For payroll companies

Every client’s payroll, benefits and compliance, in one system

PEOs and domestic EORs, ASOs and payroll bureaus, and CPA payroll practices do much of the same work under different employer models. Stratum runs all of them on one platform, so you get the full suite whatever your model, or you keep your payroll system and add the piece it’s missing.

PEOs & domestic EORsASOs & payroll bureausCPA payroll practicesStaying on PrismHR or isolved

Whatever your model

The whole platform, for every client

Every payroll company gets the same suite. There’s nothing to unlock module by module.

  • Each client’s data separated at the database level
  • A portal for every client’s HR admin, and a web and mobile app for employees
  • Your name, logo and colors everywhere your clients look, pay stubs included
  • Import tools for ADP, Paychex, Gusto, Workday, Rippling, QuickBooks and BambooHR
  • A flat annual price by size band, with no per-employee meter
PEOs & domestic EORs

Co-employment, end to end, in one system

Stratum was designed inside a PEO. Payroll, the benefits catalog, the workers’ comp program and client service share one set of data, so an election, a rate change or a termination moves through every module without anyone re-keying it. A domestic employer of record does the same co-employment work and runs on exactly the same platform, with EOR clients labelled as their own model in your reporting.

See pricingPlatform feature reference (PDF)
  • Workers’ comp class codes, carrier rates and experience mods, with premium from actual wages every payroll
  • One plan catalog and enrollment window for every client, with carrier invoices reconciled against elections
  • Multi-state payroll, reciprocity agreements and local taxes for a dispersed workforce
  • Sales pipeline with census-based quoting, and a won deal that becomes a client setup without retyping the census
  • Leave plans tested against state law at setup, and FMLA, PFML and military leave routed for review
  • Offboarding as one case: final pay, benefits termination, carrier notice, COBRA and access removal
ASOs & payroll bureaus

Run payroll for clients who stay the employer

On the ASO model each client remains the employer of record, files under its own EIN and keeps its own workers’ comp and health policies. Stratum handles the payroll, benefits administration and HR around it, client by client.

See pricingStratum vs. isolved (PDF)
  • Bulk conversion: one client-list file sets up every client in its own separated space
  • A per-client import with mid-year year-to-date carry-forward, checked by a shadow run before go-live
  • Carrier enrollment files, COBRA notices and claims paperwork handled per client
  • Every module included, with no per-module fees
CPA payroll practices

Offer full-service payroll to your clients

CPA and accounting firms run payroll on the same ASO platform: your clients stay the employer, and your team works the whole book from one console for payroll, benefits administration and HR cases.

See pricingBrief for CPA & accounting firms (PDF)
  • A Gusto connector that pulls a client’s history and recomputes a past pay period to the penny before you switch
  • An accountant role that sees payroll, the general ledger, tax and invoices, without employee personal data
  • A general-ledger file for each payroll that imports into QuickBooks Online, Xero and most ledgers
  • Priced on the ASO & CPA list, by employees administered

The platform

One system for everything you run

Payroll, benefits, workers’ comp, onboarding, leave compliance and client service share one set of data, so nothing is keyed twice and every module checks the work as it’s entered.

Payroll & tax

All 50 states, calculated to the cent, on a tax engine we own.

Stratum’s payroll and tax engine is built in-house, with no third-party payroll core to license or wait on. It handles multi-state workers, local taxes and the overtime rules that trip up generic systems.

  • Federal, state and local withholding across all 50 states and D.C.
  • Multi-state workers, reciprocity agreements and local taxes, including Pennsylvania locals, NYC and Ohio
  • Garnishments, ACH payment files, and a general-ledger file for each payroll that imports into QuickBooks Online, Xero and most ledgers
  • Each employee’s pay compared with their own history before the run can be approved

What it catches

Pay that jumps sharply from an employee’s history, missed California meal-break premiums, and overtime rates that leave out a bonus.

Watch the payroll tour
Benefits & COBRA

Enrollment to COBRA, without middleware.

An employee’s election drives the payroll deduction and the carrier enrollment file directly, so nobody re-keys it. COBRA deadlines are calculated from the qualifying event, and notices are generated from the Department of Labor model.

  • Open enrollment and qualifying life events
  • EDI 834 enrollment files straight to your carriers, once your carrier connections are set up
  • COBRA election notices and deadline tracking
  • Carrier invoices reconciled against active elections

What it catches

Elections submitted outside an enrollment window, and carrier bills for people who aren’t enrolled.

Watch the benefits tour
Workers’ compensation

Workers’ comp, wired straight into payroll.

Premium is calculated from actual wages on every payroll, rated in each work state under the policy in force, so the annual audit has far less to surprise anyone with.

  • Class codes by employee and work state, rated from the rate table you load
  • Experience-mod tracking and year-to-date premium by client
  • Injury reports and claims tracked through closure, with OSHA logs built from them
  • Audit-prep worksheets with the payroll detail a carrier auditor asks for

What it catches

Retroactive payroll changes that alter a client’s exposure, flagged for review.

Onboarding & offboarding

From offer letter to final paycheck.

Guided checklists take each new hire and each new client through every required step, and take departures through separation with the right notices for the state.

  • I-9 with optional AI document reading, and E-Verify cases submitted once your company’s own E-Verify enrollment is connected
  • State-specific separation notices for the 28 states that require one, and final pay prepared from live data
  • Rehires matched to their earlier employment records
  • Import tools for ADP, Paychex, Gusto, Workday, Rippling, QuickBooks and BambooHR

What it catches

I-9 reverification coming due, scheduled before an employee’s work authorization expires.

Watch the onboarding tour
Leave & compliance

Leave plans checked against state law before anyone is affected.

Every client leave plan is tested against state minimums when it’s saved, so a misconfiguration is caught at setup, not in an audit. FMLA, paid family, parental and military leave go to a review queue, because the system knows what it can decide and what a person must.

  • Accrual, carryover, payout and eligibility rules validated against state minimums
  • California’s unlimited-PTO pitfall detected automatically
  • Employee requests and balances, with manager approval
  • EEO-1, WARN Act, state new-hire report files, ACA forms and W-2s

What it catches

Sick-leave plans below a state’s minimum, flagged when the plan is saved.

Watch the time-off tour
Service desk & CRM

Client service and sales in the same system as the payroll.

Client cases, deadlines and the sales pipeline are part of the platform, not a separate product. A won deal becomes a client setup without retyping the census.

  • Cases across HR, benefits, payroll and compliance, with deadline tracking and escalation
  • Duplicate cases detected and merged
  • Sales pipeline with census-based quoting
  • Inbound calls logged to the case record

What it catches

Cases that miss their deadline, flagged every hour and escalated under your own rules.

Watch the presales tour
AI assistance

AI that does the busywork, and asks before it acts.

AI is part of the core platform, not a marketplace add-on, and it is optional: it stays off until you add a key for an AI model provider. Employees get answers about pay, time off and benefits from your own policies, and any action the assistant takes needs their confirmation first.

  • Employee assistant on the web and the mobile app
  • Case triage and drafted replies for your service team
  • I-9 documents read and checked for you, with a switch to keep I-9 images off the AI and enter them by hand
  • Connect your own AI tools to your data with read-only, revocable access

What it catches

Any action the assistant proposes, held until the employee confirms it.

Reporting

Your data, in the shape you need it.

A report builder covers payroll, HR, benefits and service data, with scheduled delivery and client self-service access to their own reports.

  • Custom reports and dashboards without writing queries
  • Sensitive personal data kept out of exports by default
  • Scheduled delivery to the right people
  • Clients see their own data, and only their own

What it catches

Scheduled reports going to someone whose access was removed after the schedule was set.

Security

Your environment, open to your own security review.

Stratum runs on your infrastructure, so your security team can review the system itself rather than a vendor’s attestation. Client data goes only to the outside services you connect: your bank, benefit carriers, tax-filing provider, E-Verify, and mail, email and text-message services. AI features are optional; once you turn them on, the text or document each one works on, including an I-9 document image, is sent to the AI model provider you set up. Stratum itself receives a once-a-day license check-in: an anonymous install fingerprint, the number of companies set up and the license status, never client or employee data. It is on by default and can be switched off in your configuration. Error reports reach Stratum only if you turn them on, with emails, Social Security numbers and account numbers stripped out first.

  • Each client’s data separated at the database level
  • Sensitive personal data encrypted at rest
  • Multi-factor sign-in required for privileged staff, and single sign-on
  • Every change to data recorded in a permanent audit log

What it catches

Queries that skip a client boundary, which return nothing rather than another client’s data.

Connects to the systems you already run

Connectors for the HR, hiring, time, chat and accounting tools below, single sign-on with your identity provider, and import tools for seven common payroll and HR systems, so switching doesn’t mean starting from a blank slate. New hires arrive from your hiring system as they happen; time, BambooHR and QuickBooks syncs run when you choose. Because Stratum runs in your environment, it can also be integrated with your own internal systems.

Greenhouse
Lever
Deputy
Clockify
Slack
Microsoft Teams
QuickBooks Online
BambooHR

Bolt-ons

Staying on PrismHR or isolved? Add what it’s missing.

Not every start needs a payroll switch. Four Stratum products run on their own, on top of the system you run payroll in today. Start with the piece you need now, and move the rest over if and when you’re ready.

  • Runs on its own, alongside the PrismHR or isolved system you already have
  • Reads from your payroll system, so there is nothing to re-key and no payroll migration
  • One install can serve clients on both PrismHR and isolved
  • Licensed product by product, and installed with only the services that product needs
  • Like the full platform, it runs on infrastructure you own
  • The PrismHR and isolved connections are built from their published documentation and haven’t yet run against a live PrismHR or isolved system

Termination checks

Every termination checked against the law, before the deadline passes.

Built for

PEOs and payroll bureaus running payroll in PrismHR or isolved

Pricing

On request. Ask us

  • Each termination read from your payroll system opens an offboarding case with its checks
  • Final pay: the net amount, the state deadline for all 50 states and D.C., the daily waiting-time penalty and whether an off-cycle check is needed
  • Separation notices: whether the state requires one, with the form, the deadline and a ready PDF
  • WARN and state mini-WARN headcount checks per site, with notice deadlines
  • COBRA eligibility checks and the Department of Labor model election notice
  • One queue of terminations, most urgent first, feeding a compliance calendar

On isolved, PTO payout and benefit-coverage data aren’t available to the checks.

Compliance suite

The compliance layer your payroll system doesn’t have.

Built for

PEOs whose payroll, benefits and PTO stay in PrismHR

Pricing

On request. Ask us

  • Everything in Termination checks
  • FMLA eligibility and usage from hours worked, and leave requests checked against it
  • State paid-sick-leave plan minimums
  • ACA: employer status, monthly full-time status and a review of 1095-C lines 14–16
  • I-9, E-Verify and reverification deadlines
  • Multi-state reciprocity, garnishment limits, OSHA logs, new-hire reporting and EEO-1
  • One escalating compliance calendar; a check that’s missing data says so instead of passing

On isolved, the FMLA, sick-leave, ACA and garnishment checks aren’t available.

Case management

Client service that knows what just happened in payroll.

Built for

PEOs running payroll in PrismHR

Pricing

On request. Ask us

  • Cases, queues, SLAs, escalation, workflows and satisfaction surveys, with phone and email intake
  • Clients, employees and contacts kept in sync from your payroll system
  • Hires, terminations, pay-rate changes, job changes and leave starts open cases automatically
  • A client support portal with per-client invites or single sign-on, removed automatically on termination
  • Renewal cases 90 days before a contract ends, and a retention-risk score for every client

Prospect Radar

Prospect lists mined from public filings, not rented from a data vendor.

Built for

Sales teams at PEOs, payroll bureaus and staffing agencies

Pricing

On request. Ask us

  • Scored prospects from public government data, including Form 5500, OSHA 300A, WARN notices and Form 990
  • A 0–100 fit score that’s the same every time for the same data, rescored daily
  • A PEO-fit profile, and a staffing profile for companies likely to buy from an agency
  • Coverage views and filtered exports, capped by role
  • The national dataset delivered by Stratum as signed data releases
  • Optional AI write-ups on a prospect, with your own AI provider key

How it works

From first look to live, without betting the business

Switching payroll platforms is the decision operators put off longest. So you see your own payroll run on Stratum, to the cent, before you commit to anything.

  1. 01

    See it configured for your business

    A live environment set up for your business and your size. The product, not slides, and every early conversation is with the founder.

    Or start with a short tour
    • A walkthrough built around how you operate today
    • Your employer model: PEO or domestic EOR, ASO or payroll bureau, or CPA practice
    • Pricing, implementation and founding-partner terms, in the same conversation
  2. 02

    Pilot in parallel, on your own payrolls

    Run Stratum alongside your current system on real payrolls. Nothing changes for your clients until you decide to switch, and nothing is billed during the pilot.

    • Every tax on every paycheck compared with your current provider, to the cent
    • You keep the comparison report, whatever you decide
    • The subscription starts only when you choose to make Stratum your platform
  3. 03

    Implement with the people who built it

    Implementation is a one-time fee, scoped and priced before you commit. The range depends mostly on how much data we migrate.

    • Data migration, with import tools for ADP, Paychex, Gusto, Workday, Rippling, QuickBooks and BambooHR
    • Mid-year switches with year-to-date history carried forward
    • Configuration to your workflows, and white-labeling with your name, logo and colors
    • Your book checked against our local-tax coverage before the subscription starts

    Implementation fee

    PEO & domestic EOR$40,000–$100,000
    ASO & CPA firms$15,000–$40,000
  4. 04

    Go live with a warranty behind you

    Break-fixes are covered for 90 days from go-live sign-off. After that, customization and enhancements are billed by the hour, on your schedule.

    • Federal and state tax table and compliance updates stay included in the subscription
    • Customization and support at $225 an hour after the warranty
    • A flat annual price that changes only at renewal, never with a single new hire
  5. 05

    Run it your way

    Either way, Stratum runs on infrastructure you own and holds only your data.

    Compare the two options on pricing
    • Self-operated: your team runs it on your own servers or cloud account and applies our releases, for the license price
    • Stratum-operated: it runs in your own cloud account and we apply tax, security and version updates, for the license plus an operations fee
    • Your own security team can review the system itself, not a vendor’s attestation

After go-live

Your operations team, before and after

Same people, same clients. The work that adds nothing is gone.

Before Stratum

  • Re-key each benefit election into payroll and again into the carrier’s file
  • Reconcile carrier invoices against elections by hand, every month
  • Find out a leave plan was below a state minimum during an audit
  • Assemble final pay, COBRA deadlines and separation notices by hand
  • Pay more for your platform with every client you sign

With Stratum

  • An election drives the payroll deduction and the carrier enrollment file directly
  • Invoices matched to elections, with only the differences sent to a person
  • Leave plans tested against state law the moment they’re saved
  • Final pay, COBRA deadlines and notices prepared from live data
  • A flat annual price that changes only at renewal

Proof

How we prove it

The claims on this page are backed by a standing test program, documented in our quality and reliability brief, available on request.

Tested to the cent

Every state’s withholding is pinned by exact-value tests against published tables. A tax update that changes a result can’t ship unnoticed.

Checked against real wage data

The tax engine’s coverage has been checked against hundreds of thousands of public wage records from employers across every state.

Client separation, tested continuously

Automated tests confirm that one client can never see another client’s data.

Recovery rehearsed

A full restore from backup is rehearsed against a populated database, with a measured recovery time.

The best proof is your own payroll

Run Stratum alongside your current provider and compare every tax on every paycheck to the cent. You keep the comparison report either way.

Ask about a parallel run

Looking at the cost side? See what flat pricing means for a growing PEO.

Common questions

Can we serve PEO and ASO clients from one installation?+
Yes. Each client is set up under its own employer model (PEO, ASO, domestic EOR or staffing), so co-employment and administrative-services clients can sit side by side, each separated from the others.
Is a domestic EOR any different from a PEO on Stratum?+
No. An EOR client runs on exactly the same payroll, tax filing, benefits, workers’ comp and payment paths as a PEO client, and is priced on the same list. The only differences are a label in your reporting and the wording your employees see, such as “your employer of record” instead of “your PEO”.
Do we have to switch everything at once?+
No. Stratum runs alongside your current system on real payrolls first. Nothing changes for your clients until you decide to switch, and nothing is billed during the pilot. If you’re staying on PrismHR or isolved, a bolt-on adds one product without a payroll switch at all.
What can we migrate from?+
There are import tools for ADP, Paychex, Gusto, Workday, Rippling, QuickBooks and BambooHR, and mid-year switches carry year-to-date history forward. CPA firms moving clients off Gusto get a connector that recomputes a past pay period to the penny before the switch.
Is local tax included?+
Local income and occupational taxes are built in for 826 jurisdictions. A few, like Pennsylvania’s boroughs, townships and school districts and Kentucky’s smaller city taxes, need a local-tax provider you license directly, which Stratum connects to. We check your book against our coverage before your subscription starts.
Where does it run, and who holds our clients’ data?+
Stratum runs on your own servers or in your own cloud account, so the data stays yours. Your team can run it, or Stratum can operate it in your account under a service agreement.
Can we license only some modules?+
The platform is licensed as one suite so payroll, benefits, workers’ comp and compliance always work together. The bolt-ons are the exception: each is licensed on its own, alongside PrismHR or isolved.

See it configured for your model

We’ll walk you through a live environment set up for your employer model and your size.

Request a demoWatch the tours