Item: TriNet
Rating: 5
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with TriNet

Support Rating

My Trinet reps are very responsive and usually resolve my issues quickly. Sometimes I'm frustrated with the responses, but they are generally due to the limitations of Trinet and not the representative. I would give a rating of 8.5 if that was possible. I have worked with 3 Trinet reps and have good things to say about all 3. (Tony Momeni went above and beyond to be helpful and I would give him a rating of 9.5).

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Trinet is used across our whole organization. All new employees are set up in Trinet and we mainly use it for payroll and benefits. A major advantage of using Trinet is to have employees sign up for benefits directly in the system and eliminate enrollment administration by our staff. Trinet also has a great rates and a wide selection of benefit plans.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Wide selection of benefit plans cater to varying needs of different individuals. Trinet offers PPO, HMO, HSA plans, FSA and more, from various insurance carriers.
National coverage. Our headquarters is in CA. We hired employees in NY and TX and Trinet had established insurance plans for those states, which was extremely helpful.
Competitive rates. Health insurance premiums are very reasonable as our small company can take advantage of Trinet's large group rates.

Cons

Rigid in terms of payroll. I've had to learn and work with Trinet's timing restrictions on everything. Sometimes it's very frustrating and I find out about the restrictions through experience, when issues arise. For example, retro payments did not show up when I processed payroll. I was told that I needed to create a "special payroll" separately to pay retroactively. Then, through experience, I learned that the retro payments will automatically go through in the following payroll, which saved me from having to create a separate "special payroll". HOWEVER, if an employee started on the same day as the payroll deadline, the retro payment will NOT go through automatically and I would have to create the separate "special payroll". I also learned that through experience when issues arose.
Some payroll reports are extremely difficult to obtain (eg. DE-9).
No flexibility to do what would be possible with other payroll systems. Dealing with the multiple layers of administration is frustrating. We wanted to back out 2 employees that were entered into the system (1-2 weeks after they were entered, and it was not near quarter end or year end) and Trinet wouldn't allow it.
I have no visibility to 401k administration. I cannot run reports to manage issues before they arise (this is an issue with both Trinet and Slavic401k).

Return on Investment

Trinet enabled our company to grow at an extremely fast pace with minimal administrative staff because many administrative functions were streamlined.
Payroll accounting is also simplified with Trinet.

Alternatives Considered

I've only used Zenefits in the past and Trinet is far better. I came to this company when Trinet was already implemented. I had not heard of Trinet prior to arriving here. I heard both positive and negative reviews of Trinet from others and my experience fits right into what I had heard.

Likelihood to Recommend

Well suited for companies that want to offer rich benefit plans and have simple payroll needs. TriNet saves a lot of time on benefits administration which is a key advantage. Not suitable for companies that have complex payrolls, or that want more control over payroll (this will more likely be the case as companies grow).

TriNet Feature Ratings

Comments

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The advantages are worth the frustrations, so far...

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