Check was started in 2019 by Andrew Brown, Vivek Patel and Eric Stromberg with a mission to make paying people simple. The US-based company wants to ensure workers get paid reliably and on time. Check helps staffing platforms transform the candidate experience by enabling them to integrate candidate payroll directly into their existing application. Staffing platforms build the front-end experience for their customers while Check handles the back end, removing complexities with its modern API-first platform. Check Product Manager David Sokolow explains how the product works and why embedded payroll is the path forward for the workforce solutions ecosystem.  

David Sokolow
Check Product Manager

What are the challenges staffing platforms face today with paying workers?

I think there are two things. First, candidates are required to submit all of their personal information in two places: the staffing platform and a payroll provider. Payroll especially requires a lot of information; you have to fill out your W-4, connect your bank account and confirm your home address. If any of that information is wrong, then it’s incorrect in the payroll provider’s system, but not in the staffing platform. As a result, someone might not get paid, or the payment is sent to the wrong bank account, or the payment doesn’t go through, or someone might have an issue with the tax withholding. The result is a bad experience for the candidate because they’re not getting paid, but it also drives a lot of support calls for staffing platforms.

We’ve heard from major staffing platforms that one of the biggest impacts of using Check is reducing their support calls. The other challenge is operational efficiency. According to a recent SIA webinar, staffing platforms are growing 190% year over year. With that rapid growth, companies need to grow support and operations teams quickly to keep up with the manual tasks of sending payroll data, W-2s or any tax information back and forth. Instead, if a staffing platform is working with Check, all of that data is within the staffing platform. The data no longer needs to go between two systems, so it saves a lot of the manual processes.

So what is embedded payroll?

If I’m a staffing platform, or a software company that serves staffing platforms, I can embed payroll directly into my product. This consolidates the candidate experience, enabling them to get paid through the staffing platform rather than a separate third-party provider. This also makes the lives of operations professionals at staffing platforms easier because all their data is in one place, and they can control the experience from end to end.

What’s Check’s competitive differentiator?

The big differentiator with Check is that we offer embedded payroll infrastructure. This enables staffing platforms to run payroll through an API as opposed to using a traditional payroll provider. This ultimately provides a better candidate experience because they don’t need to toggle between the staffing platform and a separate payroll provider. It’s really a first for the industry. We’re enabling staffing platforms to run payroll in-house so their employees get paid on time, reliably and in compliance.

Another reason staffing platforms are interested in Check is from a scaling perspective. If you’re growing rapidly, like a lot of staffing companies are today, it makes it easier to integrate payroll directly into your app because you don’t have to do as much of the manual tasks associated with payroll since everything’s in one place.

What’s the process for embedding payroll? How long does it take?

Here’s typically the way we work with a staffing platform. We first discuss exactly how they’re going to integrate Check into their application and how they’re going to manage payroll operations. Software development teams build on top of the Check API directly in their platform. The Check team works closely with the staffing platform to ensure implementation goes smoothly. It tends to take around 30 to 45 days from start to finish for software development teams to implement. Some staffing platforms are looking to build a product that is more customized, so it can sometimes take longer than that. We work directly with our customers' teams to make sure things are working correctly and they’re getting the most out of our API.

How would you categorize staffing platforms versus traditional staffing firms?

It really comes down to technology. Essentially, how tech-enabled are they? Do they have an application where candidates can work with them through a mobile app? Are they doing digital onboarding? Is the team mostly recruiters, or is the team a mix of developers and recruiters? Recently, we’ve seen a lot of staffing firms level up their investment in technology.

We also work with firms in different ways. One company we work with is a construction staffing provider. Their development team built their payroll product on top of the Check API, and payroll is now fully integrated into their app.

So really, whether you’re a traditional staffing firm or a staffing platform, you can work with Check in some way, shape or form.

What are the workers’ pain points regarding getting paid? How does embedded payroll help?

When a bank routing number is entered wrong, the worker doesn’t get paid on time. Check integrates bank account verification into the onboarding flow. As a result, the worker’s more likely to get paid on time.

Another example is that people just forget their logins. Often, people log in to their payroll provider their first week to make sure their first paycheck is right and then once a year after that to look at their W-2. The difference is that we pull the W-2 directly into that staffing application so a worker doesn’t have to remember a separate payroll provider login. So, when it comes time to submit taxes, they don’t have to call support. It’s all integrated into that staffing platform.

What are some of the compliance challenges with embedding payroll?

It’s not really any different from traditional payroll. We operate as a full-service payroll provider, so we provide tax filings, submit payments and move money. We have a similar compliance function to any traditional payroll provider. When you’re choosing any payroll provider, making sure they’re doing full-service tax filing is critical because that’s the reason why payroll software exists. There are over 1,000 jurisdictions and 6,000 taxes across all 50 states. We handle things like tax reciprocity, making sure addresses are correct, ensuring social security numbers aren’t duplicated — a lot of the little things to make sure that when it comes down to tax time at year end, or even quarterly or semi-weekly, everything’s accurate when we’re paying taxes.

Why have some firms been successful in the space?

The biggest key to success is really just leaning into technology. Often you’re making the tradeoff between investing in more people and manual hours versus the engineering time to build and integrate. And how does that trade-off look when you factor in the company growth over time?

So it’s really just the willingness to invest in technology. We have built our API to make it as simple as possible for people to build on top of us, and we work closely with platforms to make sure their integration is compliant, folks are getting paid on time, and their taxes are correct.

What about traditional staffing firms? Do you have a solution for them?

Of course. Let’s say a traditional staffing firm doesn’t have developers. In that case, they would probably work with one of our more traditional partners. One of our customers is a time-and-attendance platform, and they have staffing companies as customers today. We also are starting to work with staffing technology companies that in turn work with more traditional staffing firms. According to SIA, 35% of traditional staffing firms are considering investing in a staffing platform over the next two years. I would say to them, if they feel like they can do the development investment, we’re here to help solve payroll for them.

What are Check’s future plans for the staffing industry?

We’re just continuing to invest in improving our product for staffing platforms. We launched in the staffing market late last year, and we went to SIA’s Executive Forum earlier this year. We’re continuing to build out features directly to support staffing companies. We’re already a compliant payroll company, and we’re looking to work with more platforms and with more technology companies that work with staffing firms. We’re excited to chat with any staffing firm or platform that’s interested in transforming their payroll operation to make it more reliable and a better candidate experience as they scale.

To learn more about how Check embedded payroll can help your business, contact us today.