From spreadsheets to one payroll system, every session counted

A practice that pays by the session

At Be You, every clinician is paid by the session, at rates set for them individually, and some roles are paid on top of sessions, such as coordinating outreach. Every pay period those sessions have to become three things: each clinician's pay, the hours Gusto needs to run payroll, and a clear view of what each session contributes to the practice.

That work lived in spreadsheets, kept locally and in the cloud, beside Gusto. It worked, and it depended on the few people who knew how the spreadsheets fit together. The clinical directors wanted the same answers from a system: every clinician's pay worked out the same way each period, every clinician able to see how theirs was reached, and the practice's position clear at a glance.

SEAD built that system as a Co-Wright custom application: one place where sessions are entered, rates are held and payroll is worked out, run by SEAD since July 2024.

Be You knew exactly what it wanted: payroll every therapist could trust, without anyone rebuilding a spreadsheet each pay period. We turned that process into a simple, enterprise grade system, SOC 2 Type II audited and very cost effective, and we have kept building with them ever since, from payroll to distributions and now to how new clients find the practice.

Alexander WrightPresident & CEO

What a system like this costs, set against the alternatives, is in the real cost of business intelligence.

Every clinician enters their own sessions

Each clinician signs in to the portal and enters their session count for the pay period. That is all they enter. Their pay per session, the fee for each session and the hourly rate payroll uses are held behind the scenes and set by the practice, so every period is worked out the same way and nobody retypes a rate.

From those sessions the system works out each clinician's pay, adds any role paid on top, and turns the total into the hours payroll needs by dividing it by the clinician's hourly rate. Gusto still runs payroll, with figures that are already worked out.

Each clinician also has their own dashboard: the pay period, a pencil to add a session count, their pay and payroll hours, the line behind every rate, and every earlier pay period beside it. How their pay was reached is on the screen in front of them.

View the interactive dashboard

A clinician's own payroll, redrawn in Co-Wright Intelligence: their pay and payroll hours for the period, the sessions behind each rate, and their earlier pay periods beside it.

One record, three views

The same pay period reads differently depending on who is looking. A clinician sees their own sessions, pay and payroll hours, and nobody else's. The practice sees every clinician's payroll and what each clinician's sessions contribute. The partners see all of that and the distributions behind it.

Access is set by role, down to the row and the column, on the same SOC 2 Type II audited platform as every SEAD system: how Co-Wright handles security and permissions. The portal holds session counts, rates and pay. It holds no clinical notes and no record of who a session was with.

The whole practice, one pay period at a time

The practice payroll dashboard puts a pay period on one screen: every clinician's pay and payroll hours, ready for Gusto; the detail beneath, rate by rate; total pay for the period and for the year to date; and, clinician by clinician, the fees their sessions brought in beside what they were paid, which is what each session contributes to the practice.

The dashboards were first delivered in Tableau, which SEAD supports, and are moving to Co-Wright Intelligence, SEAD's own AI-enabled dashboarding.

View the interactive dashboard

The practice payroll, redrawn in Co-Wright Intelligence: payroll hours and pay by clinician for the period, the rate detail beneath, year-to-date totals, and fees beside pay for every clinician.

From payroll to distributions

With payroll in one place, the next question followed: after payroll, what is left for the partners? In 2026 SEAD added distributions. For every pay period it starts from the operating account balance, takes out payroll, keeps back a reserve, and arrives at earnings after contributions and each partner's share.

The table reads newest pay period first, so the partners can see whether a period left room for a distribution and how it compares with the periods before it.

View the interactive dashboard

Distributions, redrawn in Co-Wright Intelligence: for each pay period, the operating balance, payroll, the balance after payroll and after the reserve, earnings after contributions, and each partner's share.

Growing with the practice

The system has grown the way the practice has. Payroll came first, in 2024. Distributions followed in 2026. Now SEAD is adding referral tracking: where new clients come from, and what each source brings to the practice.

That is how SEAD's Scale phase works: one system, extended a step at a time as the business asks more of it, without starting again.