Likelihood to Recommend 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 !
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 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. 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 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. 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 It works well because it is cheap for us.
Read full review Usability 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 Support Rating 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 :)
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 Implementation Rating The Heartland team could care less about how difficult your experience is. In fact, I think they delight in seeing you struggle!
Read full review Alternatives Considered 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.
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 Return on Investment 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. 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