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Paychex Flex

Paychex Flex

Overview

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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Learn from top reviewers

Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Video Reviews

1 video

Paychex Flex Review: One Users Payroll Management Story
02:26
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Pricing

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Paychex Go

$59

Cloud
per month/+$4 per employee

Paychex Flex Service

Contact sales team

Cloud

Paychex Flex Enterprise

Contact sales team

Cloud

Entry-level set up fee?

  • Setup fee required

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Features

Human Resource Management

Organizing, tracking and providing instant access to critical employee data, job profiles, transfers, promotions, and benefits information.

7.1
Avg 7.9

Payroll Management

Provides for pay calculation and benefit plan administration, in addition to managing direct deposit, salary revisions and payroll tracking.

8.9
Avg 8.0

Leave and Attendance Management

Streamlines communication between HR and employees and facilitates efficient management of employee leave including requisitions, approvals, balance calculation, and annual carry-forward.

7.7
Avg 8.1

Employee Self Service

Employee portal allowing employees to view and update their personal information.

8.7
Avg 8.1

Asset Management

Maintaining a record of assets such as laptops, pagers, cell phones, etc. issued to employees. Record typically includes asset type, number, serial number and date of issuance.

7.7
Avg 8.0

HR Reporting

Pre-built and custom reports, and integration with external data.

6.7
Avg 7.5

Onboarding

Employee onboarding is the process of orienting new hires to the social and performance aspects of their jobs so that they are able to function in their new roles as quickly as possible.

7.5
Avg 8.0

Recruiting / ATS

Recruiting or Applicant Tracking Software is software used to manage the recruitment process electronically by handling job postings, applicant status, resume management, etc.

8.1
Avg 7.8
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Product Details

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

Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of

Paychex Flex Video

Paychex Flex Demo

Paychex Flex Integrations

Paychex Flex Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationApple iOS, Android, Mobile Web
Supported CountriesUnited States
Supported LanguagesEnglish, 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 Pay calculation and Direct deposit files highest, with a score of 9.4.

The most common users of Paychex Flex are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews From Top Reviewers

(1-5 of 256)

Paychex

Rating: 1 out of 10
March 30, 2015
JP
Vetted Review
Verified User
Paychex Flex
3 years of experience
Paychex Accounting Online was used to process our payroll. It was also used across the company for time clock purposes as well. The interface was not user friendly and the reporting was particularly bad.
  • I do not think Paychex had any particular strengths.
Cons
  • Better reporting.
  • More user friendly interface.
  • Better customer support.
I would say look at ADP.

Payroll Time

Rating: 8 out of 10
June 30, 2023
JP
Vetted Review
Verified User
Paychex Flex
2 years of experience
I use Paychex Flex for payroll purposes only. Our payroll runs monthly and quarterly. I run the owner's bonus pay-out. There are still some quirks I'm working out, but overall I like it. When making a 1-time only change for an employee for that payroll month, the system should identify this is a 1-time only change and will revert back the following payroll run.
  • I like I can enter payroll and if I need to leave the program, I can resume at a later time and my information is saved.
  • I like the analytics & reports features.
  • I like how all my employees have easy access to their portal.
Cons
  • When making a change to an employee's 401K contribution, change their withholdings, or change their direct deposit, I find it challenging, particularly if I had already started the payroll. I should be able to do this very easily, however, I seem to struggle.
  • Health Savings Accounts for the owners. So far we are going on year 2 and still the system will not deposit an owner's HSA contribution when I process the owner's quarterly bonus run. And of course, this doesn't get picked up on the reports until a month or two later when one of the owners tells me his HSA contribution did not hit his bank account. I have to reach out to Danita McAfee, Supervisor - Flex Conversion Center, every time for help. She is wonderful to work with and always fixes my mistakes.
  • To add a separate payroll run in addition to the monthly payroll should be just a click to do, but it is not. I have to reach out to my rep. Caleb Wiggins to add another payroll run.
See my previous response. My biggest struggle is with the Health Savings Account contributions made. Entering the amounts, and reviewing my reports before submitting all looks good, no error messages appear, however, I have to hear from one of the owners that his HSA contribution did not hit his bank account.

Paychex Flex is not all that Flexible!

Rating: 6 out of 10
September 17, 2019
CH
Vetted Review
Verified User
Paychex Flex
2 years of experience
Paychex Flex is being used by the HR, Payroll and Operations Departments. We came to Paychex Flex after many struggles with ADP Workforce Now chaos of tracking problems with ticket #'s, the overwhelming misinformation and their accountability for that information from their Representatives, which just created a ton of extra work for us. We were promised that Paychex Flex was one seamless system that was full integrated with all its platforms. That is not the case but we were happy with the time and attendance time off online system for requesting and approving time off and the ease in processing payroll adjustments. We needed mobile access for our employees to punch in/out at multiple off-site locations. and Paychex Flex offered that. We needed a better way of meeting our ACA obligations, and Paychex Flex offered that as well. Their Support teams are very knowledgeable and we don't have to keep track of ticket #'s to follow up on open items being reviewed.
  • Addressing your problems/questions. Their team is very knowledgeable and are capable of addressing your problems usually within the call or within a reasonable time if you shoot them an email.
  • ACA - once you understand what is required to obtain accurate reports you are blessed with the results at year end.
  • Setting up new Voluntary Deductions/Garnishments, Direct Deposits, Rate and Address changes even while processing an active payroll is super easy and everything takes effect immediately with the exception of W4/State/City tax changes that are not permitted during an active payroll.
  • Seeing a payroll breakdown gross to net while still in the processing stages of payroll has proved to be very convenient and helpful.
Cons
  • Reports. If you can manage with their many standard reports you're good to go, but customization of reports is truly lacking. To get a "special" report created for you usually takes a week, and you never speak to the person creating the report (they are shielded by this tall wall of mystery.) There is a lot of back and forth with your Payroll Rep to get it done the way you need it, and even then you are usually settling for the best they can do.
  • No true seamless integration. Their platforms do not communicate as they promise so you find that you need to go to multiple platforms to get all your information in. You will even need to go to different areas within the platform to get a new hire added, for instance.
  • You will hear a lot that Paychex Flex is not capable of doing something which means you have to figure it out since you still need what you need.
  • Their Geo-fencing and web punching have multiple ongoing issues. Since Paychex will only deal with a select group of people in your organization, those select people become inundated with having to deal with the systems technical issues, getting screenshots, emailing and responding between Paychex and the employee to troubleshoot throughout the fix. You in essence become their support team instead of you having a support team that will speak to the employee to fix the problems.
  • Their revolutionary Fingerprint Scanning Timeclocks are poorly designed and/or cheaply made. They go down and need to be replaced every few months leaving you with having to manually key in employee times. They know this is a problem yet will not agree to you having a back time clock unless you pay for it.
Paychex Flex is well suited for smaller or less complex businesses with less than 250 employees who for the most part has basic processing and reporting needs. For larger companies with multiple contracts and accrual dates; companies that need to clock in and out from mobile site or through web punching; or if you need more than basic reporting needs, Paychex Flex is simply not capable of meeting your needs.

Great, most of the time!

Rating: 10 out of 10
July 23, 2021
Vetted Review
Verified User
Paychex Flex
4 years of experience
Paychex Flex is being used by our 3 stores to keep track of time worked, PTO, bi-weekly payroll, and others. They also take care of paying the withholding taxes which I'm so glad for. It has been a real help for me to be able to keep track of employees and their hours worked and let Paychex issue their bi-weekly paychecks without worry.
  • Bi-weekly payroll.
  • Reporting.
  • Friendly associates.
Cons
  • One associate being able to answer all questions, whether it be for Time & Attendance, or any other area.
  • We've had a little trouble getting the PTO set up so that each employee could see the hours on their pay stubs.
Our Paychex Flex specialists have mostly always been very good to work with. If they cannot answer the question themselves they are willing to find the answers for us.

Excellent for Time and Attendance

Rating: 10 out of 10
June 05, 2021
TC
Vetted Review
Verified User
Paychex Flex
1 year of experience
Paychex Flex is being used by all employees to clock in and out, I am working to have everyone submit their time off requests through Paychex. It addresses the issue of employees clocking in and out and keeping track of their hours worked.
  • You can set this up so employees can only clock in at their computer in the office. This helps with employees not being able to clock in unless they are actually present in the office.
  • The systems is easy to use when entering vacation and sick time.
  • I like that you can go to Indeed right from the homepage.
Cons
  • Admin sign in extended to avoid having to keep resigning in.
  • Health Benefits updated more regularly
Paychex is easy to use and I like that they take care of processing all of the paperwork for the 941's and EDD.
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