8 Best Payroll Software Tools to Use in 2024
As your business grows, you are likely to be faced with a need to expand your administrative staff – more employees means more work making sure they get their pay, bonuses, benefits, and other money owed to them, as well as making sure your taxes and withholding are straight, too. And more work means more opportunities for automation and streamlining – that’s why there’s no shortage of software designed to help you out with that.
A well-chosen piece of software can have various benefits for your staff: keeping track of payments, avoiding liability, helping manage benefits and bonuses, and many others. But which is the best payroll software solution out there? That’s what we would like to talk about.
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Gusto (formerly ZenPayroll) is a cloud-based payroll software which offers a great deal of flexibility, allowing you to set it up just the way you like it. It offers a range of employee management options, from offer letters through onboarding checklists and time-tracking options. The application comes with ready-made functionalities for several US-centric operations, such as local, state and federal taxes, automatic deductions and filings, as well as income tax and retirement plan forms.
Gusto also offers integration with many popular popular accounting applications, such as Xero, FreshBooks, Aplos and many others, reducing the potential for mistakes in case you are using one of the compatible apps for your other payments.
The exact list of available features depends on the pricing plan you choose, but Gusto offers a great deal of flexibility in that regard, too, charging differently depending on the size of your payroll team.
A popular choice for a payroll software solution, Paychex comes with functionalities which enable faster payroll and tax processing and filing. And not only that: you can use Paychex as an HR tool, with support for onboarding and retirement processing, while also allowing for easy and accurate time-tracking. On the health insurance and benefits side, Paychex partners with several of the most popular regional and national insurance carriers in the US, and the same goes for retirement plan options: they are easy to set up and manage.
Paychex integrates with a broad gamut of accounting, hiring, and HR solutions, such as Xero, QuickBooks online, Bamboo HR and others. It offers time-saving and cost-cutting solutions for businesses of various sizes, from self-employed individuals to large companies, and even offers a simple and helpful quiz to help you determine which version of the software you need.
ADP offers comprehensive payroll processing in just a few clicks, especially in its small business package. It takes you step by step through earnings and taxes, with full compliance with US federal, state and local taxes. In its midsized to enterprise package, this time-saving process is supplemented with a suite of HR tools, benefits and retirements management, time-tracking, talent management, and more.
ADP also provides desktop and mobile apps for employees so they can access information on their payroll and benefits status, report their own time and attendance, and submit requests for time off work.
Originally short for online payroll, Onpay is much more than that. An easy to use, fully automated solution for your payroll and taxes, be they federal, state or local is just the beginning. It comes with a simple step-by-step setup wizard which not only saves time but simplifies where needed. You can even use it from your mobile.
Onpay syncs with several popular accountancy solutions, such as QuickBooks, Xero, and many others. On the benefits and retirement side of things, Onpay facilitates planning and budgeting, while integrating with several top insurance providers in the United States.
While BambooHR is primarily an HR solution, it nonetheless offers payroll functionalities. It makes for simpler and quicker payroll calculation and form submission with an easy three-step process. By step three, you will have paid your employees‘ salaries and submitted all relevant US tax forms safely and with no room for error.
The employee data from BambooHR‘s suite of HR tools, such as wages, hours, and benefits, among others, is automatically imported into the payroll system, saving you a lot of time on data entry, too. Additionally, your employees can access all their reports at any time, and manage their information using a desktop computer or mobile phone.
Wagepoint is a simple solution for all your payroll needs. It saves time and work by managing employee payments, withholdings, and taxes, while also giving your employees online access to all their pay details. This includes US federal, state, and local taxes, as well as social security, unemployment, and other compulsory filings. With Wagepoint, you can easily calculate employee income, including bonuses and overtime, deduction such as retirement plan contributions, and paid time off for holidays, vacations, and sick leaves. Wagepoint integrates with QuickBooks Online, Xero, and LessAccounting.
The clue is in the name: Payroll4Free is a completely free payroll service, though there is a catch: it is financed through small ads and is only free provided your staff numbers 25 people or fewer. Still, this makes it an excellent choice for small and growing businesses. The free version covers all the basics: payments, tax calculation and forms, time-tracking (including vacation time and sick leave), and a portal for your employees to check up on their data, among other features.
Geared towards small businesses, Workful is an all-in-one payroll and employee management solution. Workful saves you a lot of time managing employee income and withholdings, filing federal and state forms, and generating automatic reports. Your HR data, which includes all your employee‘s documents, time reports and time off request submissions and approvals, will be synced with the main payroll function, saving you time on data entry. Workful also allows you to communicate with employees, making it easy for them to access their data and for you to send them all the relevant notifications.
In Conclusion
A list of available software solutions is all well and good, but which one is right for you? Usually, budget is a prime concern, but most payroll software does not display their prices openly. A notable exception is Payroll4Free, which is, well, free, and our pick for small and growing businesses. In our opinion, Workful and Wagepoint are also good choices for this class of user.
Another thing you should be looking at is compatibility with accounting software you may already be using: check out the integrations list for every piece of software you are considering spending your money on. Finally, what we feel will likely contribute to your making up your mind is ease of use. We feel Onpay and BambooHR have a great deal to offer in that respect.
