The Scenario
You are an HR director. Annual salary reviews wrapped up last week. You have a Google Sheet with 35 employee job UUIDs in column A, their new annual salaries in column B, and the payment unit in column C.
The compensation changes need to be in Gusto before the next payroll run on Friday. Your options are: click through 35 employee profiles in Gusto one at a time, or find a better way.
The slow version:
- Open Gusto
- Find the first employee by searching their UUID or name
- Navigate to their compensation record
- Enter the new rate and payment unit
- Save
- Go back, find the next employee
- Repeat thirty-five times
- Catch a data entry error on employee 22 only when the pay stub comes out wrong
- You spent Tuesday afternoon on HR data entry.
The fast version is one prompt.
The Easy Way: One Prompt in SheetXAI
SheetXAI reads the compensation sheet and updates all 35 Gusto records without you touching the Gusto UI once.
Open the SheetXAI sidebar and type:
Create a new compensation for each job UUID in column A using the rate in column B and payment unit in column C — apply to all 35 rows in Gusto. Write "Updated" or the error into column D for each row.
SheetXAI iterates through all 35 rows, calls Gusto's compensation API for each, and writes a status back into column D. You see which ones succeeded and which ones need attention.
What You Get
Thirty-five Gusto compensation records updated, with a status column in the sheet:
- "Updated" — the new compensation is live in Gusto, effective for the next payroll run
- Error message — if a row had a problem (wrong UUID format, invalid payment unit), you see the specific reason and can fix and re-run just that row
You did not open a single employee profile in Gusto. You typed one prompt and the compensation changes propagated.
The status column is also your audit trail. When payroll asks whether the raises have been entered, you look at column D.
What If the Data Is Not Quite Ready
Post-salary-review sheets are often slightly messy — inconsistent rate formatting, missing FLSA status, different payment units.
When payment units are formatted inconsistently
Some rows have "Annual," some have "annual," some have "Yearly," and one has "per year."
Before updating Gusto compensation records, normalize all payment unit values in column C — treat "Annual," "annual," "Yearly," and "per year" as "Year." Then create a new compensation for each job UUID in column A using the rate in column B and normalized unit. Write "Updated" or error into column D.
When FLSA status needs to be included and is missing from some rows
Your compensation records require FLSA status (exempt or non-exempt) and some rows are blank.
For rows where column D (FLSA status) is blank, infer the status — use "Exempt" for salaried employees (column C = "Year") and "Nonexempt" for hourly employees (column C = "Hour"). Then create a new compensation for each job UUID using rate, payment unit, and inferred or existing FLSA status. Write "Updated" or error into column E.
When some employees received no raise and should be skipped
A few employees in the sheet have the same rate as their current compensation. You do not want to create a new compensation record for them unnecessarily.
For each job UUID in column A, check if the rate in column B is different from the current Gusto compensation. Only create a new compensation record for employees where the rate is changing. Write "Updated," "NO CHANGE — skipped," or the error into column D for each row.
When you need to update compensation and then verify the new rate landed correctly
After pushing the updates, you want to pull the current compensation back from Gusto to confirm the rates match what you sent.
Create a new compensation for each job UUID in column A using rate in column B and payment unit in column C. Write "Updated" or error into column D. Then fetch the current compensation for each job UUID from Gusto and write the confirmed rate and unit into columns E and F. Flag any row where the confirmed rate in column E does not match the submitted rate in column B.
The pattern: the update and the verification happen in one session. You do not push changes and then manually check each record.
Try It
Get the 7-day free trial of SheetXAI and open the sheet with your salary review data, then ask it to push the compensation updates to Gusto. The Gusto integration is included in every SheetXAI plan. For related workflows, see how to export the employee roster for compensation review or the Gusto in Google Sheets overview.