Paychex Flex, of Paychex' Online Payroll Services, is a cloud-based human resource management and payroll platform. Paychex offers core and specialized services, and scales to meet the needs of small businesses, SMBs, and large enterprises.
$59
per month/+$4 per employee
Paycom
Score 7.4 out of 10
N/A
Paycom supports HR and payroll with automated, employee-first technology that supports every stage of employment. Its single database enables seamless data management, to reduce errors, endless data entry and time-consuming administrative tasks.
It's better for larger businesses (50+) with various types of pay structures. Employees need to be comfortable with technology to take advantage of the self-service features. I've struggled with the default in the state tax section; extra steps must be taken when an employee lives in a different state than they work, and we don't know where they live until after completing their profile. So we have to go into the system and make the corrections, then notify the employee to go in and complete the state-specific withholding forms and follow up to confirm they do so.
It's very mobile friendly, especially for people that aren't tech savvy. We have an aged workforce where we were really concerned about how they would adapt, going from the comfort of using paper to a mobile and online application. But the training was really easy and the adaptation has been simple for us as a company.
I think that it's just really user friendly on both sides, the employer and the employee side. I think from the employer side, once you get a niche of it and how it works, it's really easy to troubleshoot on your own. At least from my experience, you rarely have to call your contact because it's just so easy to try to figure out on your own. And on the employee side, I feel like the fact that we get to see what employees see, but before we put anything out really helps us help them if they are running into any issues. But typically when we do send something out, we just did our performance reviews, no issues whatsoever. It kind of takes you step by step. I feel like it just does a really good job of seamlessly taking people step by step in every process throughout whatever they're doing in Paycom.
When it comes to audit reports, Paychex Flex could improve on helping clients locate the correct reports for audit purposes more easily
When a client receives a discount, it would be helpful if the discount were automatically provided each year, or if the Paychex rep proactively reached out to the client first, versus the client having to call and request that the discount continue.
It would be helpful if the invoice was emailed to the client versus the client logging in to access invoices.
We wish that Paycom would offer more hands-on help. A lot of our specialist is great in helping us to resolve whatever issues that we have. However, it's just a list of steps to get there. It's not necessarily like, "hey, here you go, here's the resolution to your problem." So if we don't already understand how to do something, providing steps doesn't necessarily clear that understanding up or provide any clarification.
Additionally, I find that for our organization in particular, we have specific niches within it that Paycom doesn't really address or has any solution on how to address it. It just remains unresolved to this day and we continue to have errors in that area.
there are a lot of competitors on the market such as BambooHR and Insperity. Paychex need to make significant improvement on their offline customer service in order to compete with the other guys. Everything is online now and timely response to customer's questions is vital. Customers won't enjoy being put on hold for 45 mins every time they have a question regarding their HSA problems
Because it has everything that we need and as we grow, we are learning how robust Paycom can actually be but we need to be willing to spend the money. It's not expensive but we, as a company, are not used to spending that much on a system for HR and payroll.
Some things could be streamlined. For example, we could do custom options for the "add items" tab which has so many options that we never use. "Medical Pay" could be something that the system remembers for the applicable employees. Salaried employees' salaries should definitely be auto-filled. Overall the system works well but I think it could be improved to be easier to use and read.
The interface is very intuitive, you can navigate it pretty well. Everything's pretty much spelled out and the features just flow really well. They make it easy for you to go back and forth with the UX/UI type of interface. So I think it was built pretty well.
We have not experienced any difficulties with unplanned outages. Notifications are always made for outages, and they do not effect normal business operations.
Unless there is lag time within the internet, the Paychex Flex website loads exceptional fast, pages load quickly and reports that I need to print or download load quickly. If I need to create a specialized report, once I complete it I receive an e-mail telling me my report is ready to be downloaded. Changing between web pages is fast as well.
Neil Williams makes this entire system work - without our direct contact with our professional advisor - this would be just like any other platform and the relationship would not have the dimension that is has. Using chat or phone support with a new person every time you need support wastes time, as generally the person you are talking to does not have an intimate knowledge of our company. By having an assigned professional representative that knows our companies, this provides a level of confidence of caring coming from the Paychex side.
Our TSR has been wonderful to work with. Every step of the way he was quick to respond and answer any questions we had. I knew I could reach him at any time (day or night) and he would be available to assist. Implementing a new HRIS system is obviously a huge task and I contribute all our success to our rep Kurt! Of course, with any implementation, there were bumps along the way and issues. But I always knew we would work as a team to get those issues figured out. Working in the Paycom system has been smooth and easy to learn and I enjoy the employee self-service interface. Our managers have had positive things to say and are all excited about the changes we have been able to make to our organization due to Paycom being implemented.
It was easy to understand and follow along. I do like the informational videos that we can utilize before we opt to call in for customer service support. It has made a difference since sometimes that resolves the issue I may have had and saved myself a phone call to Paychex support.
It was good, but hard to know what questions you need to ask until you actually get in there and start working with a live product. But Paycom is also very helpful every time I call and can't figure something out. Nathan has been very friendly and helpful no matter what I call him about. He is always eager to help out.
Implementation was very smooth. The most cumbersome task was entering the current employees into the system during initial set up, but Paychex staff handled most of that and verified against prior system reports as well as internal reports provided to ensure 100% accuracy.
Not at all satisfied it was a nightmare we spent over 8 months with the implementation team having issues after issues all related to the Puerto Rico regulations (half my employees are in Puerto Rico) and at the end we were moved over from the implementation team to the production team without all the issues being resolved
In addition to the ones listed above, we also used BenePay, a local payroll company. We found Paychex Flex priced in the middle, with ADP the most expensive and too complicated, with many features that were unnecessary for us. We found that Paychex Flex's features and reporting to be sized right for our size (around 30 employees). Paychex Flex also offered a very reasonable service to apply for the ERTC
We really only had Paychecks and that was our biggest problem is that with several different companies, it was very hard If you had a salary employee and didn't terminate them in the prior company, they get paid twice, so this has really been definitely a big help for us.
Employees can log in at home and get up to date information on their FSA balance and any medical bill reimbursements they may have uploaded. At renewal time they have the ability to make changes to their FSA or for new employees star the enrollment.
I would think the most time would come from applicant tracking and I don't think that's a Paycom issue necessarily. I think it was a training issue during implementation. I would say that that has improved now that we had onsite training. But initially the applicant tracking piece can be difficult when you're used to just using an ATS. That's specifically for talent acquisition because there's a lot of nuances that goes into the system that Paycom bills.
