Ceridian Dayforce vs. Paychex Flex

We like Dayforce. It's our core HR system that we use many modules in. Dayforce is our payroll provider and handles all of our year end reporting and ACA forms and W2s. In fact, we are a managed services client and we ask Ceridian to handle committing our payroll and benefits module.

Incentivized

Paychex is ideal for all-size companies, in my opinion. The platform is very user-friendly, account managers are very knowledgeable, and the company as a whole has great customer service. Anyone who has been debating on using payroll software would be pleasantly surprised at how easy of a transition it is to use one. We have over 200 employees, and it was a seamless change for us. Highly satisfied!

Incentivized

• Reporting. It has an extensive report builder with stock reports, ad-hoc reports, and the ability to build your own custom reports.
• Payroll. The continuous payroll engine makes processing complex payrolls much easier and faster.
• Forms. The stock forms are a great jumping off point to start creating custom forms that work better for your processes and organization.
• Documentation. Every module is well documented, and you're always bound to learn something if you read through them properly!

Incentivized

• I like I can enter payroll and if I need to leave the program, I can resume at a later time and my information is saved.
• I like the analytics & reports features.
• I like how all my employees have easy access to their portal.

Incentivized

• FMLA and leave tracking, no formal system.
• Attendance management. Points cannot be edited from AM; you have to constantly unlock timesheets to update points.
• Attendance management link to forms for write-ups. Write-ups are still a manual form process. There is no link from AM to HR incidents.
• Supports lack of urgency. Some cases drag out due to no response from support. Then you get flopped to another support person and have to start over at the beginning.
• End-dated entitlements should not be seen on the ECP screen. New policies should not be seen until the start date.
• An easier way to create forms. Drag and drop.
• Write-ups should have workflows with digital acknowledgments from employees and managers.
• Benefits - medical support orders should be able to lock employees' dependents so they cannot be removed from benefits.
• Transfers - schedules and pay should auto-update to the new ECP info.
• Headcount as a qualifier on pay policies.
• Workflow visibility on forms. Easy way to see whose approval is still pending. When printing forms, workflow approvals need to show on the printout.

Incentivized

• Reporting writing is difficult to figure out
• Employee turnover inside Paychex was a problem, until we were assigned to Neil Williams - since that time it has settled down
• Pressure to convert personal connection with payroll advisor to using automated service

Incentivized

We are highly invested in Ceridian's Dayforce product. It give us the flexibility and scaling that our growing company needs. Its potential reaches beyond the basic HR functions to the decision making that our Management Team needs. Ceridian is always innovating the employee and employee experiences to offer cutting edge options.

Incentivized

Overall I like the features that Paychex Flex offers. I am sure that there are other features that I am unaware of, so I am excited to see if there is more that Flex is capable of to make my job easier. The basic features are really user friendly and easy to access. If there ever is an issue customer service is great

Incentivized

I think it's very usable for the employee. I don't think it is as easy for the HR/PR admins - especially if there is an issue. There are so many setup screens that need to be looked at to try to figure out why payroll isn't calculating properly, hours aren't feeding over correctly, or benefits are not calculating properly. For the most part, they can't do their own troubleshooting. The same is true for the managers. Our managers find it cumbersome to go into make any schedule changes after the schedules have been generated.

Incentivized

There are too many clicks to hire/rehire an employee. However, I have seen progress to a more streamlined integration between all of the modules to be combined. I await further improvements, both functionally and visually, to make the entire payroll process easier. As of now, there is much room for improvement just as we have seen with other providers we have reviewed.

Incentivized

We have never experienced a total/unplanned outages that effected our ability to process payroll. However, there are times when the application's speed is significantly effected - and processing a payroll may take up to twice as long as normal.

We have not experienced any difficulties with unplanned outages. Notifications are always made for outages, and they do not effect normal business operations.

Incentivized

We haven't noticed any slow-down due to the integration of Dayforce WFM with our Ceridian HPL products (HRIS and Payroll). The new HTML view of the timesheets don't load as quickly as the old Silverlight view - however, we have gotten used to the change.

Unless there is lag time within the internet, the Paychex Flex website loads exceptional fast, pages load quickly and reports that I need to print or download load quickly. If I need to create a specialized report, once I complete it I receive an e-mail telling me my report is ready to be downloaded. Changing between web pages is fast as well.

Incentivized

Most of the time the support is great; it's not always super efficient but I always get the help I need. Occasionally it takes a lot longer than we had hoped or get conflicting responses. We had one ticket recently where we were told we would have to pay the service team to support us on the project and then another person called the next day with the solution to our query and was able to find a solution easily. Generally, though, the response is great and they either walk me though how to do something via a Zoom Meeting or they email step-by-step instructions on how to do it and say if I have questions we can set up a meeting to discuss further.

Incentivized

Communication is very strong with Paychex. We did have one specialist that we were not satisfied with. Reached out to management to request a new specialist and was granted a new specialist. Specialist are friendly and patient to get us through our questions. Like to have web/zoom meetings to get training. Like follow up response to make sure everything was resolved to our satisfaction

Incentivized

Because the training we reviewed at Insights has changed how we use the system everyday. This is a key factor in our training.

We did online training only

Incentivized

The online training is very good, there is a wide variety of topics offered and several dates and times. The instructors are very knowledgeable about the subjects they are teaching. There are so many ways to program Dayforce that just the basics seem to be covered in the class.

Incentivized

It was easy to understand and follow along. I do like the informational videos that we can utilize before we opt to call in for customer service support. It has made a difference since sometimes that resolves the issue I may have had and saved myself a phone call to Paychex support.

Incentivized

Have a strong internal team. Communicate with your implementation team - they are there to make it work for you. Take the time to really think about how you want the system to work for you - in some cases, you may need to rethink your own business practices to see if you are working harder when the system could do it for you

Incentivized

Implementation was very smooth. The most cumbersome task was entering the current employees into the system during initial set up, but Paychex staff handled most of that and verified against prior system reports as well as internal reports provided to ensure 100% accuracy.

Incentivized

All of the info for Payroll, HR updates, employee updates, Time worked and PTO are in a single application, with a single login, updated in every screen or module in real time. There is no lag in data from screen to screen or from user to user, its almost instant.

Incentivized

We still use QB Desktop Pro to maintain a Check Register / Overall Balance for the company, but once having tried QB Payroll Online for about 3 months prior to finding Paychex Flex I can tell you that there's just no comparison. QB online is VERY EXPENSIVE and not so user-friendly. I hated every minute of those 6 payrolls we ran through QB online.

Incentivized

Overall, we are extremely happy with the Dayforce WFM module. Our biggest pain point is concerning the twice annual software upgrades - which is the only reason I haven't rated them as a '10'. Because every customer is configured differently, the upgrades can sometimes have adverse effects on our current configured policies/rules. And although they roll-out the upgraded version in a test environment several weeks before go-live, not all testing is accurate in that environment. Some issues do not present themselves until you are working with live punches.

Employees can log in at home and get up to date information on their FSA balance and any medical bill reimbursements they may have uploaded. At renewal time they have the ability to make changes to their FSA or for new employees star the enrollment.

Incentivized

• Performance Reviews/Comp used to be handled via paper and tracking/reporting was a nightmare - having all of that in the system is so much more efficient and provides huge ROI
• Our organization used to have big problems with hiring managers going rogue and hiring positions that aren't approved by Finance - we built an approval workflow in the system that triggers before any req is approved which has completely solved this problem
• Dayforce Wallet has been a huge perk for our employees - it's heavily used and our crew love it

Incentivized

• I do not believe we have saved anything additionally. The time we've had to spend to get things to hopefully work is sad. This is the reason we've had to turn off all extra "products" of Paychex Flex. Time and Attendance is horrible. Benefits management is horrible. The user experience is horrible.
• One thing I do not understand is why are updates for states, cities, counties, school districts, etc. not automatically updated? Should we not get a big red flag if we have an employee living/working, being paid in CA, but they aren't set up for CA sick time? If it is required to be on the paycheck stub to show the balance of the sick time, why would we not be notified that we are out of compliance?

Incentivized