🎓 Founder accepted into the Harvard Business School Foundry — building PayGuard to transform pre-payroll risk detection
Is this payroll safe to release?
PayGuard scans payroll exports before submission and flags terminated employees, duplicate payments, gross-to-net mismatches, pay spikes, and overtime risk — before money leaves the bank.
Uploaded file
Q2_Payroll_Export_June2026.xlsx
Works with payroll exports from
The payroll error problem
$0B+
Lost to payroll errors annually in the US
American Payroll Association, 2024
0 cycles
Average time to catch a payroll mistake
After money has already left the bank
0%
Of payroll errors are preventable pre-submission
With proper pre-release checks in place
The Platform
A risk layer before payroll approval.
Payroll software processes payments. PayGuard checks whether the payroll file is safe before it goes out.
Duplicate Payment Detection
Catches the same employee appearing twice in the same period with identical pay before it becomes a double payment.
Terminated Employee Check
Flags employees marked inactive or terminated who still appear with gross pay in the current pay run.
Gross-to-Net Validation
Verifies that gross pay minus taxes and deductions actually reconciles to net pay for every employee row.
Pay Spike / Drop Detection
Identifies employees whose gross pay shifted more than 35% from their prior average — errors, unauthorized bonuses, or missing pay.
Overtime Risk
Surfaces employees with overtime hours above threshold so managers can verify approval before payroll releases.
Smart Field Mapping
Auto-matches your export columns — ADP, Gusto, Workday, QuickBooks — no reformatting or helper columns required.
Risk Engine
Runs only the checks your file supports.
Every check is fully independent. If your file has HR status, terminated employee detection runs. If not, it skips — and tells you exactly why. No silent failures.
See it in action →How it works
From file to decision in minutes.
No integrations. No setup. Upload your payroll export and get results in under 60 seconds.
01
Upload your export
Drop a CSV or XLSX from any payroll system. ADP, Gusto, Workday, QuickBooks — whatever you use.
02
Map your columns
PayGuard auto-detects your column names and matches them to the right fields in under 30 seconds.
03
Risk engines run
6 independent checks run instantly in your browser. Nothing is uploaded to a server. Ever.
04
Review and export
See findings by severity and dollar exposure. Export a PDF risk report for your records.
Now seeking pilot partners
Built for people who run payroll every cycle.
PayGuard is in early access. We are working directly with payroll professionals to test it on real files and shape the product. No cost during the pilot period.
Bookkeepers
You run payroll for multiple clients every cycle. PayGuard gives you a fast pre-release check that catches errors before they become corrections — without any extra software to install.
Looking for
Solo bookkeepers and small bookkeeping firms
Payroll Managers
You are responsible for making sure payroll is right before it goes out. PayGuard is the layer between your payroll export and your submission — catching what your software misses.
Looking for
In-house payroll managers at 20 to 500 person companies
CPA Firms
You advise clients on payroll compliance and accuracy. PayGuard gives your team a tool to review client payroll exports before release — and a PDF report to document what was checked.
Looking for
CPA firms and accounting practices with payroll clients
If this describes you — we want to hear from you.
Apply to be a pilot partner →Security first
Payroll data is sensitive. We treat it that way.
PayGuard processes everything locally in your browser. Your payroll file never touches our servers. We have no database of your data.
Try safely with demo dataBrowser-local processing
Files are analyzed entirely in your browser. No upload, no external storage.
No server storage
PayGuard has no database of your payroll data. Everything clears when you close the tab.
Read-only analysis
PayGuard never modifies your payroll. It only flags items for human review.
You control the report
The PDF export stays on your machine. We never see your payroll data.
Pricing
Start free. Scale when ready.
Validate the value before committing. No contracts, no setup fees, no credit card required.
Free
$0
No credit card needed
Try PayGuard with the demo scan and see exactly what it catches before uploading anything real.
- ✓Demo scan with synthetic data
- ✓All 6 risk engines
- ✓PDF report preview
- ✓Smart field mapping
Pilot
$29
per month · cancel anytime
Run unlimited real scans and help shape the product roadmap as a founding pilot partner.
- ✓Unlimited risk scans
- ✓Real payroll file uploads
- ✓Full PDF risk reports
- ✓All 6 risk engines
- ✓Direct founder access
- ✓Influence the roadmap
Team Pilot
Custom
For firms and teams
For CPA firms, payroll bureaus, and teams managing multiple clients or employees.
- ✓Multiple users
- ✓Multi-client scanning
- ✓Custom risk thresholds
- ✓Dedicated onboarding
- ✓Priority support
Join the waitlist
Be among the first payroll teams to use PayGuard.
We are working with a small group of payroll professionals, bookkeepers, and CPA firms as founding pilot partners.
🎓 HBS Foundry
The founder of PayGuard was accepted into the Harvard Business School Foundry entrepreneurship program, working with mentors and advisors to build the right product for payroll teams.
Early Access
Apply to be a pilot partner.
We are onboarding bookkeepers, payroll managers, and CPA firms. Join the list and we will reach out directly.
No cost during the pilot period. No spam. Ever.