Paychex Flex, of Paychex' Online Payroll Services, is a cloud-based human resource management and payroll platform. Paychex offers core and specialized services, and scales to meet the needs of small businesses, SMBs, and large enterprises.
$59
per month/+$4 per employee
SilkRoad Onboarding
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
SilkRoad Onboarding is a component of the SilkRoad Life Suite platform. It includes functionality for onboarding, including electronic offer support, retention during Mergers & Acquisitions, and offboarding personnel. It is optimized for enterprise organizations.
In my experience, Paychex Flex is well suited for small to medium sized businesses. It has been helpful in streamlining the onboarding process and it is easy to update and maintain employee profiles and records. It has worked will in a non-profit environment where there is clergy pay and housing, which can get quite complicated. I cannot think of a scenario where it would be less appropriate.
I like the idea of RedCarpet. If it was fully functional for us, I really think it would be a great tool to use. However, the lack of response and the response time itself in tech support is definitely a downfall for our company
Employee Task Management: Red Carpet provides a customized welcome portal and system for task management, based upon each employee's location, role, department, etc. It allows the organization to build chronological tasks to complete on the front end, which seamlessly flows through as each are completed.
Streamlined Process: During the development process, it causes the employer to re-think its current onboarding process, forms, reason and timing for completing tasks, etc. This results in not only creation of electronic forms, but also an improved overall process.
Monitors workflow: Through visible tasks/colors on the back end, as well as reporting features, HR administrators and Managers/Supervisors can easily see where each employee is in their new hire process. Quickly view what tasks remain incomplete, as well as if an individual/team is causing a delay in the process.
Overall I like the features that Paychex Flex offers. I am sure that there are other features that I am unaware of, so I am excited to see if there is more that Flex is capable of to make my job easier. The basic features are really user friendly and easy to access. If there ever is an issue customer service is great
Some things could be streamlined. For example, we could do custom options for the "add items" tab which has so many options that we never use. "Medical Pay" could be something that the system remembers for the applicable employees. Salaried employees' salaries should definitely be auto-filled. Overall the system works well but I think it could be improved to be easier to use and read.
It takes a lot of training and reading up on the processes in order to use it, but once you've had a lot of trial and error, you figure out the system quickly. Once you put together a user guide specific for your company's use of the product, it's easier for new employees to use RedCarpet and understand the different functions within it.
We have not experienced any difficulties with unplanned outages. Notifications are always made for outages, and they do not effect normal business operations.
Unless there is lag time within the internet, the Paychex Flex website loads exceptional fast, pages load quickly and reports that I need to print or download load quickly. If I need to create a specialized report, once I complete it I receive an e-mail telling me my report is ready to be downloaded. Changing between web pages is fast as well.
Our dedicated representative is one of the main reasons we are sticking with Paychex Flex. If it were not for this person, other platforms could provide the same/similar functionality. It is the ability to speak with someone that understands our business and is willing to get questions answered in a timely fashion that keeps us with Paychex Flex.
Support is adequate. They are about the same, and the expected turn around time is acceptable in the industry standard. We have no complaints with customer support. The tracking system is good and allows for updates to issues, so there are generally no questions where the case may sit with engineering or application support.
It was easy to understand and follow along. I do like the informational videos that we can utilize before we opt to call in for customer service support. It has made a difference since sometimes that resolves the issue I may have had and saved myself a phone call to Paychex support.
Implementation was very smooth. The most cumbersome task was entering the current employees into the system during initial set up, but Paychex staff handled most of that and verified against prior system reports as well as internal reports provided to ensure 100% accuracy.
SilkRoad's training/demo video was viewed well prior to beginning implementation. HR Team did not remember details and the video was not sufficient enough to understand all of the features within the system in order to communicate needs to the vendor/implementation expert. Implementation should have been walked through, step by step, by the vendor and each section of their required spreadsheet and the development of the portal should have been explained in depth.
We still use QB Desktop Pro to maintain a Check Register / Overall Balance for the company, but once having tried QB Payroll Online for about 3 months prior to finding Paychex Flex I can tell you that there's just no comparison. QB online is VERY EXPENSIVE and not so user-friendly. I hated every minute of those 6 payrolls we ran through QB online.
We have previewed several onboarding platforms, but none has come close to the quality and flexibility of SilkRoad Onboarding (RedCarpet). Prehire task management allows each department to do what they do best to prepare for the new hire's first day. Keys, computer access, and office spaces are prepared in advance, so each new hire feels valued.
Employees can log in at home and get up to date information on their FSA balance and any medical bill reimbursements they may have uploaded. At renewal time they have the ability to make changes to their FSA or for new employees star the enrollment.
I do not believe we have saved anything additionally. The time we've had to spend to get things to hopefully work is sad. This is the reason we've had to turn off all extra "products" of Paychex Flex. Time and Attendance is horrible. Benefits management is horrible. The user experience is horrible.
One thing I do not understand is why are updates for states, cities, counties, school districts, etc. not automatically updated? Should we not get a big red flag if we have an employee living/working, being paid in CA, but they aren't set up for CA sick time? If it is required to be on the paycheck stub to show the balance of the sick time, why would we not be notified that we are out of compliance?
Positive impact to ROI, we don't have hard numbers for overall but just in time spent on chasing paperwork I would say we save a minimum of 20 minutes per new hire and we hire 600+ people/year.
We save an unknown amount on properly completed I9 forms since the system doesn't let you make errors that were always common on paper forms.
