Extract pay stubs to structured JSON

Pay stubs detail earnings, deductions, taxes, and net pay for a given pay period. Every employer and payroll provider formats them differently. Sensible normalizes pay stub data into consistent JSON for income verification, lending decisions, and payroll auditing.

Quick links:

Pay stubs blog post

Financial services template library

API documentation

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Why pay stubs resist standardized extraction

Thousands of employer formats and inconsistent deduction labels make pay stubs a normalization problem.

Payroll Provider Variation

ADP uses one layout. Paychex another. Gusto, QuickBooks, and in-house payroll systems each invent their own. Sensible adapts to each provider while outputting the same JSON schema: gross pay, deductions, net pay, YTD totals.

Deduction Categorization

One employer labels it '401(k)'. Another says 'Retirement Plan'. A third uses a payroll code. Sensible normalizes deduction labels across employers into consistent categories that your downstream systems can process without custom mapping.

YTD vs. Current Period Disambiguation

Every pay stub shows both current-period and year-to-date figures, often in adjacent columns with similar labels. Extracting the wrong column produces silently incorrect data: a YTD gross of $45,000 where a current-period gross of $3,750 was expected. Sensible distinguishes the two and validates the math between them.

Fields we extract

Default fields cover income verification. Customize the schema for your lending or payroll audit workflow.

Earnings

Employee name, employer name, pay period dates, pay date, gross pay, regular hours/rate, overtime hours/rate, bonuses, commissions

Deductions and taxes

Federal tax, state tax, local tax, Social Security, Medicare, health insurance, dental, vision, 401k, HSA, garnishments

Net pay and YTD

Net pay, current period totals, YTD gross, YTD net, YTD federal tax, YTD state tax, YTD Social Security, YTD Medicare


{ /* SenseML: pay stub extraction */
  "fields": [
    {
      "method": {
        "id": "queryGroup",
        "queries": [
          {
            // Employee name
            "id": "employee_name",
            "description": "employee name, employee, pay to"
          },
          {
            // Gross pay for the current period
            "id": "gross_pay",
            "description": "gross pay, gross earnings, total gross",
            "type": { "id": "currency" }
          },
          {
            // Net pay (take-home)
            "id": "net_pay",
            "description": "net pay, take home pay, net amount",
            "type": { "id": "currency" }
          },
          {
            // Pay period end date
            "id": "pay_period_end",
            "description": "pay period ending, period end date, pay period through",
            "type": { "id": "date" }
          }
          // Additional fields for YTD gross, deductions, federal tax, etc.
        ]
      }
    }
  ]
}
QuickBooks Pay Stub

Intuit QuickBooks payroll stub with customizable earnings categories.

Generic Employer Pay Stub

Non-standard employer-generated pay stub with variable formatting.

Gusto Pay Stub

Gusto-generated pay statement with earnings breakdown and tax withholdings.

ADP Pay Stub

ADP-generated pay stub with earnings, deductions, taxes, and YTD totals.

Paychex Pay Stub

Paychex format covering gross pay, net pay, and benefit deductions.

Supported pay stub formats

Pre-built templates cover major payroll providers. Any employer or provider format can be configured using SenseML. The hybrid approach handles layout variation while deterministic rules enforce output accuracy.

By payroll provider

ADP, Paychex, Gusto, QuickBooks, Paylocity, Rippling, custom employer formats

By pay type

Salaried, hourly, commission-based, mixed compensation, contractor payment summaries

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Common Questions

Answers about payroll provider support, deduction normalization, and YTD validation.

Can Sensible validate pay stub calculations?

Yes. Validation rules can check that gross minus deductions equals net, that YTD totals are consistent, and that tax withholding percentages fall within expected ranges.

Does Sensible handle pay stubs from any employer?

Yes. Pay stubs vary by payroll provider and employer. Pre-built pay stub templates are available in the configuration library. Sensible adapts to any format and outputs consistent JSON.

Does Sensible extract year-to-date (YTD) totals?

Yes. Sensible captures current period and YTD totals for gross pay, net pay, federal tax, state tax, Social Security, Medicare, and each deduction line.

What deduction details does Sensible extract?

Sensible extracts each deduction line with type (health insurance, 401k, HSA, garnishment), current period amount, and YTD total.

Do you support webhooks?

Yes. Sensible sends extraction results to your webhook endpoint when processing completes. You can also poll the API for status.

Does Sensible support human review?

Yes. Sensible flags extractions with low confidence for human review. You can configure review thresholds and workflows.

What security certifications does Sensible have?

Sensible is SOC 2 Type II certified and HIPAA compliant. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest.

How long is document data retained?

Document data is stored indefinitely by default. Custom retention policies are available and can be configured for same-day deletion if needed.

Is there a free trial?

Yes. Sensible offers a 14-day free trial on the Growth plan. No credit card required to start.

How is pricing structured?

Sensible uses per-document pricing for predictable costs. No token-based billing or usage surprises. Volume discounts are available for higher throughput.

How do I integrate with Sensible?

Sensible provides REST APIs and SDKs for Python and Node.js. Most integrations take a few hours. Webhooks, Zapier, and direct API calls are all supported.

What file formats does Sensible support?

Sensible processes PDFs (native or scanned), Microsoft Word (DOC, DOCX), spreadsheets (XLSX, XLS, CSV), single-page images (JPEG, PNG), multi-page images (TIFF), and email bodies with attachments.

How accurate is the extraction?

Accuracy depends on document quality and configuration. Most production deployments achieve 95%+ accuracy with proper validation rules and confidence signals.

How fast is document processing?

Processing speed depends on document size, page count, OCR requirements, and which extraction methods are used. Simple single-page documents process in seconds. Larger or more complex documents that use LLM-based extraction take longer.

Resources

Documentation Links

Docs: Insurance template quick startDocs: Validation and human reviewDocs: API and delivery options

Related insurance documents

Docs: Insurance template quick startDocs: Validation and human reviewDocs: API and delivery options