Patriot Software headquartered in Canton, Ohio offers Patriot PAY, their benefits administration and payroll software.
$17
per month
Trakstar Perform
Score 7.0 out of 10
N/A
Trakstar's Performance Appraisal software helps HR and organization manage feedback, goals and reviews. The user can build customized appraisal forms, set SMART goals, and create flexible workflows to meet the needs of an organization. 360/Multi-rater feedback is an option. Trakstar's implementation is customized, and Trakstar offers a free trial, price quote, or a live demo from a real person.
$4,370
per year
Pricing
Patriot Software
Trakstar Perform
Editions & Modules
Basic Payroll
$17/mo + $4 per employee/contractor
Accounting Basic
$20/mo (unlimited use)
Accounting Premium
$30/mo (unlimited use)
Full Service Payroll
$37/mo + $4 per employee/contractor
Trakstar
$4370.00
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Patriot Software
Trakstar Perform
Free Trial
Yes
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
Patriot Software has two payroll options to choose from: Basic Payroll, and Full Service payroll software. Both start with a simple three-step payroll process. With the Full Service Payroll, Patriot will collect, deposit, and file federal, state, and local payroll taxes on the customer's behalf; end-of-the-year payroll tax filing is included at no extra charge.
Print W2s on 8 x 1/2 x 11 plain white office paper to hand to employees, or post to the free employee portal. Also, Patriot Software offers free direct deposit.
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.
This is a great program if you have locations in different geographical areas. The ability to work with people at different locations is appreciated, and also there can be informal input that is requested, which Promantek can handle as well. I am at a loss to think of an area where this does not work well. There are several of our employees in the manufacturing areas that do not have computer access, and for those individuals, we simply print the review instead of having it online. This works fine but is not the forte of Promantek. However, any system these days that focusses on the online aspects of review writing will experience that as well.
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.
Trakstar sends out a lot of automated reminders to participants, encouraging them to take notes and provide feedback on a regular basis.
Trakstar generates analysis (i.e., rater bais) automatically that would otherwise be labor intensive to do manually.
Trakstar has a feature that allows administrators to see what each individual employee sees - this is critical in ensuring that the performance review process goes smoothly.
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.
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.
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.
Trakstar has been very responsive to my questions and support has been able to speak with me on the phone as needed. Also, when I told Trakstar that my employees were not delighted by the product, they did a special session with me to diagnose any issues and to make recommendations for how I could improve the tool's usefulness in my job. I appreciated their support here
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.
I did not make the purchase decision for Trakstar, but at a previous job I used Reflektive. Many of the outcomes of the tool are the same, even if the product interface and language is slightly different
We have had few managers dread the review writing process! Sure, no one enjoys this and we all know that it is time-consuming, but Promantek has allowed less time spent in frustration and more time actually communicating effectively. There are areas where managers can make notes during the entire review process so that when the time to write the review is upon you, it is a much simpler task. This has allowed us to free up the time with managers to a certain degree which is always beneficial.
