Justworks' COVID-19 Product Response

As the global COVID-19 situation continues to unfold, helping our customers took on a new meaning and purpose at Justworks. Our priorities have quickly shifted, and our focus is to ensure you can quickly and confidently access the information and support you need to take care of your business and team.

Over the past few weeks, Justworks’ Product and Engineering teams have been rapidly building and iterating new features to help you understand and access critical government relief programs.

COVID Relief Center

News and information about COVID-19 spreads rapidly and changes daily. It can be difficult to understand the complexities of government relief programs like the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA). To digest and navigate these government relief programs, we built a dynamic relief center in Justworks for you to quickly access the help your business needs.

The COVID-19 relief center guides you through the process of accessing government relief programs and understanding what programs your business is eligible for. It explains each relief effort in detail to help you understand and pursue the aid that makes the most sense for your situation.

We update the COVID-19 relief center as we receive new information from the government and continue to build new features to help you understand what options are available to your business.

Families First Coronavirus Response Act

Effective April 1, 2020, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) requires covered employers to provide eligible employees with paid leave for certain qualifying reasons related to COVID-19 and allows employers to claim payroll tax credits to cover the cost of providing the required leave. The FFCRA provides Emergency Paid Sick Leave and Emergency Family and Medical Leave so that employees can take care of personal or family health needs caused by COVID-19.

Claim Applicable Tax Credits and Comply with New Leave Laws

We built a new leave tool that allows you to place qualified employees on FFCRA leave and claim the applicable tax credits. With a few clicks, you can record an employee’s FFCRA leave, and Justworks will then automatically calculate the appropriate payment amount for the employee and the tax credit for the company. The FFCRA leave tool also enables you to top-up an employee’s FFCRA leave pay to 100% of the employee’s regular wages if desired.

To make your life a little easier, we also directly distributed the Department of Labor’s required notice on the FFCRA to your employees via email (employees can also find this notice in their ‘Documents’ in Justworks).

The FFCRA leave tool is designed to help your company take advantage of payroll tax credits that may be available to your business for qualifying leave. The feature helps you quickly understand leave eligibility requirements and confidently accommodate FFCRA leave for eligible employees. With this new feature, our hope is that you can help your employees take care of themselves and their families and adhere to critical public health measures.

The CARES Act

Signed into law on March 27, 2020, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act is designed to help employers keep their employees on payroll. There are a number of relief options available under the CARES Act, including the Paycheck Protection Program, Social Security Tax Deferral, and Employee Retention Credit. Justworks helps you access these relief options with features in our COVID-19 relief center.

Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) Report & PEO Letter for Applications

The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) enables eligible small businesses to access loans to cover certain payroll costs incurred between February 15, 2020 and June 30, 2020. Businesses applying for the loan are required to report their average monthly payroll costs as part of the application.

To assist with loan applications, Justworks built a new Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) report to make it easier for you to calculate your average monthly payroll (AMP) costs and maximum loan amount under the PPP. The report automatically excludes “payroll costs” not considered eligible by the Small Business Administration (SBA) and gives you the ability to output total payroll costs for three different time periods.

To strengthen loan applications, and in lieu of submitting Form 941 (which Justworks files in aggregate), we’ve built a customized, downloadable letter that describes the relationship between your business and Justworks (and our status as your PEO) that can be provided to lenders for the purpose of securing a PPP loan.

The PPP report and PEO letter combined can help boster loan documentation for lenders when applying for a loan.

Social Security Tax Deferral

In addition to the PPP, eligible businesses have the ability to defer employer-paid Social Security taxes from March 27, 2020 until December 31, 2020 under the CARES Act. It should be noted that if you receive a final decision from your lender that your PPP loan is forgiven, you will become ineligible to continue deferring payment of Social Security taxes after the date of the decision. For more information, see our help article.

In the Justworks COVID-19 relief center, you can learn more about this program, as well as directly opt-in to the tax deferral program. Integrated directly with payroll, once opted in, the feature allows you to defer employer-paid Social Security taxes as soon as your next payroll cycle.

Looking Ahead

We know how important it is to have the most accurate, up-to-date information at your fingertips, and we’re dedicated to continually providing the tools and resources you need to navigate COVID-19. We’re embracing our values of camaraderie, openness, grit, integrity, and simplicity to deliver the most reliable set of COVID tools, resources, and support out there. We’re in this together.

As features and information about COVID-19 are released, our goal is to provide clear and timely communications to you. We’re here 24/7 should you have any questions, and our COVID-19 Resource Center has information to help you and your team navigate this time.