Paychex is among the top payroll software application options that helps services automate payroll, HR and other human-capital services. In order for you to determine if Paychex is ideal for your company– specifically, if its cloud-based payroll software application, Paychex Flex, will work for you– read this breakdown of the software’s significant functions, pros, cons, pricing information and primary rivals. Jump to: Featured partners What is Paychex? 
Image: Paychex
Paychex is a cloud-based payroll and HR service that provides organizations with HR services, tax preparation, benefits administration, time and participation services.
While the business provides a couple of different types of payroll solutions, consisting of Paychex PEO, its most popular product is its cloud-based payroll and HR software application tool, Paychex Flex.
SEE: Discover QuickBooks Online and its rates, features, benefits and drawbacks.
With Paychex Flex, organizations can provide their employees a variety of payment methods, such as direct deposit, paper checks and payroll cards. The payroll option likewise makes it simple for each employee to select the sequence or frequency in which they want to be paid, as there are choices for weekly, biweekly and monthly payments.
Just how much does Paychex charge for payroll services?
Paychex’s payroll services start at $39 a month plus $5 per employee paid monthly. The rates noted on its site is for Paychex’s most inexpensive strategy, Paychex Flex Basics. The 2 more extensive Paychex Flex plans, Paychex Flex Select and Pro, require possible customers to request a custom-made quote (Figure A).
Figure A
Image: Paychex. Paychex’s prices tiers. Paychex Flex Basics is intended for small companies with fewer than 20 staff members. It includes full-service payroll processing and tax administration, an employee self-service payroll app, staff member onboarding tools and HR library access.
Paychex Flex Select consists of all of Paychex Flex Important’s features with an employee learning management system, employing tools and accounting software integration.
Paychex Flex Pro includes a multitude of HR tools (such as an employee handbook template) and a couple of more payroll functions (such as wage garnishment).
Regardless of the plan they select, clients can add a range of additional payroll and HR functions for an extra fee:
- Time and attendance software application.
- Employees’ compensation insurance coverage combination.
- Staff member advantages administration.
- Worker retirement strategy choices.
- Third-party software integration.
Paychex Flex plans were designed with small and midsize companies in mind. The business likewise provides an enterprise-level option, Paychex Enterprise, which is a comprehensive, fully personalized payroll option for businesses with hundreds of workers.
Paychex’s functions
Payroll processing
Payroll processing is at the core of Paychex’s services. It automatically determines incomes for both per hour and salaried employees, subtracts taxes, and lets you pay staff members through a range of techniques. Paychex’s precheck function enables employees to examine their scheduled payments to minimize payment-related problems.
Detailed personnel services
Finest service software application
Paychex Flex has more considerable HR features than essential payroll software competitors like Gusto Payroll. Every plan has staff member hiring and onboarding features and access to Paychex’s comprehensive HR resource library.
Higher-tier plans consist of a range of HR services including hiring, applicant tracking, worker advancement and records management that can help organizations enhance these tasks. In addition, the platform has a team of dedicated HR specialists that use advanced HR help to organizations that may have complicated HR issues to deal with.
Payment choices
Paychex uses versatile payment choices through direct deposit, paper checks and pre-paid cards. For services that still provide their employers paper check payments, Paychex provides a Readychex service to make this work. There is likewise an on-demand pay alternative, likewise called earned wage access, that enables staff members access to their wages when needed without waiting for the next payroll cycle (Figure B).
Figure B
Image: Paychex.
The Paychex HR dashboard. Tax management Tax management is a specifically difficult element of payroll that requires specialist handling. Paychex provides a system that determines, files and procedures payroll taxes at the federal, state and local levels. With this service, services will not require to fret about meeting tax reduction regulations, as the system takes care of that instantly.
Company insurance
Paychex offers add-on service insurance coverage services that offer thorough coverage for your residential or commercial properties, companies and employees. A few of the areas covered are cyber liability insurance coverage, employment practices liability insurance, commercial automobile insurance and business home insurance.
Worker benefits
Through Paychex, businesses can find group health benefits and employee retirement strategies, such as 401(k)s. For an additional fee, you can add advantages administration to your Paychex plan. Workers can utilize their Paychex dashboard to sign up for advantages throughout registration durations, check their benefits, view payslips and see their paycheck reductions (Figure C).
Figure C
Image: Paychex. Worker advantages dashboard in Paychex.
Benefits and drawbacks of Paychex
Pros
Analytics and reporting
Paychex helps services create customized analytics and reports. The platform also has customizable templates to assist businesses track and display crucial data.
Attendance and time tracking
Like the majority of other payroll and HR software application systems, Paychex has a native time-tracking item that workers can use to clock in and out, send time-off demands and view their hours worked. This information integrates instantly with Paychex’s payroll software to determine paycheck amounts. Paychex’s scheduling software is an optional item that costs an extra charge.
Streamlines the hiring processes
The platform assists services screen, gather and centralize prospects’ data from when the candidates submit their resumes for an interview till the application window is closed. While every Paychex payroll plan consists of automated state new-hire reporting and basic hiring and onboarding features, just the Paychex Pro plan includes pre-employment screening. Many other working with tools are add-on items that cost an extra fee.
Supports third-party integrations
Paychex offers a range of third-party software application integrations for simple data sharing. Through its API library, companies can quickly get in touch with other software for accounting, HR and performance, lowering the lengthy process of manual setups of third-party apps.
Mobile app
Paychex has one mobile payroll app for staff members and another for companies who want to examine payroll information and arrange a payroll run from their phone. Both apps are highly ranked on both the App Store and Google Play.
Cons
Pricing is not specifically specified
Apart from Paychex Flex’s cheapest strategy, many Paychex strategy prices are not available on its site, which needs getting in touch with the vendor for a quote for each service.
Additional fees for essential services
Paychex charges costs for crucial payroll tools that much of the best payroll software tools bundle into their base rate. All Paychex users, regardless of the strategy tier they select, must pay additional for services like advantages management, time and participation tracking, basic ledger combination, workers’ compensation combination and third-party app combination.
No free trial
Paychex does not offer a free trial, which many services like to do prior to making this kind of financial commitment.
Leading alternatives to Paychex
If Paychex does not seem to have all of the functions your company needs or maybe isn’t in your budget, here are payroll options to consider.
Gusto
Like Paychex, Gusto is payroll management software that consists of payment, employing, insurance and other organization support solutions in one offering.
While Gusto’s payroll service has less HR functions than Paychex, it includes complimentary staff member benefits management and free integration with the most popular organization apps, especially accounting software like Xero and FreshBooks.
Gusto begins at $40 a month plus $6 per worker each month. It has three plans, every one with an increasing variety of HR features.
SEE: Gusto vs Paychex: Compare top payroll software application (TechRepublic)
OnPay
OnPay uses HR, payroll and employee management in one suite. With its one-month totally free trial, possible customers can get a feel of the item without making a payment. While OnPay has more HR functions than Gusto, including compliance signals and HR design template gain access to, it doesn’t have the very same robust HR focus as Paychex.
OnPay is likewise less scalable than multi-plan payroll services like Gusto, Paychex and ADP: Its single payroll strategy costs $40 a month plus $6 per worker per month.
Paylocity
Paylocity provides an all-in-one service for businesses that need to administer payroll, benefits management, HR, time and presence from one platform. The platform is finest fit for little and medium-sized companies. Unlike Paychex Flex, Paylocity does not have any enterprise-level payroll options.
Paylocity doesn’t note its costs online. Small-business owners must contact Paylocity directly for a quote.
QuickBooks Payroll
QuickBooks Online Payroll is Intuit QuickBooks’ cloud-based payroll solution. Like Paychex, QuickBooks Payroll offers full-service payroll processing and tax administration together with a self-service payroll app for employees. Because the software was developed to integrate straight with QuickBooks Online, Intuit’s popular accounting option, QuickBooks Payroll does not charge extra for you to integrate its payroll and accounting systems.
QuickBooks Online Payroll has three rates tiers:
- QuickBooks Payroll Core costs $45 a month plus $5 per employee each month.
- QuickBooks Payroll Elite costs $75 a month plus $8 per employee monthly.
- QuickBooks Payroll Premium costs $125 plus $10 per staff member each month.
With each plan, you can choose either a 30-day free trial or to receive 50% off the payroll software’s base price for three months.
SEE: QuickBooks Payroll review (2023 ): Prices, features, pros and cons (TechRepublic)
Is Paychex right for my organization?
If you run a big organization with complicated payroll needs, you must think about Paychex due to the fact that it has numerous customizations. Its functions are developed to scale as your organization needs grow. In addition, companies that still run on the paper check indicates of payment can adopt Paychex because it features a tool that accommodates such standard means of payment.
If you’re comfortable getting started with a software tool without attempting a free version, Paychex lets users dive into the complete plan for a fee. On the other hand, if you’re trying to find top payroll processing services for small businesses, or a payroll solution that uses a free trial and simple to discover prices information, check out QuickBooks Online Payroll and OnPay.
Methodology
To write our Paychex evaluation, we read validated Paychex customer reviews, completely investigated Paychex’s functions, and examined Paychex’s self-guided desktop and mobile demos.
