything reconciles.
- The start of a quarter is next best. Quarterly filings stay whole with a single provider, so there's nothing to split.
- Mid-quarter works too. It needs more detailed history, sometimes broken down week by week, and that quarter's returns have to be coordinated between the two providers. Your onboarding specialist handles the coordination.
If you've been paying your team informally
Payments you made through Venmo, Zelle, cash, or personal checks can be recorded as historical payroll, so your year-to-date totals and year-end forms reflect everything your team was actually paid.
Recording them may surface payroll taxes that were never paid on those payments. That's a conversation for your accountant, and not something Arketa can advise on. Worth knowing either way: leaving those payments out means your year-end forms won't reflect everything you paid.
Don't cancel your old provider yet
Keep your current provider active until your first Arketa payroll has run successfully. This protects you from a gap in paying your team. Once that first payroll is complete, you can cancel.