Runae Lee

Finch and Personio are working together to power the next wave of innovation with real-time employment data. 

Together, we’re making it easier than ever for innovators to build incredible, integrated experiences.

Our goal is to unify the employment data ecosystem by providing access to hundreds of HR and payroll systems with a single, streamlined integration. One way we do that is through partnerships, which allow us to revolutionize how B2B innovators leverage the power of employment data to build next-generation solutions for employers.

Today, we’re excited to announce our new strategic partnership with Personio. 

Personio: all-in-one HR software

Personio is the people operating system that automates and simplifies HR tasks, from recruiting to offboarding, within a single solution. Personio alleviates employers’ administrative burdens, so they have time for more strategic work and can focus on what really matters: people.

To provide employers with the best possible experience and the widest breadth of choice when it comes to customizing their tech stack, Personio integrates with 150 business systems (and counting), including applicant tracking, time management, benefits, compensation, learning and development, and performance management solutions. In turn, Personio customers can quickly and seamlessly connect the apps they use every day to their Personio account, ensuring their Personio data syncs across systems and giving them back their valuable time. 

By partnering with Finch, Personio is taking its commitment to integrated experiences and employer choice to the next level by making it easier than ever for third-party developers to integrate with its API.

“Our new partnership with Finch promises to rapidly expand the number and range of third-party applications that function seamlessly with Personio, which will open up a world of integrative possibilities, particularly for our customers in Europe. In turn, we will be able to better serve our mission to streamline people workflow by further reducing the need for repetitive admin tasks across the employee journey.” 

Hugues Vincent, Head of Partnerships at Personio

What our partnership means for the future

Together, Finch and Personio aren’t just making people operations better and easier for Personio customers; we’re helping to address a much larger and far-reaching problem: the inaccessibility of business-critical employment data. The reality is, employment data is dispersed and siloed across thousands of payroll and HR systems, and that is impeding efficiency and software functionality across the business landscape.

Meanwhile, business users have grown accustomed to the seamless digital experiences they’ve experienced in consumer apps, and are growing to expect that the business applications they use are also  integrated from the start. The Finch-Personio partnership is an important step toward making that a reality for even more innovators.

“We’re thrilled to be working so closely with a developer friendly HR system like Personio that recognizes the importance of innovation and employer choice. Not only will our relationship give Personio customers more options, as we look to expand Finch’s international coverage, Personio will be an important partner in helping us (and, by extension, the developers who build with Finch) gain a better understanding of local markets and the nuances of building a global solution.”

Runae Lee, Head of Partnerships at Finch

How the integration works

Developers who build B2B applications with Finch can make it easy for their users to connect their Personio accounts in seconds. The process is easy: Users simply permission the Personio sync through Finch Connect, and our front-end UI that allows them to safely and securely grant data access through the use of an API token. Finch Connect can be displayed at any point in an application’s customer flow and handles credential validation, multi-factor authentication, and error handling for each system Finch supports.

Once a user has gone through the full authentication process, the application can sync real-time employment data within the user’s Personio account.

If you’re building a B2B application and want to leverage employment data to give your customers a deeply integrated product experience, sign up to get API keys today or reach out to our team with any questions.

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Tax credit service providers offer a critical lifeline

As the world braces for a potential recession, many small and medium-sized businesses are still grappling with the lingering effects of quarantine regulations, pandemic-related shutdowns, and subsequent declines in revenue. Fortunately, some of the relief programs the U.S. government introduced during the pandemic are still in effect, including the Employee Retention Credit (ERC)—and many SMBs are relying on tax credit service providers more than ever to help them make the most of the assistance available.

But as more service providers enter an already crowded space, they are quickly finding that they can’t compete for SMBs’ business if they don’t offer the modern, automated experiences that SMBs have come to expect. Among the most important automations that tax credit service providers can provide is leveraging SMBs’ own accounting and employment data to seamlessly determine eligibility and apply for ERC and other programs. The key—and challenge—is accessing that data.

In this article, we’ll walk you through how high-quality integrations with SMBs’ accounting and employment systems are helping tax credit service providers like yourself retrieve the real-time data needed to make fast, accurate ERC eligibility determinations, auto-fill application forms, and provide a best-in-class experience to SMBs when they need it most.

Automate the collection and processing of accounting data

One of the methods of determining ERC eligibility is demonstrating a significant decline in gross receipts compared to the same quarter of the previous fiscal year. Meanwhile, the ERC application calls for company financial data, including data from profit and loss statements, balance sheets, cash flow documentation, expense reports, and income statements for the period in which the SMB is seeking relief.

In other words, determining eligibility and applying for ERC is highly dependent on providing detailed, accurate accounting data. Without the right technology in place, obtaining said data is a laborious undertaking that requires digging through financial paperwork, exporting and uploading piecemeal datasets, and/or manually entering data field by field. Not only does this put undue strain on resource-strapped SMBs, it comes with a high risk of human error, which may mean having to repeat the application process or worse: being denied the tax credit altogether.

Tax credit service providers can mitigate these pain points by implementing API integrations with SMB accounting systems like QuickBooks, Xero, Sage, and NetSuite. In doing so, you can instantly and automatically retrieve all of the historical and real-time data points needed. In turn, SMBs get faster eligibility determinations, quicker access to funds, and are relieved of the burdens of tracking down the information themselves.

Streamline the sharing of HRIS and payroll data

In addition to accounting data, the ERC application requires businesses to provide robust employment data—a catchall term for the employee directory and payroll information stored in SMBs’ HR and payroll systems like ADP, Gusto, Paychex, and more. Like accounting data, manually pulling and uploading employment data into an application is a tedious resource-drain for SMBs.

Through API integrations with SMBs’ employment systems, you can meet the requirements of the ERC application while relieving SMBs of the friction and hassles of manual data retrieval. Built properly, integrations with employment systems can instantly retrieve:

• Gross wages per employee
• Benefits enrollment status, employer contributions, and benefits-related payroll deductions per employee
• Employee eligibility status

And because this data is coming directly from the system of record, you can rest assured that the data retrieved is accurate.

What to consider in your integration strategy

Tax credit service providers have two choices: you can build integrations to accounting, HRIS, and payroll systems yourself or outsource the integrations to trusted integration partners. Before determining which approach to take, it’s important to consider the following factors:

Market fragmentation
The U.S. alone is home to over 5,700 HRIS and payroll providers, and the top three systems only have a 44% share of the market. That leaves a huge long-tail, with each other provider accounting for no more than 4% of the market. U.S. accounting software is less fragmented but is likewise seeing increased competition and an expanding long-tail. In other words, covering your customer base in a meaningful way will mean building integrations with potentially dozens or hundreds of systems.

Your internal capacity
When integrating with an employment or accounting system, you can expect the project to take a minimum of three months for a basic data pull and anywhere from six to nine months to achieve full read-and-write access. Before you set out to build, you’ll want to make sure you have the capacity to take on the work as well as flexibility in your go-to-market timeline—keeping in mind that time spent on integrations is time you could otherwise devote to perfecting and evolving your core product.

The complexities of data mapping
Every accounting platform runs on a different dataset, each with its own approach to naming and structure. Standardizing this data so that it is usable by your application is one of the more intricate and important aspects of integrations, and it’s easy to get wrong.

The cost of building
Integrations come with a hefty price tag when you consider the average engineer’s salary and the hours they spend establishing data connections. If you assume that three engineers will work on an integration for three months, that puts the soft costs of just your initial buildout in the ballpark of $200,000. Then, there are the ongoing costs to consider, like the fees many employment and accounting systems charge to use their API.

The benefits of outsourcing system integrations

Outsourcing integrations allows you to avoid these barriers and complications. Universal APIs, a type of integration partner, offer a one-to-many solution that can get you to market faster and more cost-effectively. In effect, a single integration with a universal API connects you to a multitude of systems at once, saving you the hassle of building and maintaining each connection yourself.

Implemented together, Codat’s universal Accounting API and Finch’s universal API for employment systems offer tax credit service providers a distinct advantage. Because we are experts in our respective fields, we understand the nuances and complexities of employment and accounting systems like no one else. In turn, we pull, map, and standardize higher quality, more actionable data and offer deeper data coverage that meets all of your data requirements—for the ERC and beyond—without compromise. Perhaps most importantly, Codat and Finch afford you turnkey accounting and employment integration solutions that meet your tax credit data needs in a fraction of the time it would take to build in-house, allowing you to invest more time, money, and focus on your application and the exceptional experiences you’re offering your customers.

In the end, building with Codat and Finch gives you the tools you need to get to market faster, onboard SMBs faster, cover more of the accounting and employment systems your customers use, and, ultimately, help your customers claim the tax credits that are so crucial to their growth.

If you’re interested in learning more about market-leading accounting integrations, contact Codat today. For the most reliable employment system integrations, sign up to retrieve your free sandbox API keys or reach out to Finch with questions.

Since our inception, Finch has been committed to building the infrastructure to enable tech innovators to leverage employment data and build next-generation solutions for employers. Accomplishing this at scale means collaborating with like-minded disruptors. That’s why we’re excited to announce our latest strategic partnership with HiBob.

HiBob: Streamlining core HR functionality for modern businesses

HiBob is on a mission to transform how organizations operate in the modern world of work with its HR platform ‘Bob’.  Leading the way for the future workplace, Bob offers resilient, agile technology that wraps all the complexities of HR processes into a game changing, user-friendly tool that touches every employee across the business.

HiBob innovates through continuous learning loops to produce seismic cultural shifts for companies with dynamic, distributed workforces. From out-of-the-box onboarding, workflows, performance and compensation management to people analytics and more—Bob gives teams everything they need to operate efficiently. But that’s not all. Bob also provides essential engagement features that drive communication, inclusion, and belonging—inspiring a remarkable experience for every employee.

We’re very excited to partner with Finch and drive data accessibility for the high-growth companies that are using HiBob. Today’s digital workplaces require integrated applications. When systems combine, they make it easier for employees to collaborate, share information, and get great work done. The right tech can really make or break a global culture from both a business and a people perspective. We’re thrilled to offer our customers a seamless connection to the HR tech applications of their choice through the Finch integration.

Breanne Murphy, Global Head of Partner Marketing at HiBob

What our partnership means for the future

The employment data ecosystem is incredibly fragmented – the average small business has 18 different applications that may or may not work together in a seamless fashion. To perform at the speed of modern business and create the best employee experiences possible, employers need leading-edge technology that addresses their unique pain points. That means being able to push and pull data between individual systems to automate inefficient manual processes like onboarding, PTO approval, and setting IT permissions. But for organizations trying to scale internationally, this requires investing in multiple, siloed HR applications or an all-in-one platform that may be missing functionality or exclude leading applications in a product category.

As one of the top HRIS platforms in Europe and North America, HiBob recognizes the importance of connectivity when it comes to employment data for both customers and third-party developers. HiBob’s modern HR platform provides a flexible infrastructure that allows organizations to build seamless employee experiences around their biggest pain points. By leveraging Finch’s universal API, HiBob can extend that flexibility to developers around the world.

Through the partnership, Finch and HiBob will be able to better support developers and employers while disrupting the HR tech space. By enabling secure access to employment data on behalf of employers, we’re ensuring interoperability between B2B solutions—opening the door to greater innovation, fueling the growth of the HiBob integration marketplace, and building a future-ready workforce.

How the integration works

On a technical level, our integration allows employers to securely share their HiBob data with their favorite third-party applications. Employer admins authenticate directly through Finch Connect to generate a long-lasting API token that queries the HiBob API while keeping the admin within Finch’s front-end modal. Alternatively, employer admins using SSO will be walked through a quick set of instructions that lets them directly generate the API token from within the HiBob dashboard. This will then be shared with Finch, completing the authentication process.

Once the employer admin has been fully authenticated, they’ll automatically connect real-time, org-wide employment data from HiBob with the desired third-party application and begin supporting robust, integrated HR experiences—putting HiBob customers at the forefront of a growing market.

The companies that use HiBob today are typically tech-forward and highly efficient operations. They don’t have time to spend on manual processes. They want and expect integrated experiences, in addition to flexibility in how those experiences are built and maintained across apps. HiBob and Finch are enabling employer choice and supporting developers and HiBob customers by powering the automated solutions they are looking for.

Runae Lee, Head of Partnerships at Finch

Support your customers using HiBob and sign up to get your free sandbox API keys today.

At Finch, we believe in a connected future where employers can seamlessly synchronize their data across applications and providers can enable the next wave of HR and fintech innovation.

Today, we’re excited to announce that we’re one step closer to achieving that goal through our strategic partnership with BambooHR.

BambooHR: One-stop shopping for employers

BambooHR helps employers enter, track, view, and manage HR and business data in one centralized system, freeing employers to focus on what matters most to a growing organization – people.

We're dedicated to partnering with top rated solutions that save our customers time, streamline their management process, and set them free to do great work. We love that Finch helps us delight customers by allowing their data to sync quickly and effortlessly across applications.

Natalie Bigney, Marketplace Manager at BambooHR

What our partnership means for the future

The collaboration between Finch and BambooHR exemplifies our shared commitment to empowering innovators. Together, we’re working together to ensure employers can share employment data securely with third-party applications—and changing the status quo in the process.

At issue is the stifling lack of data connectivity that has long held back the employment data ecosystem. Without reliable programmatic integrations, employers have had to rely on highly manual processes like flat-file sharing to access their own data. Despite the challenges and cost of manual work, employers invest thousands of hours to pull this data and drive important business processes, from headcount planning to expense management and practically everything in between.

Finch first took on the challenge of solving this issue when we built a universal API to integrate with HR information systems and payroll providers. We now provide mission-critical infrastructure for applications across B2B fintech, benefits, HR, and enterprise verticals.

Customers are growing to expect that their applications will work together out of the box. BambooHR is partnering with Finch to support employer choice and ensure broad compatibility with leading and emerging technologies in this space. In short, Finch and BambooHR are working to ensure interoperability between platforms to enable innovation and exceptional efficiencies fueled by employment data.

How the integration works

Our partnership makes accessing the employee data in BambooHR a seamless process. Employer administrators simply permission the data sync through Finch Connect by way of BambooHR’s OpenID Connect flow—a streamlined, reliable method of authorization that builds on the OAuth framework.

To log in, admins enter their BambooHR subdomain into Finch Connect, which will redirect them to BambooHR, where they can then authenticate using either single sign-on or their BambooHR account credentials. Once complete, the authorized third-party provider has immediate, streaming access to the real-time, organization-wide employee census data stored and managed by BambooHR.

It’s that simple.

By partnering with BambooHR, we’re solidifying our commitment to build a more connected ecosystem centered around employer choice. Not all SMBs are alike and BambooHR understands this. Through this integration, we’re enabling tens of thousands of employers to connect with the third-party applications they trust to help them run their organizations.

Ansel Parikh, co-founder of Finch

Want to see our partnership in action? Sign up to get your free sandbox API keys here and check out our listing on the BambooHR Marketplace.

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