RUN Powered by ADP® vs. ADP Workforce Now

Anyone running a service or mobile business would love the ease of clocking in and out with GPS services. Small and medium sized businesses looking to offload some of their accounting and HR functionality would all appreciate it. I helped my brother-in-laws housecleaning business get set up with RUN Powered by ADP®, as well as a friend's dry cleaning company.

The ease in which you can process payroll and year end (T4s). Ability to maintain payroll - enter upcoming changes (e.g. pay raises for a certain date) ahead of time. While we don't use it in my current company, in past ones the time & attendance integration with timesheets is fabulous. Our company uses a 3rd party scheduling & timesheet platform which also integrates with one click but is a little more work to maintain time off balances within ADP Workforce Now. We use the 3rd party platform (Evolia) for scheduling and timesheets as the management here wanted the ability to see salaried employees on site, have a chat feature, and some self-management on the employee side with the ability to swap shifts.

Incentivized

• Payroll runs are consistent, timely, and error‑free, even when handling multiple pay rates, deductions, or changes. Direct deposits process smoothly and predictably.
• RUN Powered by ADP® manages federal, state, and local tax withholding, filings, and payments without requiring manual oversight. This significantly reduces compliance risk and administrative workload.
• Common actions—running payroll, adding new employees, updating pay rates—are straightforward and guided, which helps prevent mistakes.

Incentivized

• HRIS that is personalized for the employee and addresses DE&I needs.
• Payroll, of course! The system addresses all needs, such as deductions, additional pay, premium OT, and shift differentials.
• Onboarding is an excellent way to stay in compliance and have all documents completed.
• Tax and Banking and resolution to any issues.

Incentivized

• I do wish there were additional custom deductions available rather than a limited amount.
• Sometimes employees have trouble accessing their account after the initial invite has been sent.
• Sometimes employee accounts get locked due to a reused email if their profile is deleted before they've signed up. Only a call to support can correct it.

Incentivized

• Customized pre-process payroll reports (Limited on pre-process payroll reports)
• Labor Allocation (Allocations make payroll reporting very hard to review and find any errors )
• Recruiting (ATS is very basic)
• Geofencing (should be able to change shape rather than a circle)
• Pay Classes (should be able to change at Practitioner level rather than reach out to support)
• Cookies and Cache have to be cleared on a regular basis
• Only able to see employee documents/acknowledgements one at a time in the employee file
• Timecards can only be managed/viewed by 1 person
• Timeoff emails do not have a link
• Cost per payroll - not just monthly fee so cost with off cycle payrolls
• Separate I9 step not needed - during onboarding - 2nd Everify step
• ADP Workforce Now does not pull in allowances for Houly employees into payroll ONLY Salaried employees

Incentivized

It is much better than the payroll system I used previously. The integrations that RUN has for on-boarding new hires are very convenient when they work properly. It saves a tremendous amount of time being able to email a link to new employees that allows them to enter much of their own demographic information. Payroll feature alerts me when someone's pay is significantly less or more than usual.

Incentivized

Due to the lack of support from the sales and service center we are looking at other options outside of ADP. Again it is a good system, it just lacks the support it deserves from the company employees. It is just unimaginable that you will need to reach out to a service provider several times for the same issue and not get it resolved.

Incentivized

I have been using this system for years and they have actually made it easier and easier. The system is always making great upgrades that don't necessarily require any additional information or training. I love when I log in and see a new feature or button that I get to use to make my life easier!

Incentivized

I would give it a 10 however I do not like when ADP does facelifts in Workforce Now which does not add any value other than having to relearn navigation. I am also not a big fan of being forced to refer to the Bridge. We have Google which gives the same results. If I understood the answer I would not contact our Account Rep.

Incentivized

We've had very little issue with RUN availability, only a couple times there were outages when least expected which occurred on our actual payroll due date

Incentivized

ADP outages are very rare

Incentivized

ADP Run loads a bit slowly at times, once I put in my credentials. However, that said, I think my perception of the time it takes is impacted by our "instant gratification" expectation of being able to get into everything quickly.

Incentivized

Overall, I think the functionality of the program works pretty well. Sometimes, certain browsers do not work well for the policy function of ADP, but that is the only issue thus far

Incentivized

I appreciated having that issue finally take care of. it was extremely disheartening to see the issue had not been resolved. I also had my employees looking to me and thinking I was not trying to resolve the issue so it reflected poorly on my character. I do not know if i was because of a miscommunication, but nonetheless I was happy it was taken care of

Incentivized

Kelly La Rosa and Brian McLaughlin have been exceptional partners over the last few years and a tremendous source of support in my role. They are consistently solution‑oriented, highly responsive, and proactive in identifying opportunities to improve our processes. Both regularly brought forward thoughtful recommendations, including suggestions for new ADP products that aligned well with our evolving needs. Their expertise, reliability, and genuine commitment to client success have made a meaningful impact on my work and on our overall experience with ADP.

Incentivized

they helped up with the 1st payroll after that we were fine - it is very user friendly- they wanted to be sure everything had imported correctly.

Incentivized

In-person training was pretty good - I think this significantly depends on the trainer. Our trainer was really good and showed what ADP can do - but I know that all trainers are not the same - and this truly makes such as difference. Overall, our training went pretty well.

Incentivized

very easy to learn i think it took maybe one payroll to have it down and we were up and running

Incentivized

At the time training was not as expansive as it is now. If it could go wrong it did for me so the process was difficult and lengthy. I needed to have more in person walkthroughs of things to ensure the transition was done correctly. Not sure what else I can say, we were part of the initial move to Workforce Now when it was introduced.

Incentivized

Make sure there's plenty of time between payrolls for the implementation and be sure to test all the manually inputted fields.

Incentivized

Either assign more than one specialist to the implementation process, or assign less clients to the implementation specialist. The process requires attention to detail and the ability to test and re-test as well as verify the information. It also requires a lot of back and forth between the client ant the implementation specialist, so they need to be readily available during the whole implementation process.

Based on our experience, RUN Powered by ADP® was selected by our small business because our owner was seeking a robust, all-in-one payroll and HR solution that scales with our growth. It allowed us to move away from manual spreadsheets and our less sophisticated payroll systems to ensure accurate tax compliance.

I also used UltiPro (way back -- it didn't even appear in dropdown). Recommend ADP Workforce Now above all others. Paycor and Paycom were both very clunky. I even helped implement Paycom and could never get it to work how the business needed it to.

Incentivized

Every summer, we hire three new college interns who have to be entered into the system. They can enter their information themselves, which takes a load off me. The onboarding is quite straightforward, and today's college kids are techy enough to be able to understand it.

Incentivized

We have several departments that utilize the reporting, utilize the timecards and the system. We also have self service that is nice for all of our employees. This system allows us to designate what each group can see, and what employees can change, or who can clock in and out offsite

Incentivized

• Time savings: Automated payroll and tax filing reduced manual processing by 40%, freeing staff for growth initiatives
• Cost efficiency: Lowered compliance errors and penalties, saving an estimated $5,000 annually
• Scalability: Supported onboarding across multiple states, enabling expansion without adding HR headcount
• Accuracy & trust: Improved employee satisfaction with timely pay and reliable W‑2/1099 delivery

Incentivized

• ADP WorkforceNow has provided a positive ROI for our company. It has saved me countless hours in the time I used to spend preparing reports, managing benefits, and annual enrollment, recruitment tracking, and much more.
• The integration with Payscale has allowed our company to take every position in our organization and benchmark it to industries and job titles. This has allowed us to be more competitive on recruitment and retention.
• We have used the new DE&I dashboard to provide valuable information on the landscape of our workforce, as well as areas of our organization that may not be as diverse.

Incentivized