Save businesses and employees in your address book

The address book holds the businesses you pay from and the people you pay. Save someone once and the pay stub builder fills in their details on every stub after that, so a regular payday takes seconds rather than minutes.

Everything you enter while building a stub is saved here automatically. You can also add and edit records directly, which is the tidiest way to set up a new business before its first payday.

1. Open the address book

Sign in and choose Address book from your account menu. You'll see every business you've saved, with a search box if the list grows long. Select a business to see its details and the people it pays.

2. Add or edit a business

Choose Add business, or open an existing one and edit it. A business record holds what heads every pay stub:

• Company name and street address. City, state, and ZIP are required.
• Company EIN, if you'd like it printed on the stub.
• Company email and phone number — optional.

The business's state matters more than it looks. Unless an employee is set to be taxed by their own address (see below), it's the state their withholding is calculated for.

3. Add a logo

Upload a logo for the business and it appears on every pay stub for that business. PNG, JPG, SVG, and WebP files are accepted, up to 2MB. A logo with a transparent background sits most cleanly on every template.

4. Add the people the business pays

On a business's page, add each employee or contractor. Choose whether they're a W-2 employee or a 1099 contractor first, because that decides whether employment taxes are withheld. Then enter:

• Full name (required) and home address.
• SSN, last 4 — only the last four digits are stored, and the stub prints the number masked, as XXX-XX-1234.
• Email address and an employee ID, both optional.

5. Fill in W-4 withholding details

For W-2 employees, the Federal Form W-4 section should match the form the employee actually filled in. Choose whether their W-4 is from 2020 or later or 2019 or earlier, because the two versions ask different questions — the newer form uses filing status, dependents, other income, and deductions; the older one uses allowances. Extra withholding per period and the multiple-jobs box apply to both.

The state W-4 fields below it change with the state, since every state asks for something different and some ask for nothing at all. By default they follow the business's state. Switch on Tax by employee's address when the person should be taxed by the state they live in instead, and the state fields follow their home address.

Tip: The withholding details you save here are what the tax calculation uses. If a stub's federal or state tax looks wrong, check this section first.

Common questions

If I edit a business, do my old pay stubs change?

No. A pay stub you've paid for is a finished record of its pay period. Changes to a business or an employee apply to the stubs you create from then on.

Why can't I delete an employee?

An employee who still has pay stubs can't be deleted, so the record behind those stubs stays intact. The message you see explains why. Deleting a business or an employee is permanent, so it's worth doing only for records you created by mistake.

Where do I find the W-4 information?

From the employee's completed Form W-4, and their state withholding form if their state has one. If you don't have the form, ask the employee for it rather than guessing — the withholding on every stub depends on it.

Should a contractor have W-4 details?

No. A 1099 contractor has no employment taxes withheld, so the W-4 sections don't apply. See Create your first pay stub for how contractor stubs differ.

Is my employees' information secure?

Only the last four digits of a Social Security number are stored. For how your data is handled and how to remove it, see Manage your account and data.