Item: Namely
Rating: 7
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Our organization uses Namely for all our HR and payroll needs. This product addresses our business needs more than our previous provider by being more user friendly and having a more robust HR platform all in one system. The feed is especially useful for performance shoutouts and internal updates. There are some pieces that I feel do not live up to our previous provider, but there are also aspects that Namely has that are more beneficial than our previous provider. Overall,
our employees enjoy Namely as users, and HR sees improvements with their side,
but the payroll side could have a few more options to make the system better.

Pros and Cons

Prorations for salaried employees based on start dates
A feed for shoutouts, promotions, terminations, new hires, birthdays, and anniversaries
Automatic state and local taxes added based on employee address (a big plus for Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana)

Limits to custom reporting
No direct feed for Ohio Workers Comp (now a manual process on our end)
No option to place an employee on Leave of Absence and exclude them from payroll while they are "inactive"
No option to suppress certain deductions for certain pay types (i.e. allow 401K for commissions but block remaining deductions - also now a manual process to uncheck the suppress box for 401K for each commission check)

Key Insights

Do you think Namely delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Namely's feature set?

Yes

Did Namely live up to sales and marketing promises?

Did implementation of Namely go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Namely again?

Yes

Return on Investment

It is nice to be able to run as many payrolls at a flat fee rather than be charged a fee for every payroll ran.
Namely does not update the SUI Tax Rate Changes or Workers Comp Rate Changes. They also do not file Nevada Modified Business Tax or facilitate a policy for New York Disability and Paid Family Leave. They also do not have a direct feed for premium payments to Ohio Workers Comp nor do they complete the true-up. Our previous provider did all of these filings and updates for us, so switching to Namely has added more hours of work on our end as a result.

Alternatives Considered

Paychex Flex

Paychex Flex offered more support for the payroll side. All of the disadvantages that Namely has stem from the fact that Paychex Flex provided these benefits for us before. We selected Namely because it had more features in one place than Paychex Flex did. The feel for the users is much better on Namely, so that was also a major benefit for switching. Our HR team also liked the offers that Namely has compared to Paychex Flex, which was ultimately the reason we started looking.

Implementation Rating

For the payroll side of things, I felt like I knew more about some of the key implementation pieces that we were looking for than our implementation specialist. There was a lot of reminding on our end to check on pieces that we had questions about. Overall, we did not have much to adjust after the final sign off with the implementation team. There are little quirks that we are still learning, but nothing major that the implementation team missed.

Usability

Namely has a help community that has articles that assist with all aspects of their system. A little help box will appear in the bottom right hand corner of the screen that will link you to the articles you might need for the section. This is the best way to find these articles as searching in the help community can be daunting and often not provide the relevant articles.

Likelihood to Recommend

Namely is nice because it has everything all in one place: performance, applicant tracking through Greenhouse, payroll, time off, hourly timesheets, and benefits. From the payroll side, Namely is especially helpful for remote employers who have employees in multiple states, especially Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. Namely will automatically update the payroll profile of the employee with the state and local tax for the work or home location, whichever the employer chooses. I have found a few mistakes with the local tax being assigned not matching the Ohio Tax Finder, but for the most part, it is accurate. It is also helpful that we can create multiple payrolls for multiple periods and they are included in the overall fee.

The Pros and Cons of Namely from a Previous Paychex User

Overall Satisfaction with Namely