Paychex Flex is not all that Flexible!
Updated September 17, 2019
Paychex Flex is not all that Flexible!
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Paychex Flex
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.
- 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.
- ROI is very low, our staff is required to use multiple avenues to track, confirm and manage so many aspects of our Payroll and HR business and still things are missed. We have decided that the required duplicity and ineffective time management is just is not cost effective. Paychex Flex does not come close to meeting our needs.
We used a custom inhouse program for many years before going to ADP Workforce Now. That transition was painful but eye opening on what was available from Payroll providers/ However, their lack of integration between their platforms and their untrained staff led to a lot of extra work and the miscommunication resulted in expenses to the company which had us look elsewhere. We decided on Paychex Flex because we believed their product was seamless, we were looking to a future with increased off site employment so our needs were changing and Paychex met those changing needs on paper.