1. Choose your cut-over date​

Pick a clean date to start in Ciyora, usually the first day of a month, and ideally the first day of a quarter so that your Form 941 for the quarter comes from one system. You will bring lists and opening balances as at that date, and optionally the transactions of the current year.

For payroll, the start of a calendar year is the cleanest switch. If you move mid-year, you also bring year-to-date pay and withholding for every employee, so the W-2s Ciyora produces cover the full year.

2. Export from QuickBooks and Gusto​

From QuickBooks Desktop, export an IIF file; from QuickBooks Online, export the lists and reports as CSV:

• Lists: chart of accounts, customers and vendors (with their tax IDs), and items.
• Transactions: invoices, bills, payments, journal entries and credit memos for the period you want to bring across.

From Gusto, export employees and payroll reports:

• employees with job, department, manager, work and home state, Form W-4 data and direct deposit details;
• pay rates and recurring deductions;
• PTO balances;
• year-to-date pay and tax withholding by employee.

3. Prepare Ciyora​

Before importing, set up the basics:

1. In People, add your legal entities and work locations with their states. The work state decides state withholding and SUI.
2. Add each state tax registration: the withholding account number and the SUI account number with this year's rate.
3. In Books, review the chart of accounts. QuickBooks account types are mapped to Books account groups during the import.
4. Set the opening balance date.

4. Upload, map and dry run​

Open Admin, Data migration, choose QuickBooks or Gusto as the source and upload the file. Ciyora recognises the format and suggests the column mapping.

Then run a dry run. The whole import runs with all of the apps' rules and is then rolled back. You get a report of any rows that would be rejected and why, for example an employee without a work state or an invoice that refers to a missing customer. Fix them in the source or in the file, and run the dry run again until it is clean.

Import employees before pay rates, PTO balances and year-to-date figures, and lists before transactions.

5. Import and check​

Run the import. The report shows what was created, updated, skipped and rejected, the trial balance totals, and the amount left in opening balance equity. When account, customer, vendor and inventory openings agree, that amount is zero.

Then compare with your old systems:

• the trial balance as at the cut-over date;
• open invoices and bills, one by one;
• inventory quantities and values by location;
• year-to-date gross pay, federal and state withholding and FICA for each employee, against Gusto's year-to-date report.

If something went wrong, you can roll back the whole import: invoices and payments are voided and journals reversed. Re-running the same file later updates lists and skips transactions already posted, so nothing is duplicated.

6. Running both for a while​

Some companies keep QuickBooks Online in use during a transition, for example for an entity that moves later. The Integration Hub has a beta QuickBooks Online connector that can send journals and expense claims from Ciyora to QuickBooks Online. It is built on the vendor's published API and tested against recorded samples rather than live accounts, so check the first runs carefully. Ciyora is not affiliated with Intuit or Gusto.

Migration from QuickBooks or Gusto is free and done for you by our team if you prefer. For the full list of what the migration tool handles, see the data migration guide and the Books guide.

The obligations, in brief​

For most employers, each pay run involves:

• Federal income tax withholding, worked out from each employee's Form W-4 and the IRS withholding tables.
• Social Security and Medicare (FICA). Employer and employee each pay 6.2% Social Security tax up to the annual wage base, and 1.45% Medicare tax on all wages. Employers also withhold the 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax once an employee's wages pass $200,000 in the year. The rates and rules are set out in IRS Publication 15 (Circular E), and the Social Security Administration publishes the wage base each year.
• Federal unemployment tax (FUTA), paid by the employer only, on the first $7,000 of each employee's wages, with a credit for state unemployment tax paid on time (IRS: FUTA tax).
• State unemployment insurance (SUTA or SUI), at a rate each state assigns to the employer, up to that state's taxable wage base.
• State and local income tax withholding, where the work state (and sometimes the city, county or school district) has an income tax.

Then come deposits and returns: federal taxes deposited on a monthly or semiweekly schedule through EFTPS, Form 941 every quarter, Form 940 each year, Forms W-2 and W-3 to employees and the Social Security Administration by January 31, state withholding returns and SUI wage reports, and new-hire reports to each state.

Rules as dated data​

Rates, wage bases and brackets change, usually from January 1 and sometimes mid-year when a state changes its SUI rates. In Ciyora, every rate, wage base and table is a row with an effective date. When a rate changes, a payroll administrator adds a new version from the date it applies, and the previous version closes the day before.

Pay runs that were already finalized keep the rates they were calculated with, so earlier quarters still reconcile with what was deposited and filed.

Payroll in People​

The United States country pack in People covers:

• Withholding: federal income tax from Form W-4 data, and state and local income tax by work location, including multi-state employees.
• FICA: Social Security up to the wage base and Medicare on all wages, with the Additional Medicare Tax applied automatically once year-to-date wages pass the threshold.
• Employer taxes: FUTA and SUTA, with each state's rate and wage base kept per company and per year.
• Pre-tax deductions: 401(k), Section 125 benefits and HSA contributions, reducing the right taxable wages for each tax.
• Overtime: FLSA exempt and non-exempt classification, with overtime worked out from approved timesheets.
• Outputs: Form 941 and Form 940 figures, W-2 and W-3, state withholding and SUI wage reports, new-hire reports, and a NACHA file for direct deposit.

One caution we give every customer: check the figures with your CPA or payroll tax adviser before filing, especially in the first quarter after you switch providers.

Why it matters​

Because payroll and accounts run on the same platform, the payroll journal posts to Books by department and location, and the withholding, FICA, FUTA and SUTA liabilities land in the right ledger accounts. When you deposit, the payment clears the liability. There is no export, import or re-keying between payroll and the general ledger.

If you are moving from another provider mid-year, bring the year-to-date figures with you so W-2s cover the whole year. The migration guide explains how.

Read more in the People and Books guides, or see how Ciyora compares with Rippling and Gusto.

The problem we set out to solve​

A growing company typically runs payroll in one product, accounts in another, sales in a third, and fills the gaps with spreadsheets. Each product has its own login, its own list of employees or customers, and its own idea of what a location or a legal entity is. Month-end becomes the job of reconciling them.

Statutory depth is often added on, if it is there at all: state withholding, unemployment insurance, sales tax and year-end forms.

What Ciyora is​

One platform. Every app shares the same directory of people, the same customers, vendors and items, the same roles and the same approval inbox. A person has one identity and can belong to several companies, with different roles in each.

Statutory depth. US payroll in People covers federal, state and local withholding, FICA, FUTA and SUTA, Form 941 and 940, W-2 and W-3, and a NACHA file for direct deposit. Books handles sales tax by state, county and city, and Form 1099 for vendors. Statutory rates are kept as dated data, so a new tax year or a state rate change is a new version from a date rather than a code change.

Apps that work together. An accepted quote in CRM becomes an invoice in Books. Approved timesheets in Projects become billable hours. Payroll posts its journal to the ledger by cost centre. Purchase orders in Procurement are matched against bills.

Web and mobile. The Ciyora app for Android and iOS has the same app switcher as the web. Employees check in, apply for leave, download payslips and approve requests from the phone.

The apps​

The apps fall into five groups:

• People and work: People, Ciyora Meet, Workplace, Forms and Workflows, Projects, Documents and e-sign.
• Finance and governance: Books, Company Compliance, Procurement, Analytics.
• Customers: CRM, Marketing, Support, Bookings, POS and Retail.
• Operations: Inventory and Warehouse, Manufacturing, Maintenance and Quality, Distribution and Dealers, Field Service.
• IT: IT Service Management, Remote.

You can start with one app and add others as you go, or take all of them as Ciyora One.

What comes next​

Each app has a published list of what it does. We will write here as new work ships. If you would like to see Ciyora with your own company's processes, write to us.