Our story

The leading payroll tax compliance infrastucture for employers, onboarding and payroll platforms, powering the paychecks of 64 million+ employees

Our mission

Symmetry is on a mission to power innovation in people tech. We do it by solving complex payroll compliance challenges across the employee lifecycle through modern technology.

Our vision

Symmetry provides payroll compliance infrastructure for all people tech, so they can conquer employers’ evolving challenges with complete confidence in their tax compliance.

Our promise

We never settle for less than the gold standard as the most accurate payroll compliance. We love building payroll tax infrastructure, so our clients can deliver the best payroll products.

Meet Symmetry

Founded in 1984 by self-taught coder Tom Reahard, Symmetry stands as the second oldest software company in the greater Phoenix valley—a testament to resilience and innovation.

Starting with a pioneering payroll system, Symmetry has spent over 40 years shaping payroll tax technology relied upon by hundreds of thousands of businesses and millions of employees. In 2021, Symmetry became part of Gusto. Symmetry remains committed to its vision of the paycheck as a foundation for a better life, using innovative, technology-first solutions to help clients achieve seamless payroll tax compliance.

Our leadership

Elizabeth Oviedo, CEO of Symmetry
Chief Executive Officer

Elizabeth Oviedo

LinkedIn
“Symmetry has become the backbone of U.S. payroll, and it’s a massive responsibility—but it’s one that we love. More than 64 million U.S. workers rely on our technology to receive their paychecks accurately, and our duty to them drives us forward.”

A skilled leader with a strong background in finance, marketing, education, and strategic growth. Her career began with Teach For America, teaching 1st grade in Arizona, and quickly advancing to Director of Data Manager in Phoenix.

In 2012, Elizabeth joined Symmetry as Marketing Manager, enhancing brand awareness and market expansion, leading to her promotion as Symmetry’s Chief Strategy Officer in 2016. She earned an MBA and a MS in Information Management from Arizona State University.

In her current role, Elizabeth has been pivotal in boosting Symmetry's market presence and growth, positioning the company as a technology leader in payroll compliance.

The Symmetry difference

  • The Right Taxes, the First Time®

    We solve the underlying tax problems plaguing service providers and employers, delivering on our brand promise.

  • Consistency, completeness, and speed

    One source for payroll technology APIs that are consistently designed, enabling developers to integrate with products that work and deliver accurate payroll quickly.

  • Flexibility

    No “one size fits all” approach — Developers and tax teams can run their payroll according to their preferences, interpretations, and quirks.

  • Tax resources and peace of mind

    Symmetry’s expertise in tax compliance and our product and tax resources underlies our “trusted advisor” position.

  • The Symmetry Ecosystem

    Clients benefit from Symmetry’s payroll provider ecosystem powering taxation in every corner of America (and Canada.)

Our milestones

Since 1984, Symmetry has focused on our connections and partnerships with clients as our products have become more innovative and dependable with every step of our journey.

  1. 1984
    Tom Reahard starts Teknon Corporation
  2. 1989
    Teknon purchases Symmetry, a small Macintosh Independent Software Vendor (ISV)

    Symmetry develops and sells a Macintosh outliner in Japan through its exclusive distributor, Polaroid Computing. This outlining product, known as Acta, is often in the top ten business products in the Japanese market.

  1. 1995
    NetPayPlus, the original paycheck calculator, launches in disk form
  2. 1995
    Symmetry opens a European development office in Bratislava, Slovakia
  3. 1996
    Symmetry makes the tax resources behind our products freely available on Payroll-Taxes.com

    Payroll-taxes.com held the number one organic listing on Google search for a decade.

  4. 1997
    Symmetry launches The Tax Table Library (TTL)

    TTL allows companies to calculate payroll taxes with their own software applications. The TTL is precursor to the Symmetry Tax Engine®. Symmetry still has original TTL clients who have spent over 20 years building their products on the strength of Symmetry.

  1. 2000
    Symmetry retires the NetPayPlus calculators and launches PaycheckCity.com, making the paycheck calculators available for free
  2. 2001
    Private-label calculators begin to sell

    PaycheckCity users begin to call in wanting to customize the look, navigation, and content of the calculators for their employee self-service portals. Symmetry develops specialty calculators for pay conversion, dual-scenario, final pay, tip calculators, and more.

  3. 2003
    Symmetry debuts the Employee Exemption Certificate Software Development Kit (EEC SDK) and website StateW4.com

    The first client for the EEC is Walmart whereby Walmart associates all onboard to Walmart using Symmetry’s forms.

  4. 2004
    Symmetry celebrates 20 years of business!
  5. 2006
    The Symmetry Tax Engine® is unveiled

    A major feature enhancement from the TTL includes the ability to do multi-state calculations, a must-have for payroll service providers processing payroll across the country.

  6. 2007
    The Phoenix Business Journal features “Code Warrior,” Tom Reahard
  7. 2009
    Tom Reahard starts and runs “Calculators for Kids”

    For over eight years, Symmetry donates thousands of scientific graphing calculators to Arizona Title 1 schools.

  1. 2010
    Symmetry Payroll Point launches

    Symmetry creates a tool that identifies local taxes based on the exact latitude and longitude coordinates of home and work addresses.

  2. 2011
    Payroll Point Web Service launches

    Payroll Point allows integration directly into your application via XML.

  3. 2013
    Symmetry Payroll Forms launches

    Symmetry Payroll Forms replaces the EEC SDK. A Hosted version launches shortly afterwards.

  4. 2013
    Symmetry is a finalist for the W.P. Carey Spirit of Enterprise Awards

    The annual awards recognize Arizona-based companies for ethics, energy, and excellence in entrepreneurship.

  5. 2016
    Calculators by Symmetry launches

    Symmetry redesigns its paycheck calculators and rebrands PaycheckCity private-label calculators as Calculators by Symmetry.

  6. 2017
    PaycheckCity Profiles launches

    Fulfilling long-standing user requests such as the ability to save employee profiles and calculations.

  7. 2017
    Tom Reahard is awarded the Lou Grubbs Friends Fore Golf Spirit Award
  8. 2019
    The Symmetry Tax Engine 2 launches

    Simplifying the methods to call the tax engine and increasing security features. Both an on-premise SDK and Hosted Web API version are launched.

  9. 2019
    PaycheckCity expands website

    More payroll and small-business resources are added, combining StateW4.com and Payroll-taxes.com into one resource for payroll tax research and paycheck calculators.

  1. 2020
    PaycheckCity Profiles becomes PaycheckCity Payroll

    The self-service payroll app is redesigned and has more payroll features added including a new onboarding experience.

  2. 2020
    A new symmetry.com launches

    Bringing with it a wealth of additional resources to existing and prospective Symmetry clients.

  3. 2020
    Symmetry launches Canadian Symmetry Tax Engine

    Symmetry Tax Engine® expands support to Canada.

  4. 2021
    Symmetry names Elizabeth Oviedo as Chief Executive Officer

    Founder and CEO Tom Reahard Transitions to Chairman. Elizabeth previously held the Chief Strategy Officer position and is the second CEO to be announced in the over 37 years of Symmetry's history.

  5. 2021
    Symmetry named as one of Inc.'s 2021 Best Workplaces
  6. 2021
    Symmetry joins Gusto

    To continue our mission to ensure that employee paychecks have the right taxes the first time.

  7. 2021
    Symmetry announces new UI & API for Symmetry Payroll Point
  8. 2022
    Symmetry launches Symmetry Select

    Which provides clients with a dedicated Symmetry Relationship Manager as a single point of contact for oversight of key client strategic initiatives.

  9. 2022
    Symmetry launches Webhooks by Symmetry

    Webhooks by Symmetry allows clients to create custom webhooks for their application to stay in sync with payroll tax updates from the Symmetry Tax Engine API

  10. 2023
    Symmetry launches Canadian Symmetry Payroll Forms

    Symmetry Payroll Forms expands support to Canada.

  11. 2024
    Symmetry rebrands with a refreshed new logo and website

    Read about Symmetry's brand evolution for the people tech era.

Our memberships

Symmetry stays active in the payroll community so that we can be notified of all significant events as soon as possible. We also enjoy contributing to these organizations by sponsoring different events.

Symmetry gives back

At Symmetry, we enjoy giving back to the community. From our yearly donation programs, like Operation Christmas Child, Feed My Starving Children, United Food Bank, local fundraisers like Lou Grubb Friends Fore Golf, and other programs bring to our attention. We encourage our employees to bring these programs and fundraisers to our attention.

Symmetry office participating in a food drive for United Food Bank

Meet the Symmetry family

Since 1984, Symmetry has turned some of our resources into their own stand‑alone brands.

Symmetry mascot Buttons the Calculator

Buttons

We couldn’t do any of this without the trusty calculator; therefore, we decided to make a calculator our Symmetry Mascot and name him Buttons. Buttons’ role in the company has increased throughout the years; for example, he recently became the face of our chatbot for symmetry.com. We have many more plans for Buttons, so stay tuned.

PaycheckCity is your destination for paycheck calculators, tax research, and running payroll.

PaycheckCity

In 2000, we launched PaycheckCity.com to provide free calculators to small businesses, payroll professionals, and employees. In 2019, PaycheckCity users ran over 15 million calculations. To better assist our small business payroll professionals, PaycheckCity expanded to PaycheckCity Payroll where we host our tax resources previously found on the website Payroll-Taxes.com.

Payroll Goddess honors all of the amazing female payroll professionals that power payroll at Symmetry’s client organizations

Payroll Goddess

We enjoy providing fun gifts for attendees who pass by our trade show booths to honor all of the amazing female payroll professionals. We appreciate all of your hard work and believe you are true goddesses. We also have created Payroll Titan giveaway items for our booth to honor all the amazing male payroll professionals! If you don’t have a Payroll Goddess blinky badge or Payroll Titan pin, catch us at our next trade show to pick up your own!

  • Buttons visits Las Vegas
  • Buttons in Patagonia
  • Buttons in Salt Lake City
  • Buttons at the White House
  • Buttons in Italy
  • Buttons at a conference