BambooHR® vs. Paylocity

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
BambooHR®
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
BambooHR is an cloud-based human resources solution that provides onboarding, payroll, and benefits management. It also offers automated time-off management and employee self-service.
$10
per month per user
Paylocity
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
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.N/A
Pricing
BambooHR®Paylocity
Editions & Modules
Core
$10
per month per user
Pro
Contact Sales
per month
Elite
Contact Sales
per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BambooHR®Paylocity
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BambooHR®Paylocity
Considered Both Products
BambooHR®
Chose BambooHR®
Loved BambooHR and was looking to move to them with my last company until I decided to make a job change. Paylocity was very difficult to use and their customer service was abysmal. I did not use the payroll feature. The reporting with Trax was not as robust as we would have …
Chose BambooHR®
I did not select BambooHR, it was already in use and it works well for the size of the company so there is no reason to change it. Paylocity has better payroll functionality but is lacking on the HRIS side, so BambooHR and Paylocity are somewhat comparable. In my opinion, avoid …
Chose BambooHR®
BambooHR was a significant cost savings for us compared to Paylocity. As we compared both systems, Paylocity might have a few more bells and whistles, but BambooHR's simplicity and price tag made It a much better fit for us as we transitioned to an HRIS and payroll platform.
Chose BambooHR®
I've used a few different tools for payroll and benefits. I used Rippling a while ago. I remember it was also pretty easy to use. Paylocity was also pretty easy to use, as far as I remember. Since I'm not the HR rep evaluating the tools for the benefits side, I don't have much …
Chose BambooHR®
scalability is an issue with BambooHR (missing lot of competent), integration with other tools (EDI feed, compliance etc)
Chose BambooHR®
BambooHR is the best, but unfortunately, it doesn't currently have an adequate payroll module for our needs.
Chose BambooHR®
BambooHR is easy to use whether you have one or 1,000 employees.
Chose BambooHR®
Bamboo's simplicity in utilization beats all the above. The functionality isn't as robust as some, but it gets the job done well and has no huge misses, especially as I believe the simplicity outweighs the lack of functionality in small areas!
Chose BambooHR®
We have BambooHR because of its great interface and user-friendly design. It meets our employees' needs as well as our employer's needs. We have integrations with some programs where Bonusly isn't able to cover.
Chose BambooHR®
Although there are many products in the marketplace, there is no perfect system. BambooHR is the most economical HRIS for a small business, start-up, or business that has never had HR software. BambooHR was selected for its affordable functionality. However, if they continue …
Chose BambooHR®
I used to use that software but couldn't meet up my demand. But in BambooHR workforce management platform features are really amazing than that. Platforms, content and overall everything of BambooHR is work-worthy.
Chose BambooHR®
Other tools with a more unified platform (including a more mature payroll solution) have been much more robust in terms of their data and reporting capabilities. BambooHR, however, has the edge on having a flashier look that may be more appealing to some up-and-coming …
Paylocity
Chose Paylocity
Paylocity has much more functionality than BambooHR. I think BambooHR was simpler to use and had a cleaner look, but it did not have integrated Payroll, and it could not report out at the level that Paylocity reports out on. BambooHR is too barebones for the needs of our …
Chose Paylocity
It is better for growing organizations due to its integrations with Bswfit and BambooHR. It saves time when we do not manually enter benefits, which we had to do while we were on Gusto.
Chose Paylocity
Paylocity tends to outpace due to its flexibility, ease of use, and support.
Chose Paylocity
It doesn't compare; In my opinion, it's one of the worst systems I've ever seen and used.
Chose Paylocity
Paylocity was the best "bang for our buck" in terms of what the system offered versus what the cost was of implementation and continuous use. We love the mobile features, and Paylocity is great for a company of our size (currently just under 100 employees). We also chose …
Chose Paylocity
I think all of those software's are well suited. I am so invested in Paylocity, that I won't go back just to try them.
Chose Paylocity
I didn't select Paylocity. It was here when I arrived.
Chose Paylocity
Paylocity is light years ahead of BamBooHR. The payroll reports in BamBooHR is a joke. Spend more time dumping information into excel to get logical data.
Chose Paylocity
In my opinion, Paylocity is a marked improvement over BambooHR. Certain employee payroll interactions are much more streamlined.
Chose Paylocity
Airbase has more features and functionality than ADP when it comes to expense reporting
Chose Paylocity
Paylocity was very user friendly from the beginning and the cost compared to other products was a no brainer.
Chose Paylocity
Bamboo is a little bit harder to understand and sends you a million notifications. Paylocity advises about what needs to be done and gives easy access to what we need.
Chose Paylocity
Paylocity was the best value, most user friendly, and most robust modules.
Chose Paylocity
Bamboo is significantly better in usability. We had it previously. We only chose to leave because we have a unique unemployment tax situation that Bamboo and QuickBooks Online were both unable to handle.

QuickBooks Online had the advantage of fully integrating our regular …
Chose Paylocity
Well, one of the things that make our organization unique is many of our employees have multiple jobs and so we really needed a platform that could accommodate that and that was something that many other platforms, either their ability to accommodate that was very rigid and …
Chose Paylocity
Originally it was due to integration with our 401k provider. Paylocity was the only one with a partnership at that time.
Chose Paylocity
The two were obviously good, but as for Bamboo, once you cross the 150 plus employees and need deeper compliance, it starts to feel lightweight. Paylocity scaled better. UKG on the other hand had a user experience that felt dated and the admin overhead was just too high. …
Chose Paylocity
The user friendly and intuitive system allows for efficiency and simplicity.
Chose Paylocity
It has a bit more functionality and better features for compensation, time & labor, recruiting, and performance.
Chose Paylocity
Workday seemed to be more set up for larger pools of employees and information. For a small employer this is fine.
Chose Paylocity
The systems functionalities are very similar, but no matter how great a system may be is good customer care does not represent the program, the reviews will always be poor.
Chose Paylocity
I think Paylocity is robust. While it still has some kinks to iron out, it is building out over time nicely. ADP is a really nice system, but a bit dated. PeopleAdmin requires an immense amount of time to build ones system. BambooHR and Gusto aren't as robust in my opinion.
Chose Paylocity
Paylocity beats all of these hands down. I will give credit to ADP for having a good payroll system, but everything else they have is terrible. Bamboo HR is a really simple to understand and use platform, but that's also it's downside, it's too simple and not robust where …
Features
BambooHR®Paylocity
Human Resource Management
Comparison of Human Resource Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.9
326 Ratings
3% below category average
Paylocity
7.9
1622 Ratings
3% below category average
Employee demographic data8.3285 Ratings8.31555 Ratings
Employment history8.1287 Ratings8.11506 Ratings
Job profiles and administration8.1296 Ratings7.81401 Ratings
Workflow for transfers, promotions, pay raises, etc.7.7268 Ratings7.71417 Ratings
Organizational charting7.8301 Ratings7.81300 Ratings
Organization and location management8.1286 Ratings8.11274 Ratings
Compliance data (COBRA, OSHA, etc.)7.4168 Ratings7.71101 Ratings
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.6
221 Ratings
7% below category average
Paylocity
8.3
1555 Ratings
2% above category average
Pay calculation8.1162 Ratings8.61529 Ratings
Support for external payroll vendors7.0116 Ratings8.0778 Ratings
Off-cycle/On-Demand payment7.4116 Ratings8.61210 Ratings
Benefit plan administration7.1167 Ratings7.61061 Ratings
Direct deposit files8.2159 Ratings8.91519 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management7.9175 Ratings8.31237 Ratings
Reimbursement management7.5107 Ratings7.6785 Ratings
Leave and Attendance Management
Comparison of Leave and Attendance Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
8.8
282 Ratings
8% above category average
Paylocity
7.8
1318 Ratings
4% below category average
Approval workflow8.7277 Ratings7.91176 Ratings
Balance details8.5263 Ratings7.61270 Ratings
Annual carry-forward and encashment9.2129 Ratings7.91025 Ratings
Employee Self Service
Comparison of Employee Self Service features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
8.5
314 Ratings
4% above category average
Paylocity
8.4
1561 Ratings
3% above category average
View and generate pay and benefit information8.5208 Ratings8.71527 Ratings
Update personal information8.9309 Ratings8.71556 Ratings
View company policy documentation8.4267 Ratings8.01280 Ratings
Employee recognition7.9189 Ratings8.01160 Ratings
View job history8.8280 Ratings8.51372 Ratings
Asset Management
Comparison of Asset Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
9.1
74 Ratings
13% above category average
Paylocity
7.4
508 Ratings
8% below category average
Tracking of all physical assets9.174 Ratings7.4510 Ratings
HR Reporting
Comparison of HR Reporting features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.2
241 Ratings
4% below category average
Paylocity
7.2
1450 Ratings
4% below category average
Report builder7.4233 Ratings7.31400 Ratings
Pre-built reports7.5231 Ratings7.51419 Ratings
Ability to combine HR data with external data6.9171 Ratings6.9940 Ratings
Onboarding
Comparison of Onboarding features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
8.2
263 Ratings
3% above category average
Paylocity
8.1
1360 Ratings
2% above category average
New hire portal8.4249 Ratings8.31358 Ratings
Manager tracking tools7.9227 Ratings7.91112 Ratings
Performance and Goals
Comparison of Performance and Goals features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.9
184 Ratings
2% below category average
Paylocity
7.6
777 Ratings
6% below category average
Corporate goal setting7.0135 Ratings7.5626 Ratings
Individual goal setting7.9178 Ratings7.6722 Ratings
Line-of sight-visibility9.169 Ratings7.4564 Ratings
Performance tracking7.6170 Ratings7.8724 Ratings
Performance Management
Comparison of Performance Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.8
205 Ratings
1% below category average
Paylocity
7.6
968 Ratings
4% below category average
Performance plans7.3190 Ratings7.4886 Ratings
Performance improvement plans7.3162 Ratings7.2773 Ratings
Review status tracking8.697 Ratings7.8894 Ratings
Review reminders8.1101 Ratings7.8901 Ratings
Multiple review frequency7.7178 Ratings7.8768 Ratings
Succession Planning
Comparison of Succession Planning features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
9.1
81 Ratings
14% above category average
Paylocity
7.5
534 Ratings
5% below category average
Create succession plans/pools8.946 Ratings7.4371 Ratings
Candidate ranking9.067 Ratings7.6434 Ratings
Candidate search9.068 Ratings7.7490 Ratings
Candidate development9.359 Ratings7.2403 Ratings
Recruiting / ATS
Comparison of Recruiting / ATS features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.9
214 Ratings
1% above category average
Paylocity
8.0
924 Ratings
2% above category average
Job Requisition Management7.7161 Ratings8.1801 Ratings
Company Website Posting7.6174 Ratings8.3826 Ratings
Publish to Social Media9.291 Ratings7.9650 Ratings
Job Search Site Posting7.4169 Ratings7.9794 Ratings
Duplicate Candidate Prevention7.588 Ratings7.4692 Ratings
Applicant Tracking8.0192 Ratings8.2857 Ratings
Notifications and Alerts8.1203 Ratings8.0859 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BambooHR®Paylocity
Small Businesses
UZIO
UZIO
Score 9.4 out of 10
UZIO
UZIO
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Paypro Workforce Management
Paypro Workforce Management
Score 9.1 out of 10
Paypro Workforce Management
Paypro Workforce Management
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
PeopleStrong
PeopleStrong
Score 10.0 out of 10
PeopleStrong
PeopleStrong
Score 10.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BambooHR®Paylocity
Likelihood to Recommend
8.3
(336 ratings)
8.0
(1718 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.9
(17 ratings)
9.2
(180 ratings)
Usability
8.7
(263 ratings)
8.1
(531 ratings)
Availability
9.3
(5 ratings)
8.9
(41 ratings)
Performance
8.7
(5 ratings)
8.4
(39 ratings)
Support Rating
8.2
(159 ratings)
7.6
(167 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(7 ratings)
Online Training
8.3
(5 ratings)
8.3
(35 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.6
(6 ratings)
6.6
(100 ratings)
Configurability
7.4
(5 ratings)
7.6
(33 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
8.4
(3 ratings)
8.0
(29 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.6
(2 ratings)
7.5
(33 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.9
(5 ratings)
8.3
(40 ratings)
Professional Services
9.2
(2 ratings)
8.6
(20 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.9
(4 ratings)
7.9
(38 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.1
(4 ratings)
8.6
(36 ratings)
User Testimonials
BambooHR®Paylocity
Likelihood to Recommend
BambooHR
The best use of it is for employee tracking and vacation requests. It can also be used for payroll; however, my company uses a separate program for that. The best use for it, in my opinion, is staff performance management. All the notes and documents can be added/attached to the employee. You can click on an employee's profile and see what days they have been off, how close they are to achieving goals, etc.
Read full review
Paylocity
Recordkeeping, filing reports, paying taxes, and having one location for everything is amazing. From recruiting to onboarding, we still need to make changes so we have less paperwork to manage, such as permission to run background checks and drug testing. We will work on this, but when you are busy, it is easy to put this off.
Read full review
Pros
BambooHR
  • Ease of use for established staff and admins, all the way down to brand new hires.
  • Integrations, especially for posting and managing jobs during the hiring process.
  • Making regularly occurring things like meetings and assessments easy to customize and to action easily.
  • Being able to assign out tasks for onboarding and offboarding.
Read full review
Paylocity
  • The simpleness of the home screen for employees and the ease of use.
  • The employee profile and the ease of accessing everything related to employees. Centrally located.
  • The Community Page is a great tool for communicating with all employees or a specific group.
Read full review
Cons
BambooHR
  • No file viewer (need to download the attachments).
  • No option to enable notifications if certain people are out (you can just check, but it would be nice to have).
  • No customization of my personal view (f.e., i can't have the PTO page be my default).
Read full review
Paylocity
  • It requires me to use either Chrome or Edge so I can use Paylocity. It doesn't support Firefox, which is the browser I was using prior to being forced to switch to Edge so I can use the software and sign my contract.
  • Time entries are not auto saved. This happened once or twice to me in the past year when I was submitting my time entries and a sudden power outage happened, I was halfway and basically, I needed to start from scratch since it does not have auto save.
  • Mobile app is still buggy. It happened to be 3 times that it didn't reliably let me clock in that I had to do it on my work computer - so I had to give it up and use the web version.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
BambooHR
There's nothing wrong with this platform. I would recommend it to any business starting with more than 10 employees. I will continue to use the program for as long as I need to, hoping they continue being tremendous and finding other ways to incorporate more technology.
Read full review
Paylocity
There are several technical issues we have experienced this past year with the employee onboarding process that we are still waiting to have resolved. Overall our experience with Paylocity has been positive, and we love how user-friendly and easy to navigate the system is. It has made all of our HR processes much more streamlined and efficient.
Read full review
Usability
BambooHR
I had never used BambooHR® before and when I was hired the company already had the software but no one truly owned it (no HR previous to me) so I had to simply log in and figure things out for myself. Extremely intuitive! If there was anything I wanted to figure out or learn more about, the resources, step-by-step instructions and videos were there for support.
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Paylocity
I gave Paylocity an 8 because it's easy to use once you learn it, and it saves a lot of time by keeping payroll, time tracking, and HR in one place. It has a lot of useful features, but some reports and settings can be confusing, and it takes time to learn everything. Overall, it works well and makes our job easier.
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Reliability and Availability
BambooHR
Yes, there is a huge team in the back of the online platform or it looks like it because I have never been left without an answer when I have a question or waiting from a response on my chat .... There must be a huge team, this is so great and I always seem to have someone that is very knowledgeable too. So many times in the past I had to leave with customer service that would connect you with someone else because of the expertise, here everyone seems to be some kind of an expert in the HR function.
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Paylocity
Over the last 3 years, we've only had one major service issue that rendered Airbase unusable for us for about 24 hours. That said, they navigated the SVB bank crisis very well and made sure funds were available during that time.
Read full review
Performance
BambooHR
I love BambooHR. Reports are easy to run and download and it usually covers any types of requests I get from the management team. You get excel or .csv downloads/reports and it is fast and simple, not too crowded so it is easy to read through. We don't integrate the tool yet but again, soon we will. we just did not had the time to utilize it yet but that's the plan.
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Paylocity
We had some minor hiccups throughout the year but they have all been fixable. Paylocity integrates well with our 401k provider, Principal, and our benefits, OneDigital. It makes it simple to house everything and have it all connected. It doesn't slow anything down to have Principal integrated. It makes it more efficient
Read full review
Support Rating
BambooHR
Support has always been excellent. I was skeptical about not having a dedicated account manager at first, but my concerns were quickly eased. I love the different options for communication. Being able to chat, send emails or call a representative are great so that my workflow isn't disrupted by having to complete a call. I have never had an issue reaching anyone and the email follow up is great!
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Paylocity
It is very hard to get answers to your questions, you cannot speak to someone without days of requesting assistance or answers and then eventually can get a call back and then it is usually resolved fairly quickly. But NOT easy to get that help.
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In-Person Training
BambooHR
I didn't have in-person training besides teaching my managers how to use the program. However, I couldn't omit this question (maybe a system glitch).
Read full review
Paylocity
I didn't have in-person training, but I'm sure it was just as great as any other training/assistance Paylocity provides. Paylocity customer service is always available. You never have to be on hold and their answers are always accurate and timely. Documents in the help section are helpful as well. My in-person training was conducted y one of our employees who was involved in the initial set-up and training of all employees. She was excellent.
Read full review
Online Training
BambooHR
Overall this training was great and our implementation specialist was wonderful and very helpful. We felt really prepared once our training was completed, But we could get additional help immediately even when we were live. The continuation Support heros after implementation are wonderful and you can always get a LIVE person each time you call into their office.
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Paylocity
Our rep was very thorough and made sure we fully understood the software before turning us loose alone. Paylocity was very good to do periodic check ins to ensure we understood the features and answered any questions we had. The training reps are very well trained and are very patient with clients.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
BambooHR
We implemented bambooHR in Fall, 2023 then implemented Payroll 1/1/24. A vital piece of information was not known or missed in that we are exempt from State Unemployment Tax and have a Reimbursement Set-up, so bambooHR did not send Payroll Reports to the State. Those reports need to be sent regardless if we are exempt or not.
Read full review
Paylocity
Implementation was a bit bumpy and Paylocity team not always available for next steps and/or questions. I feel like Paylocity could have done a better job in their fact finding as far as what we were currently doing, our payroll policies and needs, etc. so that we would have run into less issues as we moved forward.
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Alternatives Considered
BambooHR
BambooHR® was a great fit for our organization of 75-100 people. We became too big for our small custom MS Access system but not big enough for Workday. Lattice was more of an employee engagement and performance management system and didn't have some of the HR management and API integration we wanted. BambooHR® was robust enough to scale with us and provided the features and functionality we needed.
Read full review
Paylocity
Paylocity is SO far ahead of Paycor, it's not even funny. Just from the implementation standpoint alone, Paycor was an absolute nightmare. Paylocity had some struggles, but that goes along with any implementation. The experience with Paylocity was LIGHTYEARS ahead of our experience with Paycor, and the system itself is so, so much better.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
BambooHR
Since my organization has dropped with employees, I always find ways to reduce costs. I thought there would be a cheaper option, but I was glad that my package included a lot for the price, and downgrading would cost more. The rep could have let me downgraded and taken me to a higher package. I am thankful that didn't happen.
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Paylocity
Everyone wants a good deal of course. We thought we did ok and felt you still made your money also
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Scalability
BambooHR
There is so much you can do with this platform, it is incredible and so welcoming. We don't utilize it 100% yet just because we are growing and the HR team has not been able to concentrate on other areas offered to us but but we will soon. Which is also why we got the product, specifically because what BambooHR can do to help us meet our growing business needs.
Read full review
Paylocity
We have gone from a medium sized company to a larger company with no issues whatsoever with Paylocity being able to keep up or do what we need it to do for the size of our needs. In fact, it does more than we even use at this juncture
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Professional Services
BambooHR
VERY professional!
Read full review
Paylocity
Some are knowledgable others not as much and sometimes instead of helping you fix the issue will just give you some directions and expect you to try to figure it out yourself. Also, when your Account Manager needs to escliate the issue to another group, it can take a long time for them to get to your issue and there's no commuication.
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Return on Investment
BambooHR
  • HR team members have been saved thousands of hours over the 3.5 years we've had BambooHR®. It saved me personally several hours a day once BambooHR® was set up. Specifically, onboarding, offboarding, and a formal Hiring system are the major time savers.
  • Employee Information is much easier to access and is all centralized. Employees are empowered to update their information when applicable, and we have designed custom access levels for different positions and managers to ensure every individual is seeing the appropriate types of information about employees.
  • We saved significant money by switching from Lattice to BambooHR®'s Performance Management solution. This solution is less advanced, but the simplicity meets our needs perfectly fine, and it even saves time for managers and employees by BambooHR®'s standard questions, carefully designed to get to the heart of performance and improvement.
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Paylocity
  • The time savings alone is worth the cost. I went from having to spend 3 - 4 full business days on payroll to about 1.
  • Being able to look all employee data up in one place is a lifesaver and time saver - even outside of the office if I need to access information quickly it is all just a sign in away.
  • It has saved significant time and reduced confusion related to onboarding. Everyone is able to see what stage an employee is at, I do not need to worry about employees potentially working for us illegally thanks to eVerify, and I am always assured that all required documentation for regulatory purposes has been obtained prior to employment beginning.
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ScreenShots

BambooHR® Screenshots

Screenshot of the Job Info tabScreenshot of Onboarding TasksScreenshot of a New Hire PacketScreenshot of an Employee Performance ReportScreenshot of Employee Satisfaction (eNPS®)Screenshot of Open Enrollment

Paylocity Screenshots

Screenshot of a view of real-time employee data and performance metrics used to uncover and analyze trends. This creates an impactful understanding of the business, increase retention, understand labor costs, and plan for changes.Screenshot of where to automate manual processes with Paylocity's self-serve automation engine, Workflows. Users can implement routines for time-consuming manual tasks.Screenshot of where to manage and comply with employment law. Paylocity's HR Compliance solution helps users to stay on track and view important employee compliance items, from Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO), healthcare, and compensation.Screenshot of how Paylocity Recruiting can automate hiring processes. amplify outreach, showcase a company's culture, and build stronger candidate connections to swiftly fill positions.Screenshot of recognition and rewards in Paylocity.