Avature ATS vs. Heartland Payroll+

As it is a very complete tool, with many features and that sometimes ends up being a little complex, I would recommend it only for medium-sized companies. Perhaps in a large company, it could complicate the processes a little instead of making it easier. But it's a great tool!

Incentivized

We changed payroll companies from Paycom to Heartland this year at the recommendation of our insurance agent who insisted they would integrate with the EASE system, which tracks employee benefits and deductions. However, 8 weeks into it, I regret my decision, since the setup hasn't been completed yet. The lack of responsiveness in some cases is astounding and often we have to ask 3, 4, and 5 times for something to be done. I hate to think what will happen after we are "handed off" from the payroll implementation team to the regular schmucks. We still are not able to track PTO and time off and we have been begging for the self-service feature to be turned on for employees so they can change addresses, bank account info, etc. Their training is NONEXISTENT and their manual is abysmal. DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY!!!!! I wish I could go back to Paycom!

• Search capabilities - ability to pipeline top talent.
• Communication with hiring managers in the hiring manager portal - resumes/notes don't get lost in email and are always accessible to anyone involved in the hiring process.
• Ability to customize - we've been able to change work flows for different needs, and different business groups as well.

Incentivized

• White-glove customer support. All employees are in the United States and they must pay them well, because they don't seem to have turnover there.
• Technology is awesome. We have Payroll, HR, T&A, ATS, and onboarding with them.
• Their Tax Credit tech is amazing. I received more money in tax credits last year than payroll cost me. That's a net positive!
• Compliance with their HR team is great, and they don't hit you over the head on the price for it.
• Pricing is fantastic with a 3-year price lock. No BS discounting that jumps back up a year later.

• Easily over-engineered. While it's great to be able to customize, there are times where there are too many choices.
• Would like to see it integrate better with our HRIS system.
• Still a lot of manual steps in the workflow.

Incentivized

• Sometimes the system (geocode) will not allow me to process address changes by asking for help from our specialist.
• Response for assistance is usually a lot slower when our dedicated specialist is not available.

Incentivized

I never have trouble reaching customer support. They always are able to assist with fixing any problems that arise. There honestly haven't been many issues at all. Only ones I've created :)

Incentivized

The Heartland team could care less about how difficult your experience is. In fact, I think they delight in seeing you struggle!

Avature is much better than OpenHire! OpenHire didn't give us the ability to share resumes or notes through the system and was very complicated to keep track of candidates that applied to multiple jobs or duplicate candidates. Was also very archaic in the interfacing and usability. Avature gave us many more options to customize our system.

Incentivized

I've considered moving payroll over to QuickBooks Online so that everything is in one place, but it would probably take too much work considering that our current system works really well. I think QuickBooks would confuse me, honestly. There are other systems that offer different user interfaces that are neat looking, but I haven't done too much research because Heartland Payroll offered me a really good deal for processing since we are a small company.

Incentivized

• Ability to be more efficient in hiring, leading to faster hire times
• Easier to keep clean data for OFCCP or AAP audits
• Spend a lot of time altering or changing workflows/process/manually moving things along

Incentivized

• We have a net positive using Heartland. We actually bring more money in from their tax credits than the payroll service actually costs.
• I used to have a part-time person handing our payroll/HR needs. Now this is done by me because it's so easy.