Payroll, benefits, and HR technology innovator Gusto has unveiled a new solution called Flexible Pay that will enable workers in the U.S. to get paid outside of their employer’s standard payroll schedule. “The two-week pay schedule should no longer exist in today’s world.” Gusto co-founder and CEO Joshua Reeves said. “It’s a relic of calculating payroll taxes manually and was instituted in the U.S. almost 90 years ago. With modern technology, employees shouldn’t have to wait weeks to get paid.”

Eligible employers partnered with Gusto can begin offering Flexible Pay through the Gusto platform. The platform calculates, makes payments, and files all relevant taxes automatically, enabling eligible employers to use the solution without having to change either their current payroll schedules or debit frequency. Gusto noted in their announcement that solutions like Flexible Pay can help workers manage unexpected expenses without resorting to debt or payday lenders. Workers can set up direct deposit of earned wages via their Gusto account, and select their payday preference – even if it’s the next day. Currently available in Texas, Flexible Pay is expected to be available in other states over the course of 2018.

“Flexible Pay lets employees decide when they want to get paid for the work they’ve already done without additional cost to employers,” Reeves explained. “It’s the way we believe everyone will get paid in the future.”

Demonstrating its platform as ZenPayroll at FinovateSpring 2014, the company rebranded as Gusto in the fall of 2015, and announced the integration of health benefit and workers’ compensation management into its payroll offering. This provided businesses with a single unified service for both workers and employers. Gusto reports that 70% of its customers run payroll in five minutes or less, with 93% of them favorably comparing Gusto to traditional payroll service providers. The technology integrates with popular accounting platforms like Quickbooks, Xero, and TSheets, and the service is tiered to enable businesses of varying sizes to select the most cost- and feature-appropriate offering. This includes a freemium offering, HR Basics, launched this spring which gives small businesses a set of human resource tools for free, enabling them to manage worker vacation time and onboard new employees quicker.

Just a few weeks ago, Gusto introduced its own “Yelp for Accountants” partner directory to help SMEs find and hire accounting talent that specializes in the needs of small businesses. Named to the Forbes Fintech 50 for a second time earlier this year, Gusto began 2018 announcing a new partnership with accounting platform, Aplos.

Founded in 2011, Gusto serves more than 60,000 businesses in the U.S. and more than one percent of all U.S. employers. The company has raised more than $176 million in funding and includes CapitalG; General Catalyst; Kleiner Perkins, Caufield & Byers; Emergence Capital Partners; and GV among its investors.

Online payroll and HR services provider Gusto is unveiling its Partner Directory today, a directory of accounting firms suitable for small and medium-sized businesses.

The directory offers Yelp-like reviews of accountants and is available to any business– both Gusto customers and non-customers– for free. The tool allows businesses to filter the search results by geography, services offered, software expertise, and industries served.

“We noticed a growing trend of accountants that are competing effectively against larger accounting firms by advising small businesses more holistically. These accountants are differentiating and ‘future proofing’ their practices by offering non-traditional services like benefits and human resources for their clients,” said Gusto Senior Product Manager Mike Lyngaas. “Recommendations for accountants and trusted partners are one of the top requests we get from small businesses, and the Partner Directory allows modern accountants and entrepreneurs to grow their businesses together.”

To curate the directory, Gusto screened more than 4,000 of its accounting firm partners for their payroll expertise, benefits and HR services, ability to help businesses claim the federal R&D tax credit, or even acting as an outsourced CFO. The company adds more accountants regularly to both its list of partners as well as to the directory.

Accountants can leverage Gusto’s technology to run payroll or provide benefits and HR services for all of their business clients. They can also tap into Gusto’s relationships with third party software providers.

Founded in 2011 as ZenPayroll, Gusto serves over 60,000 companies across the U.S. and has offices in San Francisco and Denver. At FinovateSpring 2014, Gusto CEO Joshua Reeves showcased the company’s payroll solution. In March, the company launched a freemium model for its payroll solution and in February was highlighted in Forbes for its diversity efforts. Of the company’s 525 employees, 51% are women.

Online payroll and HR services provider Gusto (formerly ZenPayroll) launched a freemium model. New this week, HR Basics offers small businesses a set of basic human resource tools for free.

The free service allows small businesses to manage employee vacation time, archive a directory of employees, and decrease the time it takes to onboard new hires. Unlike most freemium models, Gusto does not require small businesses to provide credit card or bank account information to use the service.

Gusto helps businesses move all paperwork online to create a better employee experience and company culture. TechCrunch, which covered the announcement earlier today, spoke with Gusto CEO Joshua Reeves, who commented on the term human resources. Reeves said, “Even the terminology ‘human capital management’ — humans are not capital, humans are not resources, they are people, thank you very much.”

As with all freemium offerings, the goal of Gusto’s HR Basics is to hook small businesses while they’re still small, so that when they need a more robust product, they’ll become paying customers. The company’s flagship product offerings range from $39 per month plus $6 per month per person and $149 per month plus $12 per month per person.

This move will help Gusto differentiate itself from its closest competitor, Zenefits, which also offers online HR, payroll, and benefits management. While Zenefits does not offer a free option, it does have less expensive and more a la carte pricing options.

At FinovateSpring 2014, Reeves showcased the company’s payroll solution. The company rebranded as Gusto in 2015, simultaneously pulling in $50 million in funding. Last month, Gusto was highlighted in Forbes for its diversity efforts. Of the company’s 525 employees, 51% are women. Gusto was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in California.

Accounting software provider Aplos has teamed up with payroll processing specialist Gusto to offer an integrated, back office financial and HR solution for Aplos’s nonprofit and faith-based organization client base.

“We are thrilled to expand our support of nonprofits by partnering with Aplos,” Gusto Head of Partnership Development Mike Triantos said. “Gusto and Aplos share the same vision by making it simpler to manage nonprofits and churches so they can focus on their core mission.”

The strategic partnership between the two companies will enable Aplos customers to import Gusto payroll runs into their accounting without requiring a manual export/import process. The cloud-based solution calculates, pays, and files federal, state and local payroll taxes, and manages W2, 1099, and new hire forms. In a statement, Aplos CEO Tim Goetz pointed out that Gusto was even able to factor in pastoral housing allowances and other more esoteric church financing arrangements

“When you are trying to change the world you don’t want to get stuck doing paperwork,” Goetz said. “This partnership with Gusto eliminates countless hours of administrative time.” He added that nine out of ten Aplos customers preferred Gusto over other payroll solutions. “I truly believe our nonprofit and church customers will feel this partnership makes their jobs easier so they can put their focus back on their mission.”

Founded in 2011 as ZenPayroll, the company demonstrated its payroll processing technology at FinovateSpring 2014. Rebranding as Gusto a year later, the San Francisco, California-based fintech has since partnered with firms like Capital One, raised more than $176 million in funding, and now serves more than 40,000 companies across the U.S. Gusto was named to CB Insights’ Fintech 250 list in June, and was featured in Business Insider as one of “3 startups to bet your careers on in 2017” last January.