Item: TriNet
Rating: 10
Author: Julia Eiszner

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

In my current company, we are using TriNet across the whole organization. It addresses the problem of providing a competitive 401K and benefits offering to our employees, as we are a very small team. It streamlines payroll and taxes and other compliance methods for us, as we do not have a professional human resource manager in house.

Pros and Cons

Good interface, simple and easy to locate what you need
Excellent customer service, having a dedicated client services representative and the helpful employee call line
Really excellent benefit plans are available through the TriNet network
Having the resources of a termination team, a payroll team, a compliance team, so helpful for every issue that comes up

The reports are kind of clunky, hard to pull, I have to pull 4 different reports to get all of the information I need to make my payroll journal entries each month.
Sometimes the reaction time isn't fast enough, it would be helpful to have a resource available later into the evening for emergencies, ie a termination that needs to happen urgently the following day, to get a net check amount, to get help on a difficult and volatile situation. Sometimes, especially when the termination department is in Florida on Eastern Time and we are in Mountain Time, it creates issues when you need help or advisement quickly.
It would be awesome if TriNet had an integrated PTO/vacation system. Not an additional vendor who is partnered with TriNet, but a way to have employees track PTO and vacation within the TriNet system, to make an employee exit vacation payout easier to process, and to give the employees more visibility of their available time off in the system they are familiar with.

Support Rating

I have had excellent service from all of my current and past client services representatives, and everyone on the TriNet team who I have interacted with. They are friendly, knowledgable and helpful. They always provide encouragement and a calm manner that assures you everything can be managed, even the most difficult situations.

Usability

Everything is great, except the reports could be easier to access. There is so much information in all of them, and sometimes one report has one piece of info and another report has another piece of info and its a lot of work to get to the root of the question. I think in looking at the next question, that maybe I need to try the report builder. I haven't tried to create the one perfect report but I should try. Also, one time, we had a charge for Cobra admin fee on our invoice and it didn't detail in any of the available reports which employee the Cobra fee should be applied to. I called and was able to get assistance, but I think on extra fees that hit the invoice if there could be some level of detail as to how or why the fee was incurred. As an accountant, we always have to know where to apply each abnormal charge (ie which cost center)

Return on Investment

It has greatly reduced the time I spend processing payroll, onboarding and off boarding employees and takes care of all of the compliance and tax information that I wouldn't even know how to do.
We offer an extremely competitive benefits package to our employee's thanks to TriNet.
It's simple to get your W2 online each year, instead of waiting for it to come in the mail or wondering if you have the wrong address on file with a former employee.

Alternatives Considered

ADP Enterprise eTIME, When I Work and Gusto

I think TriNet is the most streamlined and the most cost-effective. It also offers the best support for both employees and for the employer.

Likelihood to Recommend

I have had the most excellent assistance and advisement from my client services representatives and always receive excellent help even when my own representative is unavailable. It is really simple to onboard new employees. It isn't the most well suited to urgent HR situations. If you need someone to come up with a net check amount or help with a separation agreement or a volatile employee, it's not always possible to get help right away. Which is totally understandable, but also sometimes problematic, since I think we depend on TriNet for HR advisement and do not have an experienced person in-house. Sometimes I get questions from people who are still in the hiring process about the benefit packages that would be available to them if they accept our offer. There are not many resources to provide to candidates who want to see their benefit options if they are not yet an active employee with the open enrollment module.

TriNet helps us to offer competitive benefits and an excellent Human Resources team to our employees

Overall Satisfaction with TriNet