Payroll week looks different at a design firm. The installer who worked four days last month, the junior who split time across three projects, the contractor who wrapped up and moved on, all of it has to land correctly before Friday. September’s release went after that week.

Payroll built for contractor-only firms

A firm with no W-2 employees now has its own path through Studio Payroll, and setup adjusts on its own whether you’re starting fresh or already running Gusto. You get a single simplified menu for managing status and pay and none of the settings built for employees you don’t have.

There’s no pay schedule to configure either, because contractor payments happen when the work does. Just activate, pay, and deactivate a contractor without leaving Studio Designer.

Workers’ compensation, handled

Firms on Studio Payroll can now set up man manage workers’ comp insurance inside Studio Designer. A short guided enrollment gets you a quote on the spot.

Employee information carries over automatically instead of being reentered, and that same screen is where you update coverage and handle employee changes later. After every payroll run, payments post themselves to your Payables account, so workers’ comp sits alongside the rest of your payroll activity rather than in someone’s inbox.

Rendering Studio: Change one thing, keep everything else

Refine mode gives Designers targeted control over a concept. Swap a sofa or a chandelier, or remove a piece with nothing in its place. The rest of the room, including anything a client has already signed off on, stays exactly as it was. Queue up several changes and generate once, then keep refining from each new version without losing your way back to the original.

Other Improvements

Quebec firms get proper GST and QST handling this month as well, kept separate across tax settings, documents, and reports.

Less time managing the platform means more time designing.