Comments on: How Do 3 Big Payroll Services Compare?

By: Chief Mechanic

Chief Mechanic — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:01:12 +0000

You said a mouthful when you said you are biased. Intuit offers full service plans just like Paychex and ADP, so your claim that Intuit is a “do-it-yourself HELP application” is false. No one ever said Paychex and ADP weren’t great companies. We said they aren’t transparent when it comes to pricing. Since you’re a Paychex employee, how about proving us wrong and posting a verifiable price list for your services? The day and age of hiding behind a quote system or negotiating every deal are numbered. Do a great service, price it fairly, and let the public know the pricing in a transparent way.

By: Paychex Employee

Paychex Employee — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:43:09 +0000

The truth to the matter is that Paychex, ADP, and Intuit offer different products and levels of service so it is important that a business owner looks into all 3 options. Paychex and ADP have differnt target markets do not offer apples to apples comparisons.

Obviously, Paychex and ADP are more expensive than QuickBooks, however, you lose the protection of having a payroll company take away the liability that comes with doing your own payroll. Payroll is exact…..and payroll errors are freququent amongst Quickbooks users. 1 in 3 business owners are penalized each year by the IRS and state agencies for errors with Employee witholdings, Employer contributions, W2′s. W3′s ( most of my clients don’s even know what a W3 is!) 941′s, 1099′s etc. Paychex and ADP gurantee against these penalties and take the liablity away from the client. Intuit does not.

When it comes to time, Paychex and ADP do everything for the client so the client doesn’t have to. Intuit is a do-it-yourself HELP application. It’s helps a client do it themselves. I work with a lot of bookeepers that use Intuit for their clients….they are bookeepers….THEY KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING! If you dont know what you are doing…Intuit will lead you in the path of bad service and payroll tax penalties and intrest.

I am biased when it comes to Paychex ansd ADP because I am a Paychex employee. I think the Paychex model of a one on one payroll specialist for each client vs ADP’s 1-800 wait on hold scenario works better for the SMB client. With that being said, they do a damn good job of payroll processing and tax filing. If ADP was a bad company, I wouldnt have a job, because there would be no real competition for Paychex. I battle ADP daily for sales with new clients…win some, and lose some. Thats just the way it goes. many clients go back and forth every few years between the two for savings or new promotions. Eventually, I believe Paychex will win out in the long run bevause of our service model and senior leadership.

By: Chief Mechanic

Chief Mechanic — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 23:40:44 +0000

ADP ~~Salesperson/Promoter~~ Expert, we redacted your lengthy copy/paste of ADP marketing facts because they were largely off-topic and were an attempt to sell ADP behind an anonymous cloak. There’s no question ADP is a great company and has many strong product offerings. If you have specific updates to the comparisons in the article, email them to us and we’ll review them for inclusion in the article. Our goal is not to describe every nuance of ADP’s (or Intuit’s) payroll service. Instead, we’re focusing on the issues that we believe are the most relevant to QB users. Comments that stick to that focus get approved; those that don’t get edited or trashed.

Hope that helps.

By: ADP Expert

ADP Expert — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 07:11:32 +0000

I’m confused where this price comparison is coming from. I am familiar with both Paychex and ADP, as well as the services QucikBooks and Intuit offer. That fact that ADP takes full liability for all payroll tax filings and deposits is just one small aspect that separates them from QB. However, what this article doesn’t tell you is the additional service that ADP gives for the pricing….

[excessive self-promotion redacted by moderators to avoid unnecessarily wasting bandwidth]

By: Chief Mechanic

Chief Mechanic — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 22:31:38 +0000

Yes, Intuit acquired Paycycle.

By: roller

roller — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 19:31:33 +0000

It looks like Paycyle is now Online Payroll – is this right?
Thanks for the post -

By: Chief Mechanic

Chief Mechanic — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 21:13:47 +0000

Thanks, Morris. Let us know what you find out. Keep in mind there are different approaches to integration. Intuit controls access to the QB data file through its Software Developer’s Kit (SDK). Ideally, Paychex would use the SDK to write an application that would allow it to post general ledger entries summarizing your payroll activity. With this approach, you’d identify to the Paychex application certain GL accounts, so the app would know how to record the entries. While that’s the ideal approach, some developers opt for a method that may require less work on their part: exporting some type of delimited file which you’d then import into QB. This 2-step export/import process has 2 disadvantages: 1) it’s more work because it is 2 steps rather than 1, and 2) Intuit doesn’t support importing data into a QB data file this way. In fact, there have been hints that importing data into a QB data file on a repeated basis can lead to data corruption. Using Intuit’s SDK is supported and doesn’t come with these potential risks. That should give you a little more background to find out which method Paychex has adopted.

By: Morris

Morris — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 18:44:50 +0000

I just had a presentation from Paycheck telling me that their online payroll system can integrate the payroll to quickbooks by uploading some data and interface paycheck payroll to quickbooks. I’m still trying to investigate this.

By: Chief Mechanic

Chief Mechanic — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 00:59:49 +0000

That’s a fair point about liability for the full-service payroll plans, which include Intuit’s Assisted Payroll. In part it comes down to the level of service a business owner wants to pay for. Those that want full service pay a higher price for it, plain and simple. Several comments make mention of changes to ADP and Paychex offerings, but every one of them fails to mention what those changes are. The original article was written some time ago, for a specific comparison. If you have updated, verifiable information on service offerings from either ADP or Paychex, send it along and we’ll update our post. Just because Intuit has what is, in our opinion, the best value in payroll processing doesn’t make the article biased. We’ve said over and over again – and we’ll repeat for your benefit – if the facts show that another provider offers a better value than Intuit, we’ll change our post. We don’t play favorites.

By: Be Fair

Be Fair — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 23:04:16 +0000

This article was incredibly bias. If you reexamine Paychex and ADP they have changed their packages dramatically. Furthermore this article does not mention that both ADP and Paychex take full liability for deposits and filings for taxes whereas Intuit leaves the responsibility on the client’s shoulders. This is huge as the liability is why companies outsource. The cost of a fine or penalty on a late or inaccurate filing or deposit will pay for the annual service from Intuit.