Payroll industry case studies and in-depth client stories
We come from payroll, so it's no surprise that we specialist in the payroll and HCM industry and have the client roster and case studies to prove it. Here is a collection of detailed case studies from our payroll clients.
Commonwealth Payroll & HR
Learn how Commonwealth Payroll & HR partnered with The Gist to migrate from Salesforce to HubSpot, rebuild their iSolved data integration, and create a service operations platform tailored to the real-world workflows of a payroll service bureau.
The team at Commonwealth set out to replace a CRM. What they ended up building was an operational platform — one that reflects how a well-run payroll service bureau actually works, speaks the same language as their clients, and gives them the infrastructure to keep improving how they serve them.
PayDay Employer Solutions
How The Gist helped a growing payroll service bureau replace a patchwork of spreadsheets and forms with a unified HubSpot system built specifically for the way payroll companies operate.
Looking ahead, the opportunity in front of PayDay is an exciting one. With the foundational infrastructure now in place, the focus shifts from building to optimizing. Areas like advanced email nurture sequences for prospects and lapsed clients, automated re-engagement campaigns for closed-lost deals, deeper referral partner analytics, and expanded use of HubSpot's marketing tools for newsletters and client communications are all natural next chapters. These are not gaps to close — they are capabilities that PayDay is now positioned to unlock, on their own timeline and at a pace that works for the business.
ASAP Payroll
ASAP partnered with The Gist on a multi-year inbound marketing retainer and HubSpot implementation engagement. See how they grew their organic search presence, automated their sales and marketing workflows, and positioned their business for scalable growth.
ASAP Payroll is now in a position where the tools are in place, the systems are running, and the team has the knowledge and infrastructure to keep building. That is the goal: not just to deliver a project, but to set up a business to grow on its own terms, at its own pace, with a clear path forward.
Candoor HCM
Candoor partnered with The Gist to migrate from Zoho to HubSpot, building a fully custom CRM tailored to the real workflows of a payroll service bureau — including payroll run tracking, ACH exception management, client segmentation, and automated marketing.
Looking ahead, Candoor is well positioned to continue expanding what they do inside HubSpot at a pace that fits their team's bandwidth. Service objects are being built out to give every active client a structured, queryable record of the services they receive — providing visibility that never existed before. Knowledge base articles are in development to serve as both a client resource and a marketing asset. Email nurture campaigns are being refined. And conversations about deeper iSolved integration continue, with the long-term vision of automating even more of the operational work that the team currently manages manually.
For a payroll company, the measure of a great CRM is simple: does it make the people who work out of it every day faster, more informed, and more confident? By that measure, Candoor is in a fundamentally different place than they were when this engagement began — and the work they have put in positions them to keep growing into it.
The Ahola Corporation
How a payroll company replaced Salesforce, unified sales, implementation, and operations inside HubSpot, and built a CRM that finally works the way their business does — with The Gist.
The next chapter is well underway. A new website, developed by The Gist, is being built natively in HubSpot — ensuring that marketing, web, and CRM are fully integrated from day one. A redesigned quote template is in development, one that will finally present Ahola's pricing the way they invoice, with base fee and per-employee pricing on a single clean line, matching the experience their clients expect. And the ClientSync integration, once fully activated, will mean that Ahola's HubSpot is always in sync with the source of truth in iSolved — eliminating manual imports, reducing data errors, and enabling the kind of automated, segmented client communications that payroll companies have historically lacked the infrastructure to run.
For any payroll company reading this, the story of this engagement is a familiar one: too much data scattered across too many systems, too much manual work holding capable people back, and too much unrealized potential in a CRM that never quite became what it was supposed to be. That's not a software problem. It's an implementation problem — and it's exactly the kind of problem The Gist was built to solve.
Payority
Left behind by a previous HubSpot partner, Payority turned to The Gist. Here's what a complete CRM rebuild looks like for a payroll service bureau.
Payority is positioned to tackle several exciting next chapters on their HubSpot journey — from deeper operational reporting and more sophisticated client segmentation, to exploring integration options that could bring payroll processing data directly into HubSpot and create an even tighter feedback loop between operations and client communication. These are not outstanding items. They are the natural next layer of growth for a company that now has the foundation to support them — and the team knowledge and confidence to pursue them at their own pace.
Paper Trails
How Paper Trails partnered with The Gist to modernize their CRM, fix their technical SEO, and build a scalable inbound marketing system — all inside HubSpot.
The next chapter for Paper Trails is one of refinement and acceleration. There is still meaningful work ahead — deepening their client segmentation, expanding the knowledge base to serve both clients and search engines, building out feedback and NPS programs that connect client health to operational response, and continuing to develop their local SEO presence across New England. These aren't gaps to close so much as opportunities to capitalize on. Paper Trails has built the infrastructure. Now the work is about turning that infrastructure into compounding, measurable growth — more qualified leads arriving through search, a more efficient sales process converting them, and a stronger operational foundation keeping those clients engaged for the long run.
Unify Payroll & CPAs
Learn how a payroll service bureau went from zero CRM infrastructure to a fully operational HubSpot system — with integrated pipelines for sales, implementation, tax notices, and client service.
The foundation that was built is designed to grow. The team can now begin exploring the optimizations that were intentionally deferred in phase one: more sophisticated lead scoring, referral partner tracking, year-end workflow automation, client satisfaction surveys, and the kind of upsell and cross-sell visibility that comes from having all service lines represented in a single record. These are not gaps — they are natural next steps that the business is now positioned to pursue at its own pace, with a system that is already doing the foundational work.
For a payroll company that runs this close to the business of its clients — handling tax compliance, filings, notices, and the kind of relationship work that never really ends — having a CRM that works the way the business works is not a luxury. It is the infrastructure that makes everything else possible.
Client References
Want to actually talk to some people? Great. Find our references here. There are even some non-payroll companies on this list.