Building with Finch just got easier.
Today, Finch announces the release of a set of new backend SDKs that will help developers support integrations faster than ever. We expect this new functionality to help our customers focus more on their application logic and less on boilerplate code.
A software development kit (SDK) is a set of platform-specific building tools for developers. SDKs put everything you might need to develop and run software in one place. They can also contain helpful resources like documentation, APIs, and frameworks that enable faster application development.
While the actual contents of each software development kit will vary, most will include:
Libraries and Frameworks: These are collections of pre-written code that developers can leverage to perform common tasks without having to build from scratch. Libraries simplify the development process by providing reusable, modular components.
Documentation: Comprehensive guides and references that detail the functionalities, classes, methods, and best practices for using the SDK. Good documentation is crucial for developers to understand and effectively utilize the tools provided.
Sample Code: Examples of how to use the SDK's features. Sample code can serve as a starting point for developers, helping them get up to speed quickly and see practical implementations of the SDK's capabilities.
All of these resources help developers control costs, shorten development cycles, and ultimately ship great products faster.
Finch’s SDKs give developers the building blocks and tools needed to build robust, scalable, and efficient applications. Our SDKs are designed to streamline the development process, reducing the time and effort required to integrate with Finch — and by extension, hundreds of payroll and HRIS systems.
With this newest set of SDKs, developers can expect a comprehensive set of built-in functions and methods that allow them to interact with Finch's APIs directly in their language of choice. These backend SDKs include authentication and data retrieval operations, making it easier for developers to perform common tasks.
Let’s walk through an example using our Python SDK: After an employer authorizes through Finch Connect, developers can use the get_access_token function to exchange the authorization code for an access token. Once they have this access token, they can call any of the retrieval functions to retrieve data for that company.
For example, client.hris.company.retrieve() will retrieve data from the /employer/company endpoint of the Finch API.
Developers can use this pattern to pull the same data models available in our API. This includes all data available via the company, directory, employment, individual, payment, pay statement, and benefits endpoints.
Looking to get started? Check out our SDK repositories, which provide extensive documentation and sample code. Start with selecting your preferred coding language:
Curious what other SDKs Finch supports? Check out our frontend SDKs, which can help you embed Finch Connect in your application.
We're excited to see what you build with Finch. Visit our docs for more information on installation and usage. If you have any questions or need help getting started, reach out to developers@tryfinch.com.
Just a few weeks ago, we announced a new set of Jobs Management endpoints, which make it easy for developers to programmatically view the status of data sync jobs for any employer connection. Now, we’re excited to share a new user interface (UI) in the dashboard that empowers any user to do the same. We call it the Data Syncs UI.
The Data Syncs UI enables any Finch user to view the status of scheduled and requested data syncs through a user-friendly dashboard. This gives developers, support teams, and product managers alike an accessible source of truth for the status of data syncs across all connected customers.
The Data Syncs UI is designed to make it easy for anyone in your organization, regardless of their technical expertise, to view and manage data sync job activity.
For example, product managers can now monitor the health of connections across their applications without the need for engineering support. The intuitive interface gives them visibility into every active and past connection, so they can proactively address syncing issues and provide timely information to customers (or our support team) as needed.
Meanwhile, the Data Syncs UI empowers support representatives to quickly assess the status of customers’ connections and efficiently field questions and requests. This helps them provide a best-in-class experience for your customers.
To access the Data Syncs UI, simply log in to your Finch dashboard and click on any of your individual customers under the 'Employers' tab to see a full list of syncs and their status. If you aren’t already using Finch today, but want to learn how employment data can help power your next product innovation, sign up for a free account, or talk to a member of our team today.
Today, we’re excited to announce two major upgrades to Connect: authentication fallback and improved configurability. These enhancements give you more flexibility and control over how employers authenticate through Connect.
Fallback is an alternative path to authenticate when your customers are having difficulty connecting with the primary authentication method. This enables employers to connect through Finch without the need to contact support.
If an employer attempts to authenticate through Connect and cannot complete the primary authentication method, Connect will display instructions for the employer to connect manually as a fallback option. Once Finch sets up the account, the data for this connection will flow through the Finch API as usual. Check out our docs for a complete list of providers and more implementation details.
Finch may display various authentication methods to employers depending on different providers. Several common examples of authentication include credential auth, OAuth, and API keys. Each authentication method has its pros and cons, some of which include friction to connect, cost to employers, and data refresh frequency.
The new and improved authorization configurability allows you to decide what configurations to enable in Connect across providers, including:
To learn more, read the configuration docs for more details.
Both Connect updates are immediately available. Please reach out to Sales or your Account Manager to enable authentication fallback and config. If you don’t have API keys yet, you can sign up for a free account today!
We are thrilled to announce the launch of our new Data Refresh endpoint, allowing you to request new data whenever you need it.
The Finch API syncs data with providers on a set cadence. This enables Finch to provide developers a reliable, low-latency API. But, we know sometimes you need to refresh your data sooner than Finch's retrieval schedule.
Data Refresh is a new endpoint which lets you enqueue a new job on demand without waiting for the next scheduled sync.
We are excited about enabling use cases where near-real-time data is critical. For example:
First, you’ll need a way to trigger a refresh in your application. This is typically triggered by a refresh button built into the product or through some backend workflow. Then you can use this workflow to send a request to our POST /jobs/automated endpoint and we’ll kick off a new job to fetch any new updates. While the job is running, you can use our GET /jobs/automated endpoint to check on the status of the job. After the data is updated, you can call each individual data endpoint to retrieve the latest data. Check out our docs to learn more.
But that’s not all—we’ve also released new Jobs Management endpoints to give you more visibility and control into jobs run by Finch. With these endpoints, you’ll also be able to view the status of a data sync job, as well as timestamps related to key lifecycle events by sending a request to GET /jobs/automated. Use this endpoint to understand and communicate with your customers the last updated time, status of the current sync, and more.
The /jobs endpoint is available to everyone today. Anyone with API keys, please reach out to Sales or your Account Manager to enable the feature in production. If you don’t have API keys, sign up for a free account!
Today, we are excited to announce the launch of Benefits, a product that enables developers, benefits administrators, and employment providers to enable holistic benefits management—including benefits creation, employee enrollment, and deduction and contribution updates—across employment providers via a single API.
At Finch, we are on a mission to power the future of employment, and a huge piece of employment involves benefits. As the employee benefits landscape becomes increasingly digital and competitive, existing benefits providers need to be able to scale rapidly. In addition, benefits expectations have changed drastically over the past 18 months. From small businesses to large enterprises, there is more demand than ever from employees for quality benefits, and new solutions are popping up to fill those needs. We're excited for this new product to provide seamless control over benefits data so you can deliver these much-needed services to employers.
Today, benefit providers sell to employers across a whole range of different employment systems, from Gusto™ to Zenefits to Insperity® and more. These benefits providers not only need the ability to retrieve employee records when a new member joins, but also process deductions and benefits enrollment to move money from payroll compliantly. The requirement to process deductions and enrollment is further complicated given money movement and employment regulations.
Today, there are generally three options for benefits providers—
Many times, this benefits infrastructure is cobbled together with millions of dollars in development cost and is extremely difficult to maintain. Benefits changes the game. We have rebuilt this infrastructure from the ground up using modern API connectivity. Gone are the days of depending on painful CSV uploads, antiquated SFTP transfers, or error-prone internal product operations teams. With Benefits, Finch's platform can support the growth and expansion of our partners for today's increasingly digital and fragmented employment landscape.
Benefits is comprised of a few simple endpoints under /employer/benefits/ to set up company benefits as well as enroll individuals—
/employer/benefits/{benefit_id}/individuals
You can enable the benefits product for supported providers today by simply configuring your application to request permission for the new benefits scope on Finch Connect.
As with all of our products, Finch takes data integrity and security very seriously, and our Benefits product is no different. None of this sensitive data is stored by Finch, but rather it is passed through from the application to the underlying provider. Since we are a pass-through layer, we build on top of all of the existing fail-safes for communicating issues and tracking deductions and contribution limits, just as the underlying payroll systems do.
Benefits is already being used by customers from sectors including HSA, FSA, 401(k), payroll-backed lending, and more. Hear directly from some of our customers—
Operational efficiency and employer coverage was a bottleneck to our sales efforts. Finch Benefits allowed us to drive real-time management around deductions and enrollment and therefore increase our customer acquisition and retention. Our sales and operations teams are extremely happy!
CPO of a large enterprise powering a new workplace savings program
Finch has allowed us to streamline our required integrations with our client's payroll administrators, freeing our clients and Lane Health from having to expend time and resources to perform these payroll system integrations and file exchanges. By providing Lane Health with access to 95 payroll systems, we can deliver a superior client experience very effectively and efficiently. Finch has and will continue to be a valued partner for enabling our growth and achieving our business goals.
Crystal Peel, VP of Client Solutions @ Lane Health
The Finch team have been valuable partners to us as we navigate the various complex aspects of 401(k) administration and compliance, and how payroll and contribution data factor into that equation. We couldn't be more pleased with our partnership with Finch so far and are equally excited for the future as Finch continues to evolve their service platform to include more valuable features and benefits.
Justin Young, Senior Manager of Product Development @ Slavic401k
We would like to extend a big thank you to all of our early users who provided invaluable feedback during the build!
If you’re an existing Finch customer, you can enable the Benefits product today by reaching out to your account manager to get started. Developers new to Finch can reach out to developers@tryfinch.com.
Stay tuned as we continue to update the endpoint with additional benefits categories. We look forward to supporting you in what you build next to create innovations for employers and employees.
At Finch, we know that your success depends on the information and tools you have at your disposal. As part of our commitment to supporting that success, we’re thrilled to bring searchable API requests to the Finch dashboard.
The log is a record of every API request made by your application. Some requests may be batched with associated status codes for every individual ID or payment ID, and we expand these into their own log. We record requests with singular responses as their own.
You’ll find the event log in your Finch dashboard under the Activity tab. From there, you can search by company ID, company name, request ID, individual ID, payment ID, or Finch endpoint (e.g., directory, company, payment) and filter by payroll provider, status, and time.
In the future, the piping we’ve built will make many more features possible — like a metrics or issues center — that offer even more reliable data capture and deeper search mechanisms.
Our goal is to empower the developers building on top of Finch. With visibility into your API usage, you’ll be equipped to troubleshoot errors, keep your team apprised of their status, properly communicate issues to your external users, and provide better service.
To start building with Finch, enter your email address on our homepage here to get API keys today.
We built Finch to unlock access to employment data and are committed to creating a best-in-class developer experience. Today, we’re excited to announce the launch of our self-serve sign-up, which makes it easy for innovative developers to get API keys and start evaluating the benefits of employment data for their product.
For many developers looking to leverage employment data, it takes months to gain access and build integrations one by one. Even when those integrations are built, the process can still involve flat files, complex authentication, and mismatched data scopes. Finch condenses that entire process into a few days by unifying all employment systems through a single API with normalized data and permissions. In the end, your customers can sync their employment system with your product in minutes (though we’ve seen it happen in as little as 30 seconds).
Now, instead of having to go through our sales team to access our API keys, we’ve overhauled our onboarding process, so you can start building in minutes. Getting up and running is easy and only takes three steps:
In only a few minutes, you’ll have everything you need to start testing with Finch’s sandbox.
Once you’ve created an account, you’ll get access to our sandbox, which includes multiple test instances representing varying employer sizes, a dashboard with connections monitoring and audit logs, and documentation that sets you up for success.
Once you’re done testing out the platform and are ready to go to production with live customers, reach out to our team. We’ll make sure you have production keys and check all the boxes related to production readiness and compliance so that you can offer the best data-syncing experience to your customers.
Gain access to Finch today and supercharge your application experience with employment data.
If we had to describe last month in one word, it would be expansive, with several integration launches, extended field support, and an alternative integration auth method. Check out what’s new!
Humaans
Humaans is a modern HR system focused on modularity and compatibility with other HR platforms. While support for Humaans is part of our larger strategy to grow our coverage in European markets, Humaans has also begun to expand globally, unlocking myriad new employers internationally.
SageHR
SageHR has grown to support businesses of up to 125 employees in 1,200 cities worldwide. As the company enters the next stage of its evolution, adding new modules and features specifically designed to scale, we’re even more excited to support integrations with SageHR accounts.
Sapling
A relatively young player in the HR space, Sapling was founded in 2016 and expanded market share quickly, eventually being acquired by Kallidus in 2020. With offices in the U.S. and Canada, Sapling services hundreds of employers around the world, and is a welcome addition to our coverage network.
Another significant development in our ever-deepening field support, preferredName is a crucial field for many players on the Finch platform.
Rather than relying on legal names only, using an employee’s configured preferred name allows applications to make employees feel more comfortable and, in sensitive circumstances, can have a significant impact on belonging and trust. Preferred name is now available via the individual endpoint for all of Finch’s automated API integrations!
Finch has expanded support for deduction types in our pay-statement endpoint for Paychex Flex. Many new deduction types are available, including 401k, Roth 401k, 401k Loan, FSA Dependent Care, Section 125 Medical, and more.
This is of notable importance for retirement and benefits applications, which rely on this information to validate that deductions have been run, as well as tax credit companies, who use deduction information to determine tax credit eligibility.
Finch is constantly making improvements to our existing integrations, and Zenefits is one of Finch’s most-used and longest-standing examples. Zenefits recently introduced their own API, which allows Zenefits customers to create an API token in their dashboard for development use. This provides a faster and more secure way to access Zenefits data.
Employers can now enter their API information directly via Finch Connect. To do this, they simply select Zenefits as their provider, and select the “Using SSO? Enter an API Token Instead” button at the bottom of the login page. This will direct them to enter their API information.
That's all for this monthly update! Stay on the lookout for our next monthly product update. If you want to get your hands on the latest and greatest Finch features sign up for free access here.
Finch now syncs data with providers on a 24 hour cadence, and Finch API requests now return data from the most recent sync. This will result in major improvements to response latency, as well as a more smooth and consistent experience using Finch — any provider-specific issues related to their own infrastructure will be smoothed over by our most recent sync data. In the future, we’ll be adding even more rich functionality to our data syncs, including faster refresh times and the ability to force a data sync on-demand.
In addition to our ReactJS SDK, Finch now offers a vanilla Javascript SDK for embedding Finch Connect into your application. Simply load the SDK via a script tag and add some simple initialization code to your application to embed connect.
Developers are no longer limited by choosing React to embed Connect with our supported SDKs. Any web app running Javascript can now take advantage of this superior developer experience.
From calculating tax credits to identifying when deductions have been applied, many customer use cases rely on being able to consistently discern benefit deduction types in employee pay statements. We have now added support for Section 125 Medical deduction typing in Paychex Flex, ADP Workforce Now, and Rippling. You can see these s125_medical types showing in the form employee_deductions[].type field on Finch’s /pay-statements endpoint. More providers to follow soon!
That's all for this monthly update! Stay on the lookout for our next monthly product update. If you want to get your hands on the latest and greatest Finch features sign up for free access here.
As developers ourselves, we know that while APIs are a great first step to increasing business efficiency, when it comes to implementation, SDKs create a superior experience.
We recognized this early on at Finch, which is why we focused on developing our React SDK for Finch Connect. This SDK offers an easier alternative for embedding Connect into applications versus using the Finch API directly. However, it also constrained developers to using React if they wanted to embed our product.
For this reason, we’ve gone back to the basics and developed a vanilla Javascript SDK for Finch Connect. This framework-agnostic SDK offers more flexibility when embedding Finch Connect into your frontend applications. Any web app running Javascript can now take advantage of the improved developer experience that SDKs offer.
To embed Connect via our JS SDK, simply load the SDK via a script tag and add some simple initialization code to your application:
<script src="https://prod-cdn.tryfinch.com/v1/connect.js"></script>
The returned FinchConnect object exposes open, close, and destroy lifecycle methods, which you can utilize to seamlessly get Connect up and running in your application.
Read our docs to learn more about our JS SDK and view the open source repository here!
This month's updates include further expansion of coverage with two additional API integrations, greater availability of a key field for insurance providers, and a new way to connect with TriNet customers. Check out what’s new!
Wave
Wave offers payroll as part of an all-in-one suite of financial products that serve over 2 million SMBs across the US and Canada. Acquired by H&R Block in 2019, the company offers a set of free services including invoicing, accounting, and banking, and adds additional paid services such as payroll, payments, and bookkeeping. We're excited to support Wave and allow developers to connect with hundreds of thousands of their payroll clients.
Quickbooks Canada
While we have compatibility with Quickbooks Payroll in the US we've now added support for Quickbooks Payroll as part of our broader international expansion efforts. Now developers can connect directly all 1.4 million Quickbooks Payroll customers across North America.
We continue to roll out new fields for essential use cases and have made the worker's comp class_code field available in both Quickbooks and Paylocity alongside Gusto, ADP RUN, and others.
This field within the employment endpoint exposes the specific 3-4 digit code that identifies the types of work an employee performs so that insurance companies can estimate risk and calculate accurate premiums for employers.
While many of them will follow the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) code system, 14 states operate with independent class code systems. Cross-referencing the work location state for each employee with the class_code field is important to properly interpret this datapoint for your insurance product.
With over 23,000 employers supported in the US, TriNet is one of our longest-standing and most popular integrations, and we’ve given it a fresh new update! Our TriNet integration now supports the option to connect via TriNet’s API directly. This new integration option is both a smoother and more secure experience, providing significant latency and reliability improvements to the connection.
How to Connect
Employers who select TriNet as their provider will see a new authentication page displayed by default in Finch Connect. Once they follow the process outlined by TriNet, employers will receive a set of API keys from TriNet, which can then be securely shared via Finch Connect.
That's all for this monthly update! Stay on the lookout for our next monthly product update. If you want to get your hands on the latest and greatest Finch features sign up for free access here.
This month’s updates include the beta launch of our new ATS API, an updated authorization workflow for our latest HRIS partner, and additional data field coverage for some of our most popular supported systems.
In response to growing customer demand, we’ve officially launched the Finch applicant tracking system (ATS) API, and our first ATS integration, Lever, is live!
Because applicant tracking systems house crucial insights into an organization’s recruiting pipeline, seamless ATS data connectivity is essential to B2B applications that service the candidate lifecycle. To unlock a range of high-value use cases in product categories like candidate sourcing, compensation management, and DEI, our ATS API supports four data models: candidate, applications, jobs, and offers.
Reach out to get early access!
As part of our strategic partnership with BambooHR, Finch customers can now leverage BambooHR’s OpenID Connect to establish data connections with the fast-growing HRIS.
OpenID Connect is a reliable authorization method that acts as a simple identity layer on top of the OAuth 2.0 protocol. By working through BambooHR’s OpenID Connect flow, we’re making it even more seamless and intuitive for your users to permission a data sync between your application and BambooHR.
Deduction Types
Building on the headway we made in August, Finch now proudly supports Section 125 medical, dental, and vision deduction typing for ADP Run, PrismHR, and UKG Pro. This level of granularity fuels innovative customer use cases related to deduction management, tax credit calculations, and more. You can find them displayed in the employee_deductions[].type field on our /pay-statements endpoint.
Employer Benefits Contributions
For Trinet and Zenefits, you can now view employers’ benefit contributions—like 401(k) matches—in the pay-statements field, which provides essential visibility for retirement benefits providers.
Gender
The gender field is now supported in Rippling, ensuring that developers building products that analyze pay disparities and DEI issues have crucial data access for a significant segment of their customer base.
Class Code
In continued support of workers’ compensation insurance use cases, the class_code field is now available through the employment endpoint in Trinet—adding to the list of systems we previously rolled out support for in September.
This field identifies the type of work an employee performs, enabling insurance companies to more accurately assess risk and calculate premiums for employers. Please note that 14 states operate with a class code system independent of the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) standard. Cross-referencing each employee’s work location with the class_code field is important to properly interpret this datapoint for insurance products.
That's all for October! Stay on the lookout for our next monthly product update. If you want to get your hands on the latest and greatest Finch features sign up for free access here.
This month’s updates include a partnership with exciting implications, an alternative auth protocol, and a host of new supported data points.
In November, we were thrilled to announce our deeper partnership with HiBob. With that partnership, our HiBob integration has gotten a facelift.
Now, employers who want to connect their HiBob account to a third-party can authenticate directly through Finch Connect to generate a long-lasting API token that queries the HiBob API without the user exiting our front-end modal. Alternatively, employers using SSO will be able to walk 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.
The more than 33,000 U.S. employers who use Paylocity to run their payroll and HR functions are the new beneficiaries of an exciting product feature: alternative auth via API token.
In other words, employers looking to link their Paylocity account to another application will have the option to do so directly with API credentials, for an ultra secure and reliable connection.
The new option is presented to employers who select Paylocity as their provider in our front-end modal as an alternative to the default Finch Connect flow. Once they follow the process outlined by Paylocity, employers will receive a set of API keys which can then be securely shared via Finch Connect.
That's a wrap for November! If you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for free access to put our latest features to work for you.
This month’s updates include support for custom fields, which unlocks a multitude of use cases, and ethnicity, which employers can use to track progress on initiatives such as DEIB.
Custom fields has consistently been one of our most requested features with a multitude of use cases, ranging from capturing employee t-shirt sizes, to recording eligibility for fringe benefits, to storing data such as variable compensation targets. Finch defines custom fields as fields created by employers which do not yet exist in the system, and we’re happy to announce that custom field support is now available for the following systems with expanded availability across more platforms later next year:
While the range of data in these fields can vary, we already see multiple use cases leveraging common fields to drive a better employer experience.
Read the developer docs to learn more about the custom fields addition to the “employment” endpoint.
Ethnicity is a valuable datapoint that organizations aim to track to provide leadership and HR teams insights into workplace metrics such as diversity, hiring (recruitment, applications, interviews, and job offers), compensation, performance, and employee engagement. And now, it is also a field that is supported by Finch in the following HRIS systems:
Similar to custom fields, developers use ethnicity data to deliver deeper insights into an organization. Here are a few use cases that benefit from the additional granularity Finch provides:
Learn more about the ethnicity addition to the “individual” endpoint.
That's a wrap for December! If you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for free access to put our latest features to work for you.