The infrastructure for software and payroll platforms powering the paychecks of over 64M workers.
Our Mission
To reach every American paycheck with accurate withholding and accelerate compliance with a technology-first approach to payroll taxes. In other words, to help you get “the right taxes the first time®.”
Our Promise
With nearly 40 years of expertise in tax compliance, Symmetry Software will deliver efficient and dependable solutions as well as experienced and friendly customer service.
Our Vision
Create payroll technology to solve tax compliance issues and build applications across the entirety of the payroll process. Powered by deep tax compliance relationships enabled by technology.
Modern technology that
developers love + compliance teams trust.
Symmetry Software founder, Tom Reahard, wrote his first payroll system for the Apple II in 1979 while a Ph.D. student at Arizona State University after learning from a ComputerLand associate that “people wanted to do payroll on the computer.” A nights and weekends self-taught coder, he started Symmetry Software in 1984. Symmetry is now the second oldest software company in the greater valley of Phoenix, Arizona. Over time, Symmetry created additional unique payroll tax technologies that today provide an infrastructure relied upon by hundreds of thousands of growing businesses and millions of employees.
Over the last 40 years, we’ve had the privilege of calculating paychecks for millions of working Americans. In addition, we’ve helped America’s largest companies determine the right payroll taxes for their employees.
In July of 2021, Symmetry Software became part of Gusto. We believe that the paycheck is the most fundamental building block for creating a better life and are excited to have Gusto behind us as we further our efforts to ensure payroll tax compliance across the entire payroll industry. Our focus is to help clients accelerate compliance with a technology-first approach to payroll taxes.
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.
- 1984Tom Reahard starts Teknon Corporation
- 1989Teknon purchases Symmetry Software, 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.
- 1995NetPayPlus, the original paycheck calculator, launches in disk form
- 1995Symmetry Software opens a European development office in Bratislava, Slovakia
- 1996Symmetry 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.
- 1997Symmetry 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.
- 2000Symmetry retires the NetPayPlus calculators and launches PaycheckCity.com, making the paycheck calculators available for free
- 2001Private-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.
- 2003Symmetry 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.
- 2004Symmetry Software celebrates 20 years of business!
- 2006The 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.
- 2007The Phoenix Business Journal features “Code Warrior,” Tom Reahard
- 2009Tom Reahard starts and runs “Calculators for Kids”
For over eight years, Symmetry donates thousands of scientific graphing calculators to Arizona Title 1 schools.
- 2010Payroll Point launches
Symmetry creates a tool that identifies local taxes based on the exact latitude and longitude coordinates of home and work addresses.
- 2011Payroll Point Web Service launches
Payroll Point allows integration directly into your application via XML.
- 2013Symmetry Payroll Forms launches
Symmetry Payroll Forms replaces the EEC SDK. A Hosted version launches shortly afterwards.
- 2013Symmetry Software 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.
- 2016Calculators by Symmetry launches
Symmetry redesigns its paycheck calculators and rebrands PaycheckCity private-label calculators as Calculators by Symmetry.
- 2017PaycheckCity Profiles launches
Fulfilling long-standing user requests such as the ability to save employee profiles and calculations.
- 2019The 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.
- 2019PaycheckCity 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.
- 2020PaycheckCity Profiles becomes PaycheckCity Payroll
The self-service payroll app is redesigned and has more payroll features added including a new onboarding experience.
- 2020A new symmetry.com launches
Bringing with it a wealth of additional resources to existing and prospective Symmetry clients.
- 2021Symmetry Software 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 Software's history.
- 2021Symmetry Software joins Gusto
To continue our mission to ensure that employee paychecks have the right taxes the first time.
- 2021Symmetry Software announces new UI & API for Symmetry Payroll Point
- 2022Symmetry Software 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.
- 2022Symmetry Software 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
Our memberships.
Symmetry Software 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 Software, we enjoy giving back to the community. From our yearly donation programs, like Operation Christmas Child, Feed My Starving Children, 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.
Meet the Symmetry Software family.
Since 1984, Symmetry Software has turned some of our resources into their own stand‑alone brands.
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
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
We couldn’t do any of this without the trusty calculator; therefore, we decided to make a calculator our Symmetry Software 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.
