Great alternative to more robust systems for teams that don't need all the bells and whistles
payroll processing, tracking paid time off, tax documentation and filing
Starting at $59 per month/+$4 per employee
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What is Paychex Flex?
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.
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Popular Features
- Direct deposit files (270)9.292%
- Update personal information (239)9.090%
- Pay calculation (271)9.090%
- View and generate pay and benefit information (228)8.686%
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Paychex Flex Review: One Users Payroll Management Story
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Pricing
Paychex Go
$59
Cloud
per month/+$4 per employee
Paychex Flex Service
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Cloud
Paychex Flex Enterprise
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Entry-level set up fee?
- Setup fee required
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- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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- Integrations
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- FAQs
What is Paychex Flex?
Paychex Flex® is an HR solution boasting simplicity, with technology that grows and changes with the user's business. Paychex combines business solutions and dedicated support, to help users:
•Hire, pay, manage, and retain employees
•Get experienced support as needed with a 24/7/365 U.S.-based, live support team
•Stay ahead of changing laws and regulations with Paychex compliance experts
•Access information on the go with the Paychex Flex Mobile App and Paychex Voice Assist
Talent Management: Recruit, retain, and develop top talent from a single HR platform and streamline the hiring and onboarding process.
Workforce Management: Improve employee efficiency and productivity with workforce management resources.
Payroll and Financial Support: Pay employees and manage taxes, and expenses.
Employee Benefits: Attract and retain top talent by offering valued employee benefits while simplifying plan administration.
PEO and HR Outsourcing: Support the business throughout the entire employee lifecycle with comprehensive HR outsourcing solutions.
Employee Experience: Save time and improve accuracy by giving employees access to self-service HR, training, and financial tools.
Integrations: Automatically connect and share data between software and Paychex Flex.
Choose the right level of technology and support for the business now — while keeping the ability to grow as needs change.
Paychex Flex Features
Human Resource Management Features
- Supported: Employee demographic data
- Supported: Employment history
- Supported: Job profiles and administration
- Supported: Workflow for transfers, promotions, pay raises, etc.
- Supported: Benefits information
- Supported: Organization and location management
- Supported: Compliance data (COBRA, OSHA, etc.)
Payroll Management Features
- Supported: Pay calculation
- Supported: Off-cycle/On-Demand payment
- Supported: Payroll history for each employee
- Supported: Benefit plan administration
- Supported: Direct deposit files
- Supported: Payroll tracking and auditing
- Supported: Salary revision and increment management
- Supported: Reimbursement management
- Supported: Statutory form management
Leave and Attendance Management Features
- Supported: Approval workflow
- Supported: Email notifications
- Supported: Balance details
- Supported: Travel absence management
- Supported: Annual carry-forward and encashment
Employee Self Service Features
- Supported: Employee login
- Supported: View and generate pay and benefit information
- Supported: Update personal information
- Supported: Request time off
- Supported: View job history
- Supported: View company policy documentation
- Supported: View company news and information
Asset Management Features
- Supported: Tracking of all physical assets
HR Reporting Features
- Supported: Report builder
- Supported: Pre-built reports
- Supported: Ability to combine HR data with external data
Integration with other HR capabilities Features
- Supported: Additional HR capabilities (talent management, LMS, etc.) supplied by same vendor
Onboarding Features
- Supported: New hire portal
- Supported: Manager tracking tools
Recruiting / ATS Features
- Supported: Job Requisition Management
- Supported: Company Website Posting
- Supported: Publish to Social Media
- Supported: Job Search Site Posting
- Supported: Duplicate Candidate Prevention
- Supported: Applicant Tracking
- Supported: Notifications and Alerts
Additional Features
- Supported: Retirement- Single Record
- Supported: FSA
- Supported: Health Insurance, COBRA
- Supported: Mobile App
Paychex Flex Screenshots
Paychex Flex Video
Paychex Flex Demo
Paychex Flex Integrations
- QuickBooks Online
- Xero
- Indeed.com
- BambooHR
- Clover
- Altametrics
- Insight360
- LCP Tracker
- Hubworks
Paychex Flex Competitors
Paychex Flex Technical Details
| Deployment Types | Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
| Mobile Application | Apple iOS, Android, Mobile Web |
| Supported Countries | United States |
| Supported Languages | English, Spanish |
Frequently Asked Questions
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.
ADP Streamline Payroll, Enterprise eTIME, by ADP, and ADP Vantage HCM are common alternatives for Paychex Flex.
Reviewers rate Notifications and Alerts highest, with a score of 9.8.
The most common users of Paychex Flex are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
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(551)Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-25 of 25)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
October 26, 2023
Just the essentials, please. Could use a scaled-down version.
Used for the entire organization. Payroll processing, payroll tax remittance, retirement funding transfers
- Remit federal and state payroll taxes. I no longer have to do this.
- Provide detailed information to employees regarding their own pay information. Employees have access through a portal.
- Remit retirement contributions to retirement plan administrator
- Their ad hoc reporting tool is difficult to use. I don't find it to be very intuitive. The few times I have used it I have had to contract someone for help.
- I was not satisfied with the training I received in using the software. It took a while to figure out how to do things.
- I get the impression that my client representative has too many people to support.
July 04, 2023
Paychex has been a great addition to our company!
Paychex has allowed us to have complete trust that we are paying employees correctly and abiding by Federal/State/Local laws. It was truly a lifesaver during COVID, and we are so glad to have added this software to our organization. Paychex literally saves us almost an entire employee by handling our payroll items for us.
- Abides by Federal/State laws.
- Processed quarter/year-end filings.
- Makes payroll processing super easy.
- Manual manipulation to certain areas on our own without needing an account manager.
- General ledger setup.
- Backup assistance is more attentive when the account manager is out.
June 30, 2023
User Friendly and Efficient Payroll Software
Upon the recommendation of my accountant, I subscribed to Paychex Flex for my company's payroll needs. I rely on the software for automatic payroll distribution as well as for payment of my payroll taxes. I also oversee the tax information for the users to ensure that withholdings, dependents, etc., are appropriate.
- Timely quarterly reviews
- Multiple payroll reminders before the end of the pay period
- Account manager checkins
- Promotions are more frequent than I would prefer
June 18, 2023
Worth It!
ReadWest uses Paychex Flex to handle reporting hours, assign appropriate tax deductions, and issue payroll through direct deposit. Our Payroll Service Representative calls the office so we can report hours, then she offers Cash Requirements, and next, I go onto Flex and print check stubs, the invoice, payroll journal, department summary, and the general ledger. Very helpful tool.
- Customer Service response is quick.
- Sends in tax requirements in a timely manner.
- The online Flex tool is easy to use.
- Send a notification when taxes have been sent.
April 27, 2023
Paychex Flex- Not as Flexible as You Would Think!
We primarily use Paychex Flex for payroll processing and reporting and insurance enrollment. We originally purchased Paychex to use in other areas such as time-tracking and expenses, however, the implementation did not work out for those areas.
- Payroll processing
- Enrollment reminders
- Digital check stubs and W2s
- COBRA
- Implementation in general
- Time tracking
- Expense management
April 26, 2023
Avoid Paychex Flex PEO and Payroll Service
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Unfortunately, my experience with Paychex Flex was extremely disappointing. From the beginning, we encountered numerous problems with their services. The onboarding process was a nightmare. In my case, it took months and months of emails back and forth with multiple people requesting the same information over and over again. In my experience, they made countless errors in our set up and payroll and caused inefficiencies that cost us time and money to correct. Employee turnover seemed to a huge problem, and any employees that weren't new, were just promoted to the new position so there never seemed to be anyone in a position that really knew what they were doing. Additionally, their benefits and 401k management left a lot to be desired. We had to constantly follow up with them to make sure that everything was being handled properly. Moreover, I feel their hiring process was inefficient and lacked proper procedures. We had to constantly follow up with them to ensure that the employees were set up properly in the system for payroll and benefits. In my opinion, the system was not user-friendly, and we had a hard time navigating through it. We also found it absurd that we could not send an offer letter through the system until after the candidate had been hired. What's the point of that? To make matters worse, in my experience, their software was not user-friendly, which made it difficult to access important information and reports. I feel that it was frustrating to navigate their platform, and we often had to rely on their customer support team to help us find what we needed. Even fixing an employee timeclock mistake was an unnecessarily difficult task. Overall, I would not recommend Paychex Flex to anyone. In my experience, they made false promises, caused a lot of headaches, and failed to deliver on their services. Save yourself the trouble and look for a more reliable PEO and payroll provider.
- I did not have a good experience with Flex, it is "OK" technology. Not on par with newer products and software but costs as much or more.
- In my experience, terrible PEO onboarding and offboarding (we left after first year contract was up)
- In my opinion, there are too many people in new positions who don't know exactly how to handle a situation which requires constant corrections and fixing things and bringing more people in to correct the situation. Lots of time wasted as a business owner.
- I feel time and Attendance was cumbersome, employees made more mistakes than in my previous software and fixing it was also unnecessarily difficult. Integration was quirky, even importing into Flex Payroll from Time and Attendance had delays and issues. The software needs work.
April 25, 2023
Paychex Flex Review
Paychex Flex is being used across the organization. It is helpful for time and attendance, onboarding, [and] employee reviews. Completing payroll is much easier through Paychex Flex. Our specialist, Bryan Bowman, is fabulous. He always responds quickly and resolves any issues I have.
- ACA Compliance
- Onboarding
- Reports
- Payroll
- Time & Attendance Vacation time and the need to be able to job cost
- General Ledger Department
- Not change my Specialist - Bryan Bowman
April 25, 2023
Payroll/HR and Accounting Manager
Manage time cards, time off schedules. Process payroll, print out payroll reports and do the journal entries that are necessary. This is a big time saver to have Paychex Flex process all payroll checks and payroll taxes. I don't have to worry about dead lines or possibly forgetting to process the payroll taxes.
- Custom Reports
- An experienced payroll specialist
- Meet dead lines
- Some of the Custom Reports are not Customized enough
- It would be nice to add general ledger numbers without having to send to the specialist
- Setting up employees could be a little easier
April 25, 2023
Overall my favorite payroll company!
We currently use Flex for time and attendance, payroll, HRIS, EEOC tracking and annual review tracking.
I use the software every day for any one or all of the above reasons. I have a dedicated account person to contact with any issues. When she is not available, the 1-800 number gives me great support evey time.
I use the software every day for any one or all of the above reasons. I have a dedicated account person to contact with any issues. When she is not available, the 1-800 number gives me great support evey time.
- Timeclock and attendance
- Splitting rates of pay in payroll
- User friendly platform
- Great customer service
- Reports and variables needed to run reports
- Easier access for employees on the app
- When adding new hires, the "pre-checked" process doesn't include direct deposit. I have to finish adding the employee and then go back into the pay tab to enter the direct deposit
- Very difficult to edit employee phone numbers and e-mails in the system
April 19, 2023
Flex? Yes and No
It's used by the entire organization for payroll and time & attendance purposes. There are no specific business problems it addresses. The functionality we were looking for is a platform that integrates time and attendance with payroll and it does that.
- Dashboard is user friendly
- Making corrections in the time & attendance module is easy
- Integration with payroll is seamless
- Reports - are not as robust as I'd like
- Programming the specific payroll types in cumbersome
- Locating and navigating the instructions is not straightforward. As a super user, it is not clear what access I do and don't have.
April 18, 2023
Paychex all the boxes for our nonprofit
We use it for our staff payroll. In addition, we are a drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility and part of our yearlong recovery program includes a work program. So we also use Paychex to pay the men who are in the program.
- Simple to load and run payroll
- Links well with our QuickBooks General Ledger
- Phone support when I have questions is outstanding
- Easy implementation of garnishments
- I really can't think of anything. For what I use it for it meets all my needs.
April 13, 2023
Paychex Flex is great!
Paychex Flex has been a big help with our employee time tracking and overall maintenance. It’s a one stop shop where I, as an HR professional can keep track of employees information and managers can make changes as needed. We currently utilize the time & attendance, performance and onboarding functions. Whenever I need extra training myself or for my team, I can easily get connected with support at Paychex Flex and never have to wait long for an answer. The customer service is probably the best part.
- Organization
- Customer service
- Innovation
- Merging time and attendance to employee management
March 03, 2022
Great general payroll service
The firm I work for uses Paychex Flex for all the payroll needs of the employees. It is our primary software we use to run payroll for the firm. This software is one of the larger companies in its industry, and they do a great job at handling the day-to-day payroll needs.
- Timely deposits
- Great reports
- Organized
- 401k updates
- PTO balance updates
August 03, 2021
Paychex works great - with the necessary training.
Paychex Flex is being used at my company as a time keeping product, time off tracking and payroll payment and distribution.
- Time clock tracking and importing into payroll
- Time off tracking
- Payroll from beginning to end.
- GL Ledger import
- While Customer Service is excellent, sometimes things fall thru the cracks.
- Easier product training (training modules that could be done on employee's own time).
- Better ease and transition into other Paychex Flex departments from Customer Service.
August 03, 2021
Paychex Flex good with a little room to become great!
We currently use Paychex Flex primarily for Human Resources/Payroll, but it is used across the organization to have employees manage and update their personal data, manage some benefits choices (401K & FSA), manage performance reviews, and share company documents with employees. Certain capabilities like the ability to post company documents for all employees or specific employees and request acknowledgment, make it easier to disseminate important information and ensure employees are reviewing important documents like company handbooks. The performance management component has also helped us transition from a paper document to a digital system that is more intuitive and easier to use for most employees although I think there is some room for improvement. I would like to see some additional functionalities added like the ability to view a self-review for an employee while completing a manager review or for employees completing reviews to be able to pull up past reviews & goals while completing new reviews.
- I think the payroll center is very intuitive and generally makes it easier to process payroll.
- Pulling employee and tax reports in Paychex Flex is also pretty easy
- Updating personal information, tax information, managing 401k benefits is easy and convenient on the administrative and employee end.
- It's difficult to update user emails and user phone numbers after they have been set
- The performance management system could use some quality of life improvements like viewing previous reviews while completing a new review or allowing a manager to view the self-review of an employee while completing the manager review.
- For the issues and incidents section, it would be great if system admins could submit a new case like a workplace injury or near-miss without having to tag an employee in the case. Sometimes we just want to add the information into Flex for recordkeeping purposes and for generating 300A forms at the end of the year.
June 21, 2021
A Priceless Tool in an Inexpensive Toolbox
We are utilizing Paychex Flex across our entire organization for payroll and for retirement accounts.
- Paychex Flex allows a simplified one-stop shop for employees to access their pay records, tax records, and their retirement accounts.
- Paychex Flex takes tax filing burdens off our shoulders.
- Paychex Flex helps us stay in compliance across the many states in which we work.
- Sometimes the general ledger journal that comes over from the GL team doesn't match up with the Cash Requirements report from the payroll team.
- It would be nice to have a better safety net in place to ensure that new state withholding and unemployment tax accounts are set up and activated accurately with both the payroll side and the GL side of Paychex.
- Sometimes there seems to be a bit of a disconnect between the payroll specialists and the GL team regarding communication with our state tax accounts. It seems that sometimes one side can't correct something that they can see needs to be corrected and that they have to wait on the other side to accomplish this.
June 14, 2021
Outstanding Payroll Service!
We are an accounting firm. Our organization uses Paychex Flex for its payroll processing. We also recommend Paychex Flex to our clients and use Paychex Flex to access our clients' payroll reports, with their permission. These reports are used to prepare tax returns, insurance audits, employment verification reports, and SBA loan applications and forgiveness applications.
- Paychex Flex is user friendly.
- Paychex Flex reports are comprehensive.
- Paychex Flex reports are customizable.
- Paychex Flex reports are clear and concise.
- The charge tip distinction on the reports could be clearer.
June 11, 2021
Two thumbs up to Paychex Flex
We use in the accounting office for payroll purposes. I believe it makes for an easier payroll experience for the accounting department and for the employees.
- They make sure all your questions or issues are addressed within a reasonable time frame.
- It gives the employees access to their information and pay stubs.
- The app makes it very convenient.
- I really like Paychex Flex and really cannot think of anything that can be improved.
June 08, 2021
Paychex - Need to be more focused on the customer experience and fix the General Ledger reporting group
We use Paychex Flex across our whole organization. It is used primarily to assure accurate and timely payroll tax reporting.
- Accurate payroll tax reporting and remittance (tax pay).
- We have been with the same payroll specialist for 7+ years and she is very good.
- The ad hoc online reporting is helpful once you know what to look for. The custom reporting feature is helpful.
- Paychex seeks to offer you a number of related products - from time reporting to 401k, etc. I'd prefer they focus on better execution of their core business.
- Paychex has many silos in their operations and the silos do not communicate or work well together. A prime example is the General Ledger group. At one time 5+ years ago, I had a dedicated General Ledger specialist assigned to my account. That was great. Paychex now has a queue for General Ledger and you call in and get the next available agent. Hold times are crazy long. Then when you get a GL specialist, the know noting about your account or business. So every time you call, it is highly inefficient for the customer to get the GL specialist up to speed on your account. Also, the general ledger staff by and large understand the Paychex system, but have almost no understanding of basic accounting. The GL user is most always seeking to use GL services to facilitate an accounting entry. So it is frustrating the GL has no real understanding of basic accounting.
- The Paychex systems are older legacy systems. They are frequently anomalies that occur and are explained as issues with the system. Some upgrades are being done, but more is needed. And recently, the "upgrade" took some featured of reporting and made prior reports that the user could add to a favorites list of reports unavailable. So now each pay period I get a series of reports in my favorites list, but I have to do a specific search to get one report that was impacted by the upgrade. Perhaps the system works better on the backside that I don't see, but the upgrade was not user friendly and makes the customer do more work not less work. So all in, I see Paychex as more focused on their system needs and far less focused on the user experience. So, I'd like to see them be more focused on the customer experience.
- The staff at Paychex are good, but they are always slammed. It seems to me that the payroll specialists are overloaded with a high volume of clients, and that makes timely responses and help on non-routine work an issue. I wish the specialists we not as highly leveraged.
June 08, 2021
Paychex is a great choice!
We are using Paychex Flex for employee data, payroll, taxes, time and attendance, time off and general Human Resource functions. Human Resources, which is a department of one is the primary administrator. Paychex is our source for employee data that is used for government, college and other data report requests.
Employees use Paychex to request time off, receive their payroll check stubs, tax forms and updating their personal information. Hourly employees also use time and attendance to record their work hours. Supervisors use Paychex to approve time off request and review weekly time sheets.
- Paychex has an excellent customer service strategy. If my account manager is not available (which is rare), another team member is ready to step in. Paychex requests feedback and uses it to support their Account Managers. They actually listen/read what I say and reach out.
- Paychex reporting is easy to use. The ability to be able to customized many of the reports is wonderful. Pulling employee data is a function that use frequently and they make it easy. Being able to pull most reports into Excel is a big plus!
- Payroll and tax processing is accurate and on time! This takes a lot of worry off me.
- Paychex has been in the process of migrating time and attendance into Paychex Flex for some time now. I am looking forward to this migration!
- I would like to have more reports that are customizable and that could be downloaded into Excel.
- I really wish they had a magic button I could push so my supervisors would approve time off requests as they come in.
June 07, 2021
Great product for the value
We use Paychex Flex for all our payroll needs by all departments. Paychex Flex has been amazing in meeting all our needs from paying people to reporting. We have all different departments with all different needs. Some are straight salary, some are hourly and some are salary but get fringes. We have a retirement, Aflac, child support, retirement loans union dues for 3 different unions and many other items that come out of checks that they have been able to accommodate.
- Great reports
- General ledger posting and reporting is amazing along with the GL customer service team
- The over all customer service is great!! Whenever I need them with all my crazy changes that need to be made they have never once told me no.
- Very few aspects are not user friendly.
- I would like to be able to do more with the time and attendance part myself. Although customer service is great, some things that need to do I know are quick fixes and I would love to be able to do them on my own.
June 01, 2021
Paychex Flex as best configurable ADP engine
We decided to use Paychex Flex, due to the high personnel turnover we had and the long working hours in the human resources sector, in view of this we decided to automate our process and we found good results with this tool. Customer service in general is good, however, at times we witnessed long waiting times that are unrecoverable for the company. We honestly expected more. The use of Paychex Flex is intended for those companies that need that extra optimization in their personnel management systems, however you must be very clear about where you want to go with the software, since its configuration and adequacy will depend on that.
- Paychex Flex performs payroll management automatically.
- Allows the update of schedules through specific tasks.
- Employee performance review opens the possibility of a healthier work environment.
- The accounting tool has some flaws.
- It is a bit difficult to implement.
- Billing information is often confusing, and we can almost never get all the necessary data.
February 18, 2020
Paychex.. satisfied, yet unsatisfied.
We use Paychex Flex across the whole organization. Our employees use it to access their pay stubs, performance reviews, company updates, and to change any tax information they would like. We use it as a company for payroll and HR services. It has made it convenient to access all of payroll and HR in one place.
- Custom payroll options.
- Performance reviews for employees.
- Customer service takes awhile to get an issue resolved.
- General Ledger department is not up to par.
October 29, 2019
Good for small business
We use it for payroll only, but with a time cock interlocked. We are a small business and this works great at our level.
Took a little bit to get everything running smoothly, but after that no issues or problems.
Took a little bit to get everything running smoothly, but after that no issues or problems.
- Time and Attendance interchanges into the payroll module really simply.
- The transition between T&A and Flex is really quick.
- The new grid is always on basic, but basic doesn't work for me. I made my own grid but have to choose it every time, it's not automatic.
- Any changes I make do not go into effect until next paycheck, even if you want it to go through some things just won't be immediate.
We are a small business of approximately 30 employees. We have a human resource department that uses Paychex Flex to assist them in onboarding new employees. We also use Paychex Flex to keep track of time cards. Paychex Flex is also used for Human Resource management where they alert us to any changes in the laws.
- An updated interface.
- A robust list of reports and analytics.
- Sending W2's out at the end of the year.
- Time and attendance apps and check-in option where it will tag when a person arrived without clocking them out.
- Easy to adjust missing punches for those out in the field.
- The Paycheck Flex App is separate from the paycheck Time app for punching in the clock - It would be nice to see them working together a little more efficiently.
- They have representatives and the quality of service you receive can greatly vary depending on who you are assigned to. This can be annoying and frustrating as you don't always know who to contact.
- It can take a while to get off the ground.