Likelihood to Recommend I think that APS Online is scalable to any organization. It's a wonderful product and I have had so many managers that work with me that feel the same way. We haven't been with them quite a year yet but since we've started it has made a world of difference for us. Things to ask about- 1- Do they specialize in or can they accommodate states that you are working in and their various rules? 2- What type of customer service? Do they have a call center or do they have a designated person like APS? 3- How long do your reports stay in the system? (ADP "archived" theirs after a year so we couldn't reach them)
Read full review Patriot PAY is well-suited to a company that has a 10-day window between the end of the pay period and the payday. The company size makes very little difference and it is easy to use for any company. It is also very progressive in development and improvement. If a company has a small window for turn-around, but fairly consistent payroll amounts (such as a lot of salary workers), Patriot PAY might also be a good fit for them. Companies with tight turn-around times or payrolls that vary significantly in direct deposit amounts might have difficulty using Patriot PAY.
Read full review Pros It's fast and intuitive. Our previous contractors were ADP and Paychex and neither were intuitive. Our payroll runs have less errors now than with previous vendors. Payroll prep time is down from 5 hours with ADP to 2 hours with APS for the HR Manager. The limiters are great. I'm always afraid of that error that no one caught. Let's assume that you add a $200 limiter to overtime. Any time that a staff member is about to receive more than $200 in overtime for that pay period, a red flag goes up for the HR manager to double check. We have 3 programs in public schools that block certain ports. APS has a 2nd feature using GPS so that staff can only check in for their shift while they are in the designated GPS range. Great for someone who has to report to a remote location. Just add the GPS coordinates and they can't check until they get to the project. Read full review It is simple, intuitive and straightforward in its design. Someone with little experience with roles in human resources roles, bookkeeping or payroll can quickly learn how to set-up the software and run payroll regularly by reading through the support portion of the site, or by contacting the helpful staff at Patriot. Patriot staff have walked me through issues or guided me on the phone as I learned how to use a function of the software. Patriot provides comprehensive quarterly tax filing records, including 941s, state unemployment compensation tax payments, state employer's tax and local employer's tax filings. You can also generate payroll or tax deposit reports over a specific time period or per employee. The support and FAQ pages available on Patriot are very practical and written in an easy to understand manner. Using the information provided there, I was able to properly set up new employees according to local and state filing requirements. Read full review Cons Reporting - We have six different business units and the reporting is separate for all three. Most reporting I do requires information from all business units so am running six reports and then copying and pasting to get the report I need. Multi-state taxes - We have a number of employees who live in New York and work in New Jersey. APS OnLine is designed to accommodate one state withholding so ability to have "worked in" state and "lived in" state taxes withheld went away. This was a shortfall. The Carrier connection setup took much longer than expected. After a year, we are still having some issues with some items transferring over to the GL. The CA overtime calculation does not calculate after 8 hours per day, only on the 40 per week so we override each week. Reporting - when running Benefit reports, it recognizes employees who formerly carried the plan but may have dropped it. To get around this, we have to delete off the employee's record so the history is not readily available. Read full review Connecting with outside software - we have an issue of Patriot not recognizing donors when connected to other websites when all the information is the same minus a middle initial Giving an error page when something small is off. Instead of giving an easy to fix error notification, Patriot brings the user to an error page and they have to reenter everything. Fixing dates easily. If a date is entered incorrectly, 8/13/21 instead of 2021, an error pop up appears but the user has to click enter/okay many times or refresh the page in order to fix this issue. Enter vs Tab key - Patriot loves the tab key but if the user clicks enter instead, many times it brings them to the home page. Read full review Likelihood to Renew I have been using the system for over a year now and feel more comfortable with the functionality of it. I have just recently implemented the benefit administration portion.
Read full review It works well because it is cheap for us.
Read full review Usability In general, it's a great system to use. We were looking for simplicity and ease of use and have received raves from our employees in their ability to access and make use of the system. There is still so much more that we have yet to gain as we continue working through each of the modules.
Read full review I think it is great once things are setup as for general user looking to look for simple things like a copy of a paystub or a current pay rate for an employee. However, to find specialized things like a state withholding number or payroll integration settings those do require a bit more digging to find or possibly a call to customer service for help.
Read full review Reliability and Availability I haven't had any outages
Read full review Performance Very quick
Read full review Support Rating I had to learn APS on my own, and the support team held my hand. They are still there when I have an occasional question. Anytime I need support, I can call my rep or send an email and help is on the way, without failure. The support team is awesome
Read full review Generally speaking it is pretty good that when I need to call somebody up for a payroll question I can generally within five minutes get somebody on the phone and they can help me resolve the problem or specify where specifically I need to go or contact to find my answers. However, that being said, for my specific situation as a partner my assigned contact has not always been very responsive.
Read full review In-Person Training Even if it wasn't in-person on location, we felt like we had our trainer in the room with us.
Read full review Online Training We had great webinars.
Read full review Implementation Rating It would have been helpful to understand the phases of the implementation up front so I could have prepared differently for enrollments, billing, and transfer of information to payroll. At the end of the day, I'm happy with the selection and the system and anticipate I will like it better as we go along. We have done a number of other system implementations in the past few years, and this has been pretty painless, however, I've had a few surprises.
Read full review Alternatives Considered I have used ADP for many years and always found the system to be restrictive in ADP's resistance to building rules that matched the organization's needs rather than asking the organization to modify its policies to match 'canned' rules already built within ADP. Bamboo and several other newer systems really cannot support the many separate EINs under the corporate umbrella. And, finally, the other products are simply too costly for this organization.
Read full review I briefly used Intuit Online Payroll, and it was expensive, had no support, and was very frustrating to use. I also used 3 local tax companies for payroll - they were extremely expensive and messed up all of the time. Their employee turnover was very annoying (and it seemed to happen every other month) and each employee did things differently. When I let one of my employees go, the last company paid them after termination (2 weeks of salary), and had to get into a legal battle because the employee would not give the money back.
Read full review Scalability I've never had a problem with the system nor in finding the right information.
Read full review Return on Investment APS OnLine has helped us streamline the payroll process by freeing up our time of not having to personally cut and sign weekly paychecks. We don't have to rely on check signers to be present which has helped our timeliness as well. Read full review It boosts my time available for client-facing activities by not having to spend as much time processing payroll. It helps me deliver accurate reports to my CPA at tax time regarding employee wages and employer taxes. Through the online portal, I can easily track year-to-date taxes my company has paid. Read full review ScreenShots Patriot Software Screenshots