Microsoft Dynamics SL vs. Paylocity vs. Rippling

For a small to mid-size business, MS Dynamics SL is effective. We are capable of managing our finances with a very low risk of error. We have worked with MS Dynamics for almost 15 years and have more than doubled the size of our business in that time with very few issues from the program. We have exponentially increased our revenue and reporting demands and have found SL to be very dependable and stable. The program does have the occasional glitch and those are sometimes outside of the realm of expertise of our IT department. SL support is excellent, but their timeliness is not as urgent as ours.

Incentivized

As a medium sized restaurant group, I think Paylocity has been really helpful in allowing us to streamline some of our processes. We are very seasonal and do a ton of onboarding and offboarding and Paylocity has made that easier. It also has great integration options and allowed us to eliminate systems we had before for a more all-in-one approach. With that said, there is always room for improvement and I think the biggest issue is the turn around time for some items, especially tax return amendments.

Incentivized

It has a favourites section for commonly used functions. This is perfect for logging in pre-sift and managing my timekeeping. It is easy to view my payslip. It is well-documented and accurate, and it also provides me with an accurate timeline for when to expect my pay to clear. Overall, very easy to use and great interface.

Incentivized

• Provides flexibility for complex project based cost accounting
• Strong and flexible allocation processer for cost allocations, markups, and pricing
• A "Flexible Billing" module under the project controller series that allows for multiple billing formats ranging from fixed price schedule of values, T&M or Cost Plus, and scheduled billing.
• Flexible reporting with options using Crystal Reports, SSRS, a Quick Query tool, and ability to tie into MS Office tools such as MS Access and MS Excel
• Tight integration with Financials, but also the ability to integrate with modules such as Sales Order, Inventory, and Field Service
• Customization abilities ranging from a VBA (visual basic for application) foundation to allow customizing existing forms to the ability to use the SDK (Software Development Kit) to build more complex customizations that integrate with Dynamics SL.

Incentivized

• Payroll is made pretty easy. I love that we have the ability to log into payroll, we just upload the information from commissions, things like that where there are exceptions to a regular payroll run. It may make it very easy to do that, just a quick upload. Additionally, when we're in the payroll grid, it gives us the ability to just make quick changes to people's pay or their tax schedule, tax withholdings, things like that without having to go through a lot of different screens. It's just very easy to access just for the click of a button. Love that.
• We talked about performance reviews, talked about payroll with benefits administration, it allows us to utilize EDI feeds with our benefit vendors so it creates a seamless, but we just enter the information into Paylocity and then it seamlessly provides that information to our vendors. That's been really helpful. And adjusting benefits is also very easy within Paylocity. I love the recent edition of compensation analysis information, so I'm able to go into the compensation module and look for jobs that are similar to a job title at our company. I can enter the job description, I give them what state that the person or the job is in, and it pops out compensation data. It gives me different options, so titles that might be similar. So if there's not something that's an exact fit, I'm able to find something really, really close. It's been a huge upgrade because before that I was having to use a different vendor and paying $400 per job and now it's significantly less expensive to Paylocity and I'm still getting great quality data. It's been very helpful.

Incentivized

• Keeping track of and entering time off and watching time of approvals
• Providing fast links to access accounts for health/retirement benefits
• Extremely convenient access to see how much money is left in my flexible savings account and reordering a new card if I need one

• Reporting in the Project module is lacking functionality. I understand that most companies have specific needs when it comes to tracking project information but the standard reports are not good.
• I would recommend a product like Management Reporter that is for Projects only. Project Reporter should allow users to pull in all Project related data into reports.
• Fixing suspended batches. Obviously all of us users have experienced this mess. SL knows what needs to be corrected and there could be some step by step fixes in a separate repair module to do the steps we do in Query Analyzer.

Incentivized

• I'd like to see a forum in which users could discuss the platform, raise both questions and concerns. I feel that changes are done without enough input from users.
• Improving hold time recently with customer service.
• Accuracy of new 'graphic' payroll report - the new report is not complete when payroll is done, so it is unusable from my perspective. I rely on the preprocess payroll register. This is one of those 'improvements' that have not been positive in my experience.

Incentivized

• Rippling could improve their payment days. Currently they make employee payments around the 15th and 30th of the month, but it varies slightly with every month. It would make more sense to do this payment on every other Friday or every other Monday.

Incentivized

Unfortunately, Dynamics' lack of ability to smoothly integrate with our CRM system is causing us to look at other solutions. The efficiencies that we gain by using Dynamics for our day to day accounting are lost in the constant headaches of getting sales quotes to import properly into the system for invoicing. Another major issue for us has been budgeting and reporting. We currently do all of our budgeting and board reporting in Excel, which is too time consuming and inefficient, especially when a system as robust as Dynamics should easily be able to handle this relatively simple task.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

I've been fully impressed with the tool so far in my 6 months of being a daily user. It's rare to run into an issue that can't be solved. Customer service is quick to respond and are usually very helpful. The price is great for the upgrade we got from our past tool. We hit our ROI within the first month.

Incentivized

I rate it a 10 because we have removed the fields we don't need so users can really crank the data into the system. The software was designed for the professional services firm in mind but does a tremendous job for construction firms and "blended" companies that are both distribution firms but project centric as well. Perhaps they drop ship inventory to a project where their employees or subs need to work on a project for example.

Incentivized

I simply love Paylocity! We have run into some issues, but no company is going to be perfect. The flow of the modules is really nice, no double entry of data. The Time & Labor flows into Payroll nicely and Benefits flows into the employees Pay Setup which goes onto the employees paycheck with little to no issues.

Incentivized

I think you are redundant with these questions. I have mentioned how easy of to use and a great tool for tracking activity. It wastes no time and has what you need. I am pleased with its usability, and if it were up to me, I would keep using it.

Incentivized

We have had only one unplanned outage for 2 hours in the last 30 months. We shut down for 30 min to 1 hour once a month, but that is for Microsoft OS updates to the servers. Being a 24/7 world wide operation, the reliability is really important. We do get an 8 hour window on the weekend that we can be down for a short period to install Microsoft Dynamics SL updates, but we do not have many of those. On our last version upgrade, we shut the users out at 9:30 am and were fully operational in less than 6 hours. The upgrade was New SQL server, New SL server and 2 new Citrix servers.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

I like that the availability in using Rippling at any given time is useful to me. Getting on the site freely when I need gives me security of knowing that I can be in control of viewing health insurance and hours information. I have yet to get any errors in using the Rippling app.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

Rippling's performance has been great, no errors or glitches yet so far. I am confident that Going from one page to the next and all its complexity usage does not lag or times out, it works effectively and efficiently. While using Rippling and other apps it does not tend to slow it down, works great. No complaints.

Incentivized

Support is only used when needed, so unfortunately ,they get all the odd issues. It's a difficult business, but Microsoft and our firm do a great job of meeting customer needs. We get routine feedback that our support services are very good.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

They have been quite responsive to questions and clarifying settings, approaches, listening to feedback. Their knowledge base and training seem well-established and user-focused. Really like their offerings in Rippling U to help orient admins on features, functionality, and best practices. The IT implementation specialist was kind, efficient, and walked us through each screen, explaining different scenarios as we got things configured. They followed up after each call with action items, recommendations, and made themselves available between working sessions. The whole process felt very productive.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

The trainer went slow and and answered our questions.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Just to let it take its course. The implementation for me once I became a part of my former organization was pretty seamless. Just get to know the basics and call the support team to ask questions if you need help on an issue, should they arise. They are ready, willing, and able to help!

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

It's really easy to implement in comparison to other tools or applications. Different key points are easily configured and implemented as per need, having different configurations in systems. Implementation is something which binds the different parameters of an organization in a single row. Implementation of rippling is much easier, quicker, and error free than any other software. I recommend it strongly!

Incentivized

Of the comparable mid-range ERP systems, Dynamics SL competes at the lower end based on price, but also above the high-end based on flexibility, data, and reporting. Being able to stay with the same core accounting from a $100 million dollar company to a $3 billion dollar company shows the range of capabilities.

Incentivized

ADP was very similar to the way Paylocity is, but I seem to favor Paylocity to be honest. Miter was VERY difficult to use and set up. I wouldn't ever consider using that software ever again. I didn't like a lot of aspect Miter had to offer either. Paylocity would always be my choice.

Incentivized

Rippling far outshines Employment Hero from an LMS perspective; the EH LMS is really bad and has very little functionality, as well as being completely user-unfriendly. The UE is much better with Rippling, no more searching for things that are in obscure places or running reports that need refining to the extreme.

Everyone wants a good deal of course. We thought we did ok and felt you still made your money also

Incentivized

Since the backbone of the database is MS SQLServer, the database can be easily scaled.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

I can go on here and see all my hours and pto plus health benefits. I like to have the work handbook handy to refer to legal things. How to work my role within it's limits. Being able to put in my hours and view when they are approved is a huge benefit for me.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

• More time is spent on manipulating reports which can and should be automated.
• Lack of electronic invoicing process and other green technology features creates more cost on printing and storage costs.
• The lack of a user friendly interface requires more training and a bigger learning curve for staff.

Incentivized

• Paylocity has helped us with recruitment by streamlining the process and making it efficient. It is saving me time.
• Paylocity has also helped us with compensation so we can create a fair and robust compensation plan.
• I also like using the data insights feature, which helps me keep track of over time, payroll and benefits costs, and retention numbers. This also saves me time as it is all in one place.

Incentivized

• It was great to receive money from other country.
• It was very helpful to use an user friendly platform for my first oversea job.
• It was great to keep track of the amount of money I've received for the time I was employed overseas.

Incentivized