HR Payroll systems
gunstocksMO
5 Posts
Need input on Payroll HR systems. We are currently using Ceridian, looking at ADP. Until 2005 we had always done payroll in house with a custom system (MAC). Have gone to PC's mostly, so went with Cerididan. Let me explain that we are still tracking attendance on our MAC system as we are having a custom shop floor system written that is supposed to work with any system. We have 3 companies, 2 very similar with simlar attendance policies and 1 with very different so most canned time and attendance would not work with our needs. Right now we are keeping two systems up due to delays in the custom system and have been for over a year. Controller is not that happy with Ceridian currently and is looking at ADP. for my part, Ceridian's HR side was not what I had hoped. Anyway, would just like input as to these two systems and any others that you all might like. Would also like to know how you all thought the training for these systems was. thanks
Comments
Good luck...
I'm using ADP but don't have their HRIS (HR Profile software), so can't comment on that.
ADP's reports and timeliness on payroll checks are terrific. IMHO, their customer service leaves a lot to be desired. After giving up on TimeForce, we are presently implementing eTime (time clock system) and eTimesheet (PC clock system), which download nicely into ADP's payroll system.
I maintain a separate Access database for the rest of my HR stuff. Yes, it's a pain maintaining the two systems, but the flexibility I have with Access reports and tracking what I want and how I want it (or rather, how the President wants it) can't be beat.
We use Ceridian for our COBRA notices and if their customer service is similar on the payroll side, it's even worse than ADP's.
Good luck!
We changed to Ceridian, which I used at old and now at present employer. I LOVED Ceridian for about the first 5 years I used them. However, during the last 5 I have been not as happy. However, due to some weird stuff we do, I don't want to have to go through a change. We did add a new company about a year ago and then dropped them. This was not a smooth and easy experience. I find that their HR program is a little hard to use. I don't get all the benefits from it I should since I don't use all the features. I feel that they have gotten costly as well. At my old employer, they did set up a special attendance accumulator for us that was great, but we paid for it. I used to be on their refrence list. However, don't know that I would recommend them now. CS is very hard to reach, half time they don't know what they are talking about and I have to insist they go to the next level. I have sent them emails and 2 different people in 2 different cities end up working on the same thing. We haven't had a "sales" person in over 3 years. So, I have no one to go to put the CS.
However, I do like their payroll software and how we download some data so that we can compose our reports for our 401k.
I don't know how large your company might be, but you may want to look at smaller carrier like Pay Check. Also, one that I am very interested in is Fidelity. They have just started the payroll and are really out there to please and cost is competitive. If theirs is anything like their 401k, it will be wonderful.
Good luck. This isn't an easy task. If you are going to change, I would urge you to start early and may be not cut over until the end of the year. (Depends on who does your taxes, how the new company can accumulate data and do they do your W-2's)
E Wart
We fired Ceridian/PayAmerica 4 years ago, and went to ADP. PayAmerica's customer service was the worst I've ever experienced with any vendor... long waits, bad advice, incorrect answers to questions, etc. And they were extremely attitudinous about it if we dared to complain about their errors/hideous customer service. That, and they wanted to charge us boatloads of $$ for everything. So I fired them.
My experience w/ ADP has been MUCH better. They at least have someone in their system to can answer when we have a Q, we can always get thru to a rep w/o an unbearable wait, and they actually give a damn about providing customer service and getting it right. Mind you, they make mistakes, too; and have occasionally given us bad advice-- but they always make it right.
We use only ADP's minimalist HR tracking software. Their full-blown HRIS pkg is very expensive, and too cumbersome for our needs: we have a total of 66 EEs, and that includes 2 companies (parent org, + small subsidiary). I think these packaged HRIS software programs are rather difficult to work with and conform to the specific needs of the organization. So we've created our own EE database in Excel: this has worked well for our needs, we can structure just as we want/need it, and don't have to fight with the software to try and extract data in the form we need it.
The Excel based database also allows me to sort, cut, calculate, re-arrange, and otherwise crunch the data in whatever way I need to do so to create reports, do mailmerges, etc.
My final comment: I've come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as a GOOD payroll company (not that I've met, anyway)-- there is only the lesser of the available evils.
E Wart
One of their big selling points was their tax knowledge and great tax system. That year the FIRST PAGE of the Kansas tax guide said that if you have additional taxes withheld for federal purposes, you must also have additional taxes withheld for Kansas purposes. When their system didn't cooperate we called them. They had never heard of such a law. Obviously, no one there read the tax guide. By the way, this was NOT a new law.
Another time we told them we had a late payroll coming through so we could get mileage for company cars on the W-2's. (Final regular payroll was 12/29, this one came through on 12/30.) We followed their procedure. We had processed it timely, but they forgot to make allowances in their reporting and reported it late (as if processed in January). Though they promised to help with any and all explanations if a tax issue ever came up, they never returned our calls. We eventually gave up the fight and just paid late fees and penalties. We also ended our relationship with them.
As I said, NEVER AGAIN.
Nae
We've also found them very inflexible, and customer service poor. Excellent if it's a routine question, but present one thing that's outside the standard training and you get hung up for weeks trying to get an answer. We tried to do an automatic feed with our retirement plan and it took months, MONTHS I tell you!
Payroll is technically under Accounting,so luckily I don't have to make the decision about switching or staying. However we (HR) recently completed a bidding process for HRIS system and decided against ADP primarily because of bad experience on payroll end but also as others have said it is very expensive. Also, data is owned by and lives on ADP servers, we wanted to keep the data here.
We wound up going with ABRA Suite HRIS, and while it is a challenge building a custom HRIS (we do things funny ways for some things so couldn't quite take off-the-shelf anything, even ABRA) I'm so far pleased with it. I've recommend Accounting consider their payroll. Our customer service provider is Dresser Associates in ME and they are top notch. We have ABRA HRIS, Flexible Spending system and Attendance system. This fall we are going live with a self-service component that will let employees make changes (address, phone, beneficiaries, etc.) online and even do open enrollment on line.
As I read of people doing HR on Excel I get nostalgic for my FileMaker Pro database, which I designed myself. It was not sophisticated, and ABRA can do a lot more faster and more elegantly, but you couldn't beat FM for report designin and downloading data to get into Excel for a quick report. ABRA relies on Crystal Reports and admittedly I have not had time to learn it so I'm understandably not wild about it.
I have attended many of ADP's trainings, (they do try their best to educate their customer), but I am still unable to create my own reports. Reports are common place for me, and I find it cumbersome, to say the least.
If you find a better program, please spread the word!
HRVolley
When we switched, we signed up for HR Profile. I went to the training sessions, tried to read the manual and attempted to use the software.
I found it unwieldy and non-intuitive. I kept thinking "this is HR software written by payroll people". After a few years, I dropped the HR Profile during budget cuts and was totally happy to see it go.
If ADP ever creates new HR software, I'd give it a look. Given how popular ADP is, I was suprised how bad the HR software was.
One example, when an employee leaves your organization, you "purge" their record at the end of the year. Of course, in HR, you want to retain that information. So, you had to create a new "company" and transfer the terminated employees to the new company.
It seemed unnecessarily complex. Lots of codes. Lots of frustration. Plus there are times during payroll processing when you CANT access employee data. Sometimes for days.
Good stuff;
They were very reliable, the training was very useful. The "help" people clearly understood their product. They were located just a few miles from our office, which was great. Canned reports were great. Reportsmith (for making custom reports) was REALLY hard to learn but once I understood it, it was very flexible(but really slow). I like the HR system - we didn't use it to its fullest but what we used was very good.
Bad stuff:
Nickel and diming - was unbelievable. We paid out the wazoo for convenience stuff like wage garnishment processing/payments or new hire reporting. They also would just do what I asked without question, it was the employer's responsibility to clearly understand the laws in their state, and even above the state. I didn't realize this at first, which could have caused problems. I assumed they'd tell me if I was going to break the law. (And WHAT happens when you assume?)
We brought payroll inhouse July 2005 and after the first year (and initial set up fees) will save around $35,000 annually. We produce around 1300 W-2's annually. (so you can compare $ to your company size) We now use Great Plains, which was our accounting software to begin with. I am not thrilled with the HR system. I am for the most part OK with the payroll function, except the reporting system stinks for payroll, and is not useful whatsoever for HR.
If money weren't an issue, I'd go back to ADP in an instant. Since money is always an issue, I'm still trying to make our new system work for us.