We use Paychex Flex as a Time Card for our hourly employees; for Time Card approval for their supervisors; for tracking PTO; for making payroll deduction and withholding payments timely; for W2 processing, as well as all other PR needs.
Pros
Time Cards
Cons
Reporting. Some of the custom reports are not what I need.
Likelihood to Recommend
This has worked out very well as a payroll solution for our small company.
I use Paychex Flex on a weekly basis to process my Companies payroll and have my 401K plan automatically uploaded weekly to eliminate human error. I wish the system was more user friendly when I am entering new hires. I am currently the only person to use Paychex Flex at my company other than our employee portal to review weekly pay stubs.
Pros
Payroll is processed very quickly
Payroll Reports are ready within minutes
The uploading of our 401K is great.
Customer service is outstanding.
Cons
adding new hires
Changing employee to different departments
It would be good if you could customize reports
The payroll grid needs improvement
Likelihood to Recommend
Paychex Flex is very easy to navigate for processing payroll and get weekly reports in a timely manner. I enjoy having a dedicated customer service representative to answer any questions I have. The response time is fantastic. The help button needs improvement it does not answer your question at all instead it mentions topics not related to what you are asking.
VU
Verified User
Account Manager in Finance and Accounting (Mining & Metals company, 11-50 employees)
I utilize PayChex Flex to process payroll, commission pay and bonus pay for our employees. I use it to update pay rates and employee status. It is very user friendly and I have never had any issues navigating the site for my personal or professional needs. The site offers up to date information for payroll, tax changes and whatever is new in the world of payroll.
Pros
Navigation - Getting to the reports I need or to the payroll processing section are one-click away
Ease of use - Processing payroll for our staff is easy to do and takes me less than 20 minutes
Everything all in one place
Cons
I cannot think of anything I would change
Likelihood to Recommend
Everything is at my fingertips and I don't, usually, need the assistance of my payroll advisor
We're a small firm with 7 people and as one of the owners, I do HR and am the Administrator of Paychex Flex. Our employees use it to see their paycheck and 401(k) information. I use it to see and print payroll reports, add new employees, and see information on our 401(k).
Pros
Easy to find payroll reports and export to save or print
Good user interface, for the most part
Easy to add new employees
Cons
When adding new employees, I had some questions and didn't find answers (e.g. whether withholding tax information was set up for new hire), so still had to contact the payroll specialist. Then when the payroll specialist replied and I thought its was resolved, I still got automated messages from Paychex Flex. That had me stressed out the withholding taxes might not be set up for our new hire.
The 401(k) section has a lot of useful information, but it takes some digging to find what I need there. [In my experience] Some of the information is buried in the fine print of long legalese documents (for example, when I wanted to see the fees based on asset value, I couldn't find it and had to call customer service. It's buried deep in a document with other fees that were not presented clearly upfront when we signed up).
Sometimes it's not clear if I should do things on Paychex Flex or contact the payroll specialist. I try to use Paychex Flex first and sometimes ask the payroll specialist just in case. I really do like the app, but I think it's good to have a payroll specialist to ask if/when I have additional questions.
Likelihood to Recommend
We're a small company and I'm not an HR person. So, the app is great for things I do regularly, like view and print payroll reports, update staff changes (address, etc). The user interface is good and intuitive on the payroll section, so I can usually find what I need quickly, without needing to contact the payroll specialist and wait for a response. It's also a very good place to find information, especially the payroll section. (the 401 section also has good information but isn't as intuitive to use)
For me, it's less appropriate for things that involve legal or tax issues, because I don't know all the rules and I'm afraid I'll enter something incorrectly. For example, how to classify employees and how to set up withholding taxes. I like having a professional payroll specialist to help with those.
VU
Verified User
Vice-President (Oil & Energy company, 1-10 employees)
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.
Pros
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.
Cons
I really like Paychex Flex and really cannot think of anything that can be improved.
Likelihood to Recommend
Paychex Flex is very well suited for small businesses that are on a tight schedule with daily tasks. It might not be for a larger company with 50 or more employees.
We use Paychex Flex across our whole organization. It is used primarily to assure accurate and timely payroll tax reporting.
Pros
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.
Cons
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.
Likelihood to Recommend
Well suited for payroll tax calculation and remittance. Online reporting is helpful and robust.
We used Paychex Flex prior to moving to our current system this past October. We used Paychex as our payroll & HR system. It was a good system but didn't have what we needed for a larger organization.
Pros
Our customer rep was amazing!
They want to expand and become more competitive with larger HRIS platforms.
Cons
Different parts of the program didn't "talk" to each other.
Reports were difficult.
Likelihood to Recommend
It's good for a small company with regard to payroll.
