Ascentis HR uses web-based management programs to help automate complex HR processes. Ascentis’ other services included customizable payroll, time and attendance and recruiting modules. Ascentis was acquired by UKG in March of 2022, and will be discontinued.
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Paylocity
Score 7.8 out of 10
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Paylocity provides 24/7 access to your online payroll and human resource data management. Paylocity offers highly customizable payroll functionality, as well as HR, benefits administration, and time and talent management programs.
Ascentis is more integrated and Paylocity is easier to use as it has the advantage of creating customized reports when needed. Paylocity downloads all tax returns and with Ascentis i have to request them, download and rename all the files. Paylocity's quarterlys are done in 2 …
We selected Ascentis over Paylocity because we were frustrated with a lack of support from Paylocity and because we could have additional functionalities like recruiting and LMS in our HRIS at the same price we were paying for Paylocity.
ADP is mostly likely the status quo for HRIS systems, their CS and 24/7 support is incomparable to other systems, including Ascentis. There are often manual corrections needed, negative changes to user view, and other very odd things that happen with Ascentis that I have …
We selected Ascentis because the features and price were a reasonable match for our business objectives at the time. What stood out about Ascentis was the ability to customize and integrate with our internal tools.
We are currently starting to evaluate other software and are …
UKG and Paylocity were fairly similar, but we thought the user experience seemed simpler with Paylocity. Paycom did not have as great of customer service and was much more expensive.
We used QuickBooks Time, and migrated from that to Paylocity Time & Labor. We attempted to use Ascentis, but after 4 weeks of back and forth, we made little progress, despite a rigorous set of Demo's were we tried to make sure they could deliver what we needed in time tracking. …
In working with Ascentis in payroll, the program makes my job so much easier. I am new to this position and the learning process has been so much easier with this product than those in the past. I appreciate the patience I am given when I call in for assistance as well.
Paylocity works well for our organization. Ease of use for our managers and employees is very important. Makes it easier for us in HR to manage. Time and attendance works very well. Efficient and effective. Payroll runs very smoothly. We appreciate the performance and compensation module for tracking employees performance, journals and getting feedback and annual compensation.
Easy to use software. I have had several new HR employees comment on how easy the system is to learn!
Problem Solving- Ascentis is always problem solving! When we were in the process of selecting a new payroll company, we needed unemployment claims management assistance for our locations, something Ascentis did not currently offer. The sales rep went out of his way to find a unemployment claims management company that would work with Ascentis and us. That company has helped us keep an 80% win rate for our claims!
User conference- Engage is an awesome way to learn more about the products Ascentis has available as well and meet up with the staff you work with every day!
Updating the system so it is one platform and not two.
Create changes to the benefit enrollment process and upgrade the system so hire dates do not need to be changed to trigger benefits for status changes.
Focus updates on HR Admin, mobile application, ATS and transitioning to one platform. Larger areas of focus have been on the payroll portion of the system with a few updates to other areas.
When something is broken, quicker turn time on fixing the issue.
A candidate being able to save progress on their application is really a must as they can't leave and come back to their application without having to restart, i.e. if they need to get a phone number for a reference for example.
Could use more room in entering the job for internal notes.
Quirky when doing cut and paste of job details that leaves spaces that aren't in the document being pasted.
This rating would be a 10 if it were not for some issues we have been having recently with the benefit carrier connections. The carrier connections are critical for us so how these issues are resolved will be key in our renewal decision.
We have had many issues with the way our platform was set up at implementation that still continue to plague us. In addition, our benefits, in particular our FSA, have been mis-managed causing a balance due from an employee (and also a lot of work for our accounting and HR team, as well as stress for the employee). Our service rep continues to answer incorrectly on many fronts (original response is usually check out this paylocity article, vs. helping) and recently our COBRA management was mishandled (not adding Dental to a person on Cobra who had requested it). So- all in all...we are not particularly happy w/ Paylocity
I'd give it a 7.5. If the modules were easier to access and not so buried (or placed in left field to find), I would give it a higher rating. As I said, as the potential to be great if ACCESS to other modules was easier.
Overall, in my experience, Paylocity has been easy to use for both staff and administrators. First, the staff has an application and inputting Paid Time Off is easy to do. I then get an alert on my app and I am able to approve it on the spot from my app that gives me access as an employee and an administrator without having to use multiple apps or logins. As an administrator I think the portal is easy to use, Paylocity did a great job showing me tools and rolling out training classes before rollout.
They normally give you notice when an update will affect the use of the system. Otherwise, when we have an error , we send a message to the support team. Sometimes someone will get right back with you and sometimes it takes a while.
Paylocity support is always available and I never have to wait endlessly on hold. If our dedicated account manage is not available, there is an entire team assigned to our account. Every one of them is knowledgeable about our organization and Paylocity's process.
Support is attentive and quick to answer the call and get the answer for you. If they for any reason cannot answer right then, they are back to you within a day and always seem to have a sense of urgency. You truly get the impression that they are aiming to make you happy.
Everyone wants immediate assistance. Awaiting a response from an email only to ask 2-3 more questions is time consuming. Within the first six months of setup, I would rather respond back to the instructors who provided me the training in each category of my contract.
First, to clarify our "in-person" training was done mainly through Web-X meetings and conference calls. It was the closest thing we got to as far as an "in-person" training for this software. However, for the large majority of it, this type of training worked out well. We were able to share our screens and the trainer was able to share his/her screen. We could follow along with what we were doing in our database in real time and see how different functions worked and how manipulating our information could produce different results. It was also nice in that it provided for real-time results if something hadn't been coded correctly or we were having issues as to why something wasn't working the way we thought it should be. However, it did have some downsides in that we often had to rely on a conference phone and that made it difficult to hear people on both sides. Also, sometimes the trainers had internet difficulties when working from home and that caused issues with the WebX meetings.
Ascentis HR has a number of online training videos to watch on a number of different topics. I gave it a lower rating because there is not much interactivity with the videos and it seems to cater to really only one or two learning styles. Plus, one has to be pretty motivated to go to a separate area to access the videos and then pull up a specific one to watch it and then learn. From my experience, people know that they are there, many just don't take the time and effort to go find them and actually watch them - especially since the username and password are different from their normal username and password.
The training was live online, but was with a group of other companies. We did not receive any personalized training with our team. Whenever we would ask for training, we would be sent a peak article link or a video. It felt like the reps we dealt with didn't know the answer to the questions.
It was very easy to implement, but the customization pieces should really be fleshed out in order to determine the full need of an organization at the time of implementation. I believe if a little more time was spent on the requirements, the recruiting module would not have to be customized again at a cost at a later date.
I had gone through an implementation process of another HR platform (Paycom) in my previous job and was traumatized, it was painful. I was surprised how easy and fast it was with Paylocity, the team was very helpful and set us up for success
Ascentis has far better customer service and the implementation experience was also better. The ability to do a lot of customization is also easier with Ascentis as it's smaller organization. The payroll has positive and negatives compared to ADP but the accuracy is the same in both. Ascentis just started their community site which doesn't have a lot of traffic but hopefully can become more like ADP's community site, which was extremely helpful to me as an administrator.
We honestly had a program that only kept track of our Demographics, salaries, etc. then all of our Payroll was done on paper with paper leave slips etc. When I saw Paylocity, I was very excited about how easy it is/would be to use. [...] Our Paylocity rep that I spoke to was super GREAT in the explanation of Paylocity and I didn't even shop around much.
HR DPT. is much more effective, as we can assess any employee information no matter where we are, etc. This helps to provide information immediately when requested!
Employees have access to Ascentis, and therefore to their timecard, open enrollment, etc., from anywhere at any time!
Time, PTO requests, employee goals, and evaluations can be approved from anywhere at any time!
Recruiting can be accessed any where at any time, and this helps with hiring, internal communication, etc.
Definitely more consistent processes. Everything is very user friendly and it reduces the amount of time it has taken us in the past before we started using Paylocity. Everything flows super smoothly.
We have an improved retention since we have used Paylocity. Before hand, many employees thought it was difficult to find anything like tax forms, pay stubs, benefit elections, etc. when we used other platforms before we implemented our data into Paylocity.
Costs have been reduced and the decision-making process has improved and got quicker. Before Paylocity, it would take at least a week to get a salary increase approved, or a job title change approved. Now, it take less than a day and is super easy.
