Inside Hubstaff Payroll: Providers, Setup, and Q&A From Our Payments Webinar

Payroll looks simple from the outside. Anyone who’s run it manually knows the reality: downloading reports, double-checking spreadsheets, adjusting for holidays, and hoping nothing slipped through.

We hosted a webinar to show how Hubstaff takes that work off your plate, from initial setup to the payment landing in a team member’s local currency. Aubrey Nekvinda, Product Marketing Manager at Hubstaff, moderated the session.

Presenting were Olga Mezhova, Senior Product Manager, and Laura Larrea, Customer Success Manager, with Jean Fin, our customer support expert, fielding the audience Q&A.

You can watch the full recording below or read on for the key takeaways.

How Hubstaff payroll works

Olga opened with the philosophy behind the Payments product: payroll is one of the most underappreciated parts of running a team, and accuracy is non-negotiable. The goal is streamlined payments, accurate numbers, and a clear audit trail, with as simple a process as possible.

That process comes down to four steps. You set up your preferences once, team members track their time, managers approve the timesheets, and the approved time flows straight into payment.

Because every organization runs payroll differently, the system is built to bend around your internal processes:

• International payments. Most Hubstaff customers have team members spread across the world, so the platform integrates with providers chosen for global reach.
• Automated calculations. Tracked hours and pay rates produce payment totals automatically, which removes manual steps and cuts the risk of human error.
• Hourly and fixed rates. Both of the most common pay structures are supported, so contractors and salaried team members can run through the same system.
• Payroll adjustments. One-time or recurring additions and deductions cover bonuses, expense reimbursements, and anything else your payroll needs to reflect.
• Flexible approvals. Timesheet approvals give managers a checkpoint before money moves, with complementary features layered on top.
• Time off and overtime policies. Whatever your internal policy looks like, you can build it in Hubstaff and pay out well-earned paid time off through the same flow.

Choosing a payment provider

Hubstaff connects to several payment providers, and Olga walked through where each one fits:

• Wise. The closest partnership of the group, chosen for transparent fees, a wide partner network, fast and cheap transfers, and reliability. Hubstaff also negotiated privileged pricing, so some fee types are waived when you pay through the Wise integration.
• Payoneer. The alternative for more challenging banking markets, including parts of Latin America and the Middle East, with fees well below PayPal.
• PayPal. Best reserved for one-off payments or markets where nothing else works.
• Bitwage. For crypto-native teams, and a useful option in difficult banking regions or for team members who simply prefer to receive earnings in crypto.

Wise works especially well for stable banking regions like the Philippines, where many customers’ team members are based.

Deel and Gusto sit in a different category as human resource information system partners. 

Integrating them lets you consolidate team member data in one place while Hubstaff feeds in tracked time, and the panel’s recommendation was Deel for pay-as-you-go contractors and Gusto for W-2 employees.

Two payment features worth a closer look

Olga gave extra attention to two features in the Payments product:

• Proof of payment. An official earnings record is emailed to team members after each payroll run, which they can present to banks, tax authorities, and other institutions.
• The individual payment page. The page combines an at-a-glance summary with a full breakdown of how each payment was calculated and what earnings it includes, along with the full history of payments made through Hubstaff.

Setting up payroll, step by step

Laura ran a live walkthrough of the setup, and she grounded it in a recent customer story. An account with over 200 employees had been downloading hours from Hubstaff, calculating totals in Excel, and entering payments one by one in Wise.

Payments landed inconsistently, some on Friday and some the following Monday, and the friction was felt across the team. With automated payroll, every payment is now processed together, one time, every time.

Her walkthrough covered three prerequisites: a payroll business account with your chosen provider, a pay rate for each team member, and an active account for each member with that same provider. From there, the setup runs through four areas:

• Member payment settings. Each team member needs an hourly or fixed rate plus a pay period that matches how often you pay, whether weekly or monthly.
• Timesheet approvals. This setting is optional, and Laura strongly recommends it. Members submit their timesheets, which confirms they consider the hours accurate, and a manager approves before payment.
• Payment settings. Choose automatic or manual payments and set a payroll delay, so a Monday-to-Sunday timesheet with a two-day delay pays out on Tuesday. The proof of payment toggle lives here, too.
• The “Manage payroll” page. Add each member here with their provider details and preferred payout currency, and the page shows pay information, the next scheduled payment, and what the last one looked like.

Bonuses, deductions, and paid time off

Payroll adjustments drew the most audience interest. The feature adds one-time or recurring line items to a payroll run, covering bonuses, insurance deductions, or loan repayments, and everything lands in the same transaction as the timesheet payment.

Laura shared another customer example: a company paying monthly bonuses to more than a thousand employees, previously handled through hours of manual work and a pile of separate transactions. Adjustments collapsed all of it into the regular payroll run.

One more setting rounds out a complete payroll: time off and holiday policies. Syncing calendar events alone won’t make time off payable, so build the policy in Hubstaff and the paid hours flow onto timesheets automatically.

From the Q&A: Coverage, schedules, and edge cases

Jean and the panel closed with a live Q&A. The highlights:

Can you run semi-monthly payroll?

Two pay periods come close. Twice per month runs the 1st through the 15th and the 16th through the end of the month on fixed dates, while bi-weekly runs every two weeks from a start date you choose.

Can team members get paid in their local currency?

Yes. A US company can fund payroll in US dollars, and Wise converts automatically on arrival, so a contractor in the Philippines receives pesos without anyone touching an exchange rate.

Do idle time and unusual activity affect pay?

There’s no automatic link, and Jean recommends reviewing flags before sending payment.

Unusual activity alerts carry confidence ratings you can inspect, and idle time behavior depends on your setting: let the member decide, discard it always, or keep it always.

Team members can see the same activity and idle-time data you’re reviewing, so nothing flagged is hidden from them.

To audit past periods, filter the timesheets or Activity page by activity percentage and remove any time that shouldn’t be paid.

Ready to automate your payroll?

If you want to see how Hubstaff payroll fits your setup, book a call with our team and we’ll walk you through it.