Top 5 Payroll Software Options for Businesses

Payroll is perhaps the largest expense for businesses, and handling it is no simple task. Here are some of the best payroll providers for your needs.

Related ads

Although it’s essential to ensure employees get paid on time, it’s time-consuming and prone to errors. As a such, it can result in unhappy employees and tax fines.

To address these issues, many businesses, both large and small, are turning to payroll services. Payroll services ease the burden of paying employees and related tax filling. The services achieve this by integrating with time-tracking, accounting, and HR services software.

The integration allows smooth transfer of information between platforms, resulting in an automated flow. As a result, businesses can generate paychecks hassle-free or make direct deposits.

Rather than dedicating an endless amount of time to wages and tax calculations, you can simply feed the system with your employees’ data and await the results. Automating your payroll with online services allows you to save time, fast-track the process, and minimize calculations and tax filing mistakes.

An automated payroll system removes the human error factor by updating the business data and compiling all payroll details. The services take taxes, benefits, and other deductions out of employee’s gross pay. Some services can even help businesses file payroll taxes and even generate employee tax forms for them.

Are you’re having a hard time managing payroll and complying with tax codes? Then, consider using payroll services. Luckily, we’ve highlighted five of the best payroll services in the market. Read on to learn more.

ADP

ADP is an excellent all-in-one solution for everything from HR, to hiring, to background checks and even payment processing. The service will cleverly integrate and works with your HR and time-tracking software to provide you with a strong framework needed to automate payroll services.

The payroll software performs tax calculations for each employee, while the company ensures you are tax compliant by monitoring changes in regulations.

The company has four different pricing plans for its client, so you need to contact them to get a quote that better fits your business needs.

Payroll processing is very flexible with ADP, and employees can gain access to their pay stabs and other information on their desktop or mobile via a self-service app.

Although the company offers customers expert support, it fails to provide a dedicated professional for individual accounts. Perhaps this is one of the reasons some clients have complained about poor customer support and performance issues while using ADP software.

QuickBooks

QuickBooks is arguably one of the most popular accounting software in the market. However, its cloud-based payroll system can seamlessly generate relationships between your accounting and payroll services.

Signing up for the company’s payroll system allows you to create unlimited paychecks. This way, you will never get burdened with additional charges, especially when you want to run an extra pay cycle.

The company offers you free customer support. A dedicated specialist will help you set up your account and provide you with support for the duration you will use the payroll software.

Like many software, the QuickBooks payroll system is not free from drawbacks. According to users, the two significant downsides to the service include:

  • Customer support team taking too long to address issues
  • Security challenges

Getting started with the payroll software is easy, and you’ll receive several step-by-step tutorials to help you.

In terms of pricing, the service has something for everyone. The Do-it-yourself payroll service costs $25/month and $35/month for basic and enhanced accounts, respectively.

If you want to enjoy the flexibility of electronic filling and payroll taxes payments, then an enhanced account is the way to go. For $99/month, you can receive QuickBooks full-service payroll, which you only have to input employees’ hours. Additionally, you will need to invest an extra $2 for each employee every month for all these services.

Payroll4Free

Payroll4Free is the best option if you are looking for a fully free to use payroll software. The only catch is that it is free for organizations with 25 or less employees. This means that most small businesses would be able to use this service for free, but that large organizations would not be able to do so.

Payroll4Free does all of the tasks you would normally associated with a paid program. This includes payroll, taxes, PTO, printing paychecks, direct deposits and year end tax reports.   

Given that it is a free product, you can expect to see some advertisements while you are using the product.

Gusto

Gusto offers payroll services to over 100,000 businesses across America. Many companies love it because it’s easy to set up, manage and process employee payments.

You’ll only spend seven minutes to run your payroll once you integrate Gusto with your time-tracking, HR, and accounting software.

You can link up your workers’ comp and benefits data and leverage the option of having your payroll running on its own.

Gusto is more suited for small but growing businesses, and the learning curve is a slope for employers and their employees. When employees get paid, this service sends fun emails to them. The email usually includes a visual breakdown of taxes, benefits, and other deductions.

This solution offers users unlimited payroll cycles, which means you can process payments whenever you want. Additionally, it automatically fills in the paperwork for new employees, and existing workers have easy access to their pay stubs and tax information online.

When setting up your business, you can choose between the following options:

  • Core – $39/month and $6 for each employee
  • Complete- $39/month and $12 for each employee
  • Concierge- $149/month and $12 for each employee

Although Concierge clients enjoy the services of certified HR professionals, many of them have reported problems with accuracy in tax filing and compliance. Another downside is Gusto is pricier than other payroll services.

SurePayroll

With SurePayroll, you can set up and manage your payroll within minutes and hassle-free. It’s perfect for business owners who wish to stay on top of federal and state labor laws.

The payroll service comes with SureAdvisor, a unique service that provides an extensive library of HR guides and business forms. It also features reminders and alerts so you can monitor changes in tax regulations. These ensure that payroll roll runs faultless free from legal issues.

However, some clients have experienced some challenges when filing taxes via the platform. Sure website also features a difficult-to-navigate interface since information is segregated between several pages.

The good thing is the website is accessible to employers and employees via mobile. Also, it integrates with accounting and timesaving software, so you don’t have to transfer information between the platforms.

SurePayroll has an A+ rating from Better Business Bureau (BBB), but many users don’t like the company’s customer service.

Related ads

Bottom Line

A cloud-based or online payroll service automates payroll operations, saving you time and effort. While you’ll have to spend some money, the investment pays off eventually. Before selecting a payroll service, do quick research on the features you’ll enjoy and determine how the service will improve your business efficiency.