Patriot Software vs. syncHR

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.

Incentivized

syncHR is designed for mid to large size companies, typically 200-2000 employees. Any organization that has a strong reporting need and/or a complicated payroll process could benefit from the unique features built into the platform

• 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.

Incentivized

• Automated retroactive change processing and mid-period rate changes – completely automated with no manual intervention needed - If you ever need to give someone a merit increase and make it retroactive or if an employee is entitled to enroll in health benefits on their first day employment but has 30 days to enroll, syncHR will automatically handles these retro changes.
• A single application designed from the ground up that gives equal weight to HR, payroll, and benefit functions - syncHR is designed as a true unified solution with no back-end mainframes or separate front-ends vs backends. Everything is processed real-time in the cloud which has eliminated all discrepancies.
• Customer Service - syncHR provides a designated account manager as your single point of contact. Since the The StaffWell Group is a 24/7 business, I needed a company that was available when I needed them. syncHR delivered with 24/7 emergency support.
• Event-driven employee self service - Other systems we have used rely on employees to make the correct choices as to what is required when completing an employee initiated transaction. With syncHR, the system always directs the employee to the next step reducing both errors and calls to our support staff. I believe this is also the reason why we had a 40% increase in the adoption of ESS.
• Dynamic Security & Workflows - syncHR has no static pages which allows security and workflows to be updated automatically whenever a change is made. This has virtually eliminated the time and effort required from HR to manually update workflows to the correct personnel.

• 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.

Incentivized

• Learning Management System- syncHR currently does not offer an LMS system. They only track and report training dates, licenses and certifications.
• Although syncHR is a global solution it is somewhat limited to tracking employee headcount, HR documents, paperless on boarding and benefit information. There is no international payroll option like the one they provide for domestic employees. Although the system can handle multiple languages and currencies, I would like to see a global payroll option.
• Succession Planning - syncHR provides little functionality for succession planning. The system can track budgets vs actuals, goals and ratings but does not offer a true succession planning module

It works well because it is cheap for us.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Overall the system is very easy to navigate but more importantly my employees find it so easy to use. The percentage of employees who now use ESS went up by 40%

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.

Incentivized

Whenever we need support our designated account manager is there to provide answers for us. If she doesn't have or know the answer, additional support is provided via a service matter expert in that field. Support hours are 24/7

Training was very well done and thorough

During the first few weeks of implementation it is important to have all key members participate in meetings. Finance, HR, Payroll and Benefits should be involved from the early stages to ensure that the solution is designed to meet your specific requirements. Since syncHR personalizes their solution for each company a few wrong steps early on regarding the design we wanted caused us to spend extra time later. The more info you provide syncHR upfront the better they can take all of your rules and needs into account from day one. In our case, finance did not get involved right away and therefore some of the items that we needed for our GL needed to be re-done. SyncHR was very accommodating though as they spent extra time with us to update some of the allocations so that finance got what they needed

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.

Incentivized

As I mentioned I have used UltiPro, ADP, Ceridian as well as several others and none of them seem to offer half of the functionality and service that syncHR provides. Although we had some problems from time to time, I hold companies in high regard by how they resolve these problems. It's a comfort knowing that my HCM provider truly cares about me and my business so if for no other reason than this, I feel syncHR is far and away the best system I have used. The system works as advertised which is all I could ask for

• 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.

Incentivized

• Due to complexity of our payroll, it would typically take us almost 3 full days to verify hours and perform retro changes before actually running payroll. With so many retroactive changes and manual calculations it was a time consuming and error prone process. With syncHR, the accuracy of payroll has increased tremendously and the amount of time we now spend preparing to process payroll decreased to less than 4 hours per week. All approved time seamlessly moves from the T&A module into payroll and all retro transactions are automatically processed.
• When I initially selected syncHR I was a little hesitant because I never heard of them before and was concerned about their viability as a company and customer service. Several years later I'm happy to say that syncHR has provided better support than any of the better know competitors ever did.
• Although no system is ever perfect, overall syncHR has exceeded most of my expectations. The sales and implementation process was wonderful, the salesperson was responsive and did not oversell what the system could do.
• Training & Implementation - syncHR spent a considerable amount of time learning my business rules in order to build the system to meet my requirements. Training was provided on all aspects of the system until my team felt comfortable enough to handle things on their own. I never felt as though we had a set number of hours of training or that our questions, no matter how redundant or simple were a bother to them.