Paylocity vs. SumTotal (legacy)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Paylocity
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Paylocity provides 24/7 access to your online payroll and human resource data management. Paylocity offers highly customizable payroll functionality, as well as HR, benefits administration, and time and talent management programs.N/A
SumTotal (legacy)
Score 7.9 out of 10
Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
The SumTotal Talent Expansion Suite included SumTotal (LMS), and was supported by Skillsoft since the October 2014 acquisition. Acquired by Cornerstone OnDemand in 2022, it is a legacy product, and Cornerstone recommends upgrading to their modern platform.N/A
Pricing
PaylocitySumTotal (legacy)
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
PaylocitySumTotal (legacy)
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
PaylocitySumTotal (legacy)
Features
PaylocitySumTotal (legacy)
Human Resource Management
Comparison of Human Resource Management features of Product A and Product B
Paylocity
7.9
1477 Ratings
2% below category average
SumTotal (legacy)
-
Ratings
Employee demographic data8.41407 Ratings00 Ratings
Employment history8.21360 Ratings00 Ratings
Job profiles and administration7.91267 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow for transfers, promotions, pay raises, etc.7.71279 Ratings00 Ratings
Organizational charting7.41179 Ratings00 Ratings
Organization and location management8.01159 Ratings00 Ratings
Compliance data (COBRA, OSHA, etc.)7.5988 Ratings00 Ratings
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
Paylocity
8.3
1415 Ratings
2% above category average
SumTotal (legacy)
-
Ratings
Pay calculation8.71382 Ratings00 Ratings
Support for external payroll vendors7.8699 Ratings00 Ratings
Off-cycle/On-Demand payment8.71079 Ratings00 Ratings
Benefit plan administration7.6957 Ratings00 Ratings
Direct deposit files8.91376 Ratings00 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management8.21113 Ratings00 Ratings
Reimbursement management7.9703 Ratings00 Ratings
Leave and Attendance Management
Comparison of Leave and Attendance Management features of Product A and Product B
Paylocity
7.6
1197 Ratings
7% below category average
SumTotal (legacy)
-
Ratings
Approval workflow7.71065 Ratings00 Ratings
Balance details7.41144 Ratings00 Ratings
Annual carry-forward and encashment7.7914 Ratings00 Ratings
Employee Self Service
Comparison of Employee Self Service features of Product A and Product B
Paylocity
8.4
1423 Ratings
2% above category average
SumTotal (legacy)
-
Ratings
View and generate pay and benefit information8.61387 Ratings00 Ratings
Update personal information8.71411 Ratings00 Ratings
View company policy documentation8.11151 Ratings00 Ratings
Employee recognition8.21047 Ratings00 Ratings
View job history8.51239 Ratings00 Ratings
Asset Management
Comparison of Asset Management features of Product A and Product B
Paylocity
7.4
459 Ratings
7% below category average
SumTotal (legacy)
-
Ratings
Tracking of all physical assets7.4459 Ratings00 Ratings
HR Reporting
Comparison of HR Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Paylocity
7.3
1317 Ratings
3% below category average
SumTotal (legacy)
-
Ratings
Report builder7.31264 Ratings00 Ratings
Pre-built reports7.51283 Ratings00 Ratings
Ability to combine HR data with external data7.2841 Ratings00 Ratings
Onboarding
Comparison of Onboarding features of Product A and Product B
Paylocity
8.2
1235 Ratings
3% above category average
SumTotal (legacy)
8.2
2 Ratings
12% above category average
New hire portal8.31225 Ratings8.02 Ratings
Manager tracking tools8.1995 Ratings8.52 Ratings
Performance and Goals
Comparison of Performance and Goals features of Product A and Product B
Paylocity
7.8
701 Ratings
3% below category average
SumTotal (legacy)
8.8
1 Ratings
18% above category average
Corporate goal setting7.6561 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Individual goal setting7.8647 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Line-of sight-visibility7.7501 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Performance tracking7.9656 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Performance Management
Comparison of Performance Management features of Product A and Product B
Paylocity
7.6
877 Ratings
4% below category average
SumTotal (legacy)
8.2
2 Ratings
18% above category average
Performance plans7.4800 Ratings8.02 Ratings
Performance improvement plans7.4694 Ratings7.52 Ratings
Review status tracking7.7807 Ratings7.92 Ratings
Review reminders7.8814 Ratings8.52 Ratings
Multiple review frequency7.7689 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Succession Planning
Comparison of Succession Planning features of Product A and Product B
Paylocity
7.6
471 Ratings
3% below category average
SumTotal (legacy)
7.0
1 Ratings
3% above category average
Create succession plans/pools7.3323 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Candidate ranking7.5381 Ratings00 Ratings
Candidate search8.0427 Ratings7.01 Ratings
Candidate development7.6350 Ratings6.01 Ratings
Recruiting / ATS
Comparison of Recruiting / ATS features of Product A and Product B
Paylocity
8.0
829 Ratings
4% above category average
SumTotal (legacy)
7.8
2 Ratings
9% above category average
Job Requisition Management8.1712 Ratings8.02 Ratings
Company Website Posting8.2741 Ratings7.52 Ratings
Publish to Social Media8.0577 Ratings7.92 Ratings
Job Search Site Posting8.1709 Ratings8.52 Ratings
Duplicate Candidate Prevention7.6610 Ratings6.52 Ratings
Applicant Tracking8.2768 Ratings8.02 Ratings
Notifications and Alerts7.9766 Ratings8.52 Ratings
Learning Management
Comparison of Learning Management features of Product A and Product B
Paylocity
-
Ratings
SumTotal (legacy)
6.5
1 Ratings
8% below category average
Course authoring00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Course catalog or library00 Ratings4.01 Ratings
Player/Portal00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Progress tracking & certifications00 Ratings6.01 Ratings
Assignments00 Ratings6.01 Ratings
Compliance management00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Learning administration00 Ratings4.01 Ratings
Learning reporting & analytics00 Ratings5.01 Ratings
Best Alternatives
PaylocitySumTotal (legacy)
Small Businesses
Dayforce Powerpay
Dayforce Powerpay
Score 9.4 out of 10
Paycor
Paycor
Score 7.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Paypro Workforce Management
Paypro Workforce Management
Score 9.2 out of 10
Engagedly
Engagedly
Score 8.6 out of 10
Enterprises
PeopleStrong
PeopleStrong
Score 9.9 out of 10
PeopleStrong
PeopleStrong
Score 9.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
PaylocitySumTotal (legacy)
Likelihood to Recommend
8.4
(1475 ratings)
7.5
(9 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.8
(166 ratings)
6.0
(5 ratings)
Usability
8.3
(281 ratings)
2.0
(2 ratings)
Availability
8.9
(35 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.4
(34 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.1
(148 ratings)
3.0
(2 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.1
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
7.9
(29 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.1
(92 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
7.0
(25 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
8.3
(24 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
7.2
(28 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.2
(34 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Professional Services
8.6
(18 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
7.4
(34 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.4
(31 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
PaylocitySumTotal (legacy)
Likelihood to Recommend
Paylocity
Paylocity makes record keeping and payroll so simple. The times are able to be imported from time keeping saving tons of time and frustration. Going from manual entries to a more automated system has saved so much time. Whether a company is small or large or there are multiple companies that you take care of the system will work for you.
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Discontinued Products
Very good for learning and development and training of employees. For Applicant tracking, recuirement, onboarding, and enablement, I prefer SAP SuccessFactors or Skillate. I also found that the SumTotal app is not very friendly on android and crashes sometimes and it is not optimized for mobile. Hence I end up never using it.
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Pros
Paylocity
  • 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.
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Discontinued Products
  • Assign complete learning plans to users so they don't have to spend time searching for courses.
  • Export learner's transcripts so managers can easily see their employee's progress.
  • Embed Social Media feeds that are relevant to their business.
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Cons
Paylocity
  • 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.
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Discontinued Products
  • Reporting
  • Mass importing of manual checks to be issued in California
  • Ability to fund pay cards immediately
  • Perform gross-up calculations within the payroll system automatically
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Likelihood to Renew
Paylocity
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.
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Discontinued Products
I have transitioned from a position who supported the product to a position where I use the product. I continue to be impressed with the robustness of the product and how efficient it is. It is a user friendly software that can be used to navigate and accomplish tasks to meet organizational requirements.
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Usability
Paylocity
I love Paylocity. As I have stated before I love the user friendliness of the system. I have used more than four different payroll systems during my career, and I have found Paylocity to be the most user friendly of all the systems I have used. I was able to catch on within two days of my training. The system has a lot of features I use on a daily basis and over the years I have not had a desire to change systems.
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Discontinued Products
I do not find SumTotal to be intuitive. I feel we need to adjust our needs to meet the functionality available in the tool.
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Reliability and Availability
Paylocity
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.
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Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Performance
Paylocity
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
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Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Paylocity
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.
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Discontinued Products
We have our own IT support to assist in SumTotal issues, however, we have had to log in cases directly. Support is mediocre at best.
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In-Person Training
Paylocity
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.
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Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Paylocity
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.
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Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Paylocity
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.
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Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Paylocity
There is no comparison. Paylocity offers so much more to its clients. Their pricing is unbeatable and they provide a much bigger variety of features and customization. I had to use 6 different platforms to cover all necessary areas for our business, when I am now solely using Paylocity for everything.
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Discontinued Products
When I came to my company, they had been using a "light" LMS called Articulate. It was cheap and bare bones; i.e. not a lot of features, really just a platform to launch eLearning from and not real interface for student to utilize. When I began to overhaul the training department, this was one of the first things I changed. Articulate would only run courses built in their software, and the software was not 508 compliant. In addition, we had no ability to create learning plans, house transcripts, customize the interface, or manage the students. I made the choice to select and LMS that was a true LMS with all of the features that were critical to our clients' needs. Thus far, SumTotal has been able to support all of our needs, except one; mobile learning that is media rich
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Paylocity
Everyone wants a good deal of course. We thought we did ok and felt you still made your money also
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Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Scalability
Paylocity
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
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Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Professional Services
Paylocity
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.
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Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Paylocity
  • 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.
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Discontinued Products
  • Clean front-end user interface for easier course catalog management.
  • Reporting has been more difficult than previous LMS.
  • Audience building has more variables making it more difficult to manage.
  • Slower overall client turnaround due to admin side interface.
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ScreenShots

Paylocity Screenshots

Screenshot of a view of real-time employee data and performance metrics used to uncover and analyze trends. This creates an impactful understanding of the business, increase retention, understand labor costs, and plan for changes.Screenshot of where to automate manual processes with Paylocity's self-serve automation engine, Workflows. Users can implement routines for time-consuming manual tasks.Screenshot of where to manage and comply with employment law. Paylocity's HR Compliance solution helps users to stay on track and view important employee compliance items, from Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO), healthcare, and compensation.Screenshot of how Paylocity Recruiting can automate hiring processes. amplify outreach, showcase a company's culture, and build stronger candidate connections to swiftly fill positions.Screenshot of recognition and rewards in Paylocity.

SumTotal (legacy) Screenshots

Screenshot of SumTotal Learning Management: Deliver the learning your organization needs including skilling/upskilling/reskilling, career planning & development. All delivered with our engaging learner experience across all modalities (desktop, tablet & mobile) and in the flow of workScreenshot of SumTotal Onboarding: Foster learning before day one with our robust onboarding solution. Build culture, complete necessary paperwork and begin the path to productivity for all your new and returning employees.Screenshot of SumTotal Performance: Performance management that meets the needs of today’s forward-thinking organizations. Align the goals and performance of your entire workforce with those of the broader organization for better business outcomes.Screenshot of SumTotal Succession: Make succession planning an organizational strength. SumTotal allows you to better understand your workforce now and better plan for your future with our intuitive succession planning tools.Screenshot of SumTotal Recruiting: A modern recruiting solution that delivers a powerful candidate experience, recruiter productivity, job matching and internal mobility.Screenshot of SumTotal Compensation: SumTotal makes compensation planning easier and less time consuming. Build a pay for performance culture that meets your organizations goals and objectives while keeping you competitive in the ever-changing marketplace.