Patriot Payroll vs. Unit4 Financials by Coda

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

This would work well for the back side of accounting...meaning after the invoice was created. If you need software to create invoices, this may not be the software for you (or at least you would have to do additional research on its capability). Other than that, it takes care of the majority of our needs.

Incentivized

• 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

• It is easy to move around in if set up properly.
• You can changes background colors to your choice.
• It is customizable (you can create home pages specific to the user).

Incentivized

• 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

• There is a lot of "building" when first starting up with the software.
• Some of the data you cannot pull unless you have sequel knowledge, although capabilities are getting better.
• There is not a good operating statement report option.

Incentivized

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

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

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

Unit4 Financials is definitely much more robust than Peachtree or other software. I've also used SAP in the past and this seems to have many more capabilities.

Incentivized

• 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

• Because of the lack of operating statement reports, we've had to spend additional funds to use another system.
• It does show data in real time, so no waiting for batches to update overnight.
• You can do a lot of customizing to meet your own needs.

Incentivized