What’s new in Remote: clearer workflows for payroll, contractors, benefits, and team management

Q2 brought several important updates to Remote, including four larger launches across reporting, AI, and developer experiences — alongside many more improvements across payroll, contractors, benefits, and platform workflows. Custom Report Builder helps teams build custom payroll and people reports with AI, templates, or full manual control. Remote MCP connects AI tools directly to Remote so customers can query and work with live workforce data. Remote CLI gives technical teams a faster way to run Remote workflows from the command line. Remote AI Agents bring conversational AI into Remote to help users find answers, generate insights, and complete supported actions.
Payroll
A clearer yearly Payroll Calendar
The Payroll Calendar now gives admins a full-year view of key payroll dates, so teams can plan ahead without clicking through month by month. Global Payroll customers can also see approval dates and approval windows directly in the calendar, with public holidays clearly marked and draft calendars hidden until they’re ready.
Teams can also choose whether their week starts on Monday or Sunday, making the calendar easier to match to local working norms. The result is a clearer, more reliable way to manage payroll deadlines across countries — with fewer missed dates and less last-minute checking.
Bulk upload employer benefit costs for global payroll
Employers can now upload Global Payroll benefit costs in bulk, directly in Remote. They can upload a template, map fields, review the data, and submit costs without needing admin assistance, giving teams more control over how benefit costs are tracked.
This creates a more complete view of employee costs across Global Payroll, EOR, and PEO. It’s especially useful when teams want benefit costs to be visible and attributed as benefits, rather than handled only as one-off payroll inputs.
Customer admins can update employee deposit details
Customer admins can now update employee deposit details directly in Remote, helping teams correct bank account issues faster without waiting on a support handoff. Employees are notified when changes are made, keeping the process transparent and secure.
This is especially useful when a payment is returned, rejected, or skipped: updated details can be used for future payroll runs and eligible payment retries. The result is more control for admins, fewer operational delays, and a smoother path to getting employees paid correctly.
PEO customers now have full access to payroll reports
PEO customers can now access Remote’s core payroll reports, including Payroll Cost, Variance, General Ledger, Gross-to-Net, and Payroll Run reports. That gives PEO teams the same kind of payroll visibility already available to Global Payroll users.
This makes it easier to analyze payroll data, review costs, and work from a more consistent reporting experience across Remote products. Going forward, new payroll reports will be enabled for PEO customers by default unless there’s a specific reason not to.
Employer of Record
Reserve invoice values are visible during EOR invites
When inviting a new EOR employee, employers can now see the reserve invoice amount during the invitation review process. This surfaces an important cost detail earlier, before the invite is sent and before onboarding is already underway.
For global hiring teams, this makes budgeting and decision-making clearer at the exact moment they’re preparing to bring someone onto the team. It reduces surprises later in the process and gives customers more confidence before they move forward.
PEO
Real-time benefit tracking for PEO employers and employees
PEO employers and employees now have clearer benefit visibility directly in Remote. Employers can see the expected benefit coverage start date during the new hire invitation flow, monitor enrollment progress from the Team Benefits page, and view benefit statuses from the People section.
Employees can also track their own enrollment progress in Remote. This replaces manual status reporting with self-service visibility, giving customers and employees more confidence during onboarding.
Contractor Management
Auto-approve matched scheduled COR invoices
Contractor of Record customers can now opt in to auto-approval for scheduled invoices when the submitted amount exactly matches the original scheduled amount. The feature is off by default, can be enabled per legal entity, and any invoice with a discrepancy still requires manual review.
This removes repetitive approvals for high-volume teams without removing control over exceptions. Auto-approved invoices are labeled and easy to filter, helping customers reduce admin effort and speed up invoice workflows.
Export contractor data in Excel format
Contractor Management tables can now be exported in Excel .xlsx format. This gives teams a cleaner, more familiar file format for reviewing, sharing, and working with contractor data outside Remote.
For customers operating across countries, this helps reduce formatting and encoding issues that can slow down reporting or reconciliation. It’s a small workflow improvement that makes contractor data easier to use where teams already do analysis.
More flexible tax form selection during contractor onboarding
U.S.-engaged contractors can now choose the W tax form that matches their situation during onboarding. Instead of Remote automatically selecting the form based only on profile data, contractors can choose W-9, W-8BEN, or W-8BEN-E where applicable.
Sole proprietors completing a W-9 can also choose whether to use an EIN or SSN as their Tax Identification Number, and that choice carries through to later 1099 forms. This helps contractors start with the right tax setup from the beginning and reduces avoidable support questions.
Separate identity verification for each contractor profile
Each contractor now completes their own identity verification during onboarding. This keeps ID data tied to the correct contractor profile and reduces the risk of mismatched records, especially when contractors have multiple profiles or are re-onboarded.
The change strengthens privacy and data separation across contractor records while making the onboarding process more reliable. Each profile now has its own verification trail, giving customers and Remote more confidence in the accuracy of contractor data.
Platform
AI support now points users to Report Builder
When users ask reporting-related questions, Remote can now guide them directly to the AI-powered Report Builder flow. Instead of searching through menus, users get a clearer path from the question they have to the report they need.
This makes reporting feel more intuitive and reduces the gap between intent and action. If a user knows what they’re trying to understand, Remote can help them get to the right report-building experience faster.
Copy and paste multiple spreadsheet cells into Remote bulk uploaders
Remote bulk uploaders now support multi-cell copy and paste from spreadsheets like Excel and Google Sheets. Users can update multiple rows and columns at once instead of fixing cells one by one, while the uploader automatically skips read-only, imported, and disabled cells.
This makes bulk updates faster and safer for teams working with spreadsheet data. The feature is available broadly across Remote bulk uploaders, with the exception of Global Payroll bulk uploaders, which need to move to the bulk uploader framework first.
Assign multiple admin roles to the same person
Company admins can now assign multiple roles to the same user in a more straightforward way. This better reflects how real teams operate, where one person may need more than one type of access — for example, a People Manager role alongside a finance or custom admin role.
Remote now links those roles to a single employee profile, giving employers a clearer view of each person’s access in one place. This is a platform capability, not an HRIS-specific feature.
Add dotted-line managers to reflect matrixed teams
Remote now supports dotted-line managers, so employers can assign additional managers to employees beyond their primary reporting line. This helps companies reflect matrixed structures, project leadership, regional leadership, or functional oversight in Remote.
The update gives teams more flexibility while keeping permission controls in place. For companies with complex reporting structures, Remote can now better match how work actually gets managed.
Faster, easier sign-in with mobile push 2FA
The Remote mobile app now supports two-factor authentication via push notification. Instead of manually entering a TOTP code, users can approve sign-in from their phone with a tap.
It’s a simpler login experience that still keeps security strong. By reducing friction around authentication, this helps users get into Remote faster and reduces the login failures that can lead to support tickets.
A clearer timeline for every expense report
Employees and customer admins can now see the full lifecycle of an expense report in one timeline. The timeline shows key events such as when the expense was created, reviewed, and reimbursed, along with who made each update.
It also includes taxability information, with explanations where taxes apply. This gives employees and admins more transparency, reduces status-related questions, and helps teams resolve expense issues faster.
