Product Update: February 2026

This month’s updates focus on the simple idea that payroll infrastructure should do more of the heavy lifting for you. From keeping up with evolving compliance requirements, to reducing friction between payroll and accounting, to small but meaningful improvements in how employers communicate with workers, these enhancements are designed to help partners launch and scale payroll products with confidence.

Paid Family Medical Leave pick-up, automatically taxed and compliant (US only)

Paid Family Medical Leave (PFML) rules continue to evolve and we have updated our engine to keep up. As of January 1st, 2026, when employers “pick up” their employees’ PFML premium payments, those contributions are now considered taxable income and must be included in subject wage amounts.

This change is now supported out of the box. When an employer decides to contribute a percentage of a worker’s PFML premium, Salsa automatically adds the pick-up contribution as a new contribution line and ensures the worker is taxed on the amount appropriately. There’s no extra setup required and no manual calculations to manage.

For platforms launching or operating a payroll product, this is one more example of how Salsa takes care of ongoing compliance behind the scenes. Payroll regulations are constantly changing, and our goal is to make sure partners don’t have to pause or rework their product to keep up. With PFML pick-up handled seamlessly, employers stay compliant and platforms can move forward without disruption.

Custom accounting integrations with access to raw payroll journal entries

‍Payroll and accounting are deeply connected, but supporting integrations beyond QuickBooks has traditionally meant heavy lift and custom logic. With this update, employers and developers can now access raw payroll journal entries tied to each payroll run – exportable as a CSV or retrievable programmatically – so you can power accounting workflows in whatever system your customers use. Employers can apply Salsa’s rules-based mapping to generate a CSV representing the underlying journal entries associated with confirmed worker payments, while developers can pull the same structured data via API to support embedded accounting experiences or push payroll data into external accounting products.

This release also adds more control and automation around when journals are available. Partners can choose to make entries available when a payroll run is confirmed or when money movement clears, depending on whether speed or finality matters more for their workflow. Developers can subscribe to lifecycle events/webhooks so their platform knows exactly when accounting entries are ready to be pulled, enabling dynamic notifications, hands-off exports, and fewer “is this ready yet?” edge cases across payroll and accounting.

For partners, the impact is simple: faster time-to-market for accounting integrations outside of QuickBooks with a smaller integration surface area. This is especially valuable for platforms building toward embedded finance. Whether you’re launching an in-house accounting product or giving SMBs deeper margin insights inside a vertical SaaS experience. Payroll is often the largest expense on the P&L; making journal data easy to access, reliably timed, and automation-friendly turns payroll into a foundation for richer reporting and tighter operational control with less work for your team and a better experience for employers.

📄 View documentation

Add memos to worker payments for clearer paystubs

Sometimes payroll needs a human touch. We’ve added support for employers to include individual memos on worker payments, making it easy to add context that shows up directly on the worker’s paystub. Memos are captured during payroll run creation and are automatically included in the pay statement PDF and on printed checks through Salsa’s check printing feature so the note follows the payment wherever it’s delivered.

Employers can use memos to clarify off-cycle runs and one-off payments, like “End of year bonus,” “Project payout,” or simply “Thank you for your hard work.” It’s a small detail, but it reduces confusion, cuts down on “what is this for?” messages, and gives employers a straightforward way to communicate alongside the payment itself.

This is one of those out-of-the-box capabilities that helps payroll feel complete and familiar. By continuing to round out core pay experiences like pay statements and checks, Salsa helps partners ship payroll products that are polished from day one without extra work to recreate table-stakes functionality.

We’re focused on building payroll infrastructure that adapts as your product and your customers grow. Whether that means staying ahead of compliance changes, simplifying complex integrations, or delivering thoughtful details that improve the employer and worker experience, these updates are designed to help you move faster and build with confidence. 

As always, reach out to our team or explore the docs to learn more about getting started.