Paylocity Review: Is This The Best Payroll Software In The World?

Updated 11th Feb 2022.

Is your payroll system running out of steam? Are the demands of the new economy, ranging from remote team HR to mobile access, stretching your resources to the brink? Perhaps it’s time for a system designed for modern times. Small businesses need software that delivers robust and time-saving accounting and admin features. A popular option for a fully cloud-based payroll service is Paylocity, which offers multiple features, including tax, HR, and workforce management services.

Read our review for details on all these features and more!

How does Paylocity Score?

What Is Paylocity?

Paylocity is a software provider with many cloud-based software products, including payroll, human resources, and workforce management. Beginning in 1995, the company now has an annual revenue of $635 million and 4000 employees (as of 2021).

The company started out with a payroll product but now has many other offerings. The main selling point of Paylocity is that every product is cloud-based, which means a business can use any of the software services remotely, making it perfect for the current working environment.

Paylocity offers a payroll service, a workforce management service, HR services, benefits admin services, modern workforce solutions services, and more.

Paylocity Summary

Our Paylocity review covers all of the main features, user experience, customer service options, pricing tiers, and the type of business that should purchase it.

The primary features include:

• A fully cloud-based service that offers remote use for all its products.
• Multiple products with extensive features.
• A mobile app with many desktop features, allowing employees to manage admin on the go.

Paylocity features ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Our review covers all products features, including the Paylocity mobile app.

Payroll Features

Paylocity’s payroll software has all of the automated features you might expect plus a few others, including:

• Expense management: A system that can process business and employee expenses. You can track any expenses, organize them, and reimburse them to your choice of payment.
• Tax services: Paylocity is a registered IRS reporting agent, so it can process many tax services, including unemployment tax returns, withholding tax returns, W-2 forms, and 1099 forms.
• Payment options: The software has a system that gives users a flexible cash flow to access a portion of their active pay cycle wages if needed. This system is a big selling point that few competitors offer. It also has the Paylocity web pay function for easy charges and accepts credit or debit cards.
• Garnishment services: The service is fast, mitigates common risks, and is far simpler than the manual process.

Workforce Management Features

Paylocity’s workforce management software maximizes productivity in a business in numerous ways.

The time tracking database is a quicker solution than the manual process. In addition, it detects errors in the payroll process, making it unnecessary to input manual re-entries.

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There’s also a scheduling tool that can create schedules and edit them. This includes shift claiming and shift swapping options for employees, enabling staff to take control of their schedules. It can also schedule recurring shifts and lunch breaks or delete shifts.

Time collection services include time clocks for employees to clock in and out and timesheets that assign time to specific projects and jobs.

Human Resources Features

There are many human resources services within Paylocity, including:

• Employee self-service: Employees can access their payroll and timecard online or on the go and edit any information they need.
• Compliance dashboard: Allows quick access to current compliance and training courses on compliance organizations.
• HR Edge: HR Edge is a support system to help businesses by offering HR consulting, a complete resources library, and custom handbooks.
• Data analytics: Identifies trends and helps make decisions based on extensive data.
• Document library: The document library includes various documents, such as exit documentation.

Talent Management & HR Solutions Features

The talent management system streamlines HR processes through extensive recruiting and onboarding software. These features can save time by reducing or eliminating manual processes.

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There’s also a performance management system that tracks employee performance. Employees can also access this system to track their progress and set new goals. Along with this, the learning management system creates courses and performance progression solutions to simplify the training process for the employer.

Paylocity has a compensation management system for small businesses to create and manage their compensation strategy to reward their employees.

Benefits Administration Features

Paylocity’s benefits admin system is in place to improve business benefits systems. It does this by integrating benefits into the mobile app, which empowers employees to manage their benefits, such as enrollments.

It also has excellent reporting features, so all of the benefits information arrives quickly. Real-time updates save time and keep employees adequately informed.

Paylocity offers flexible benefits options so that employees can choose from an extensive range of benefits. These include HSAs (Health Savings Accounts), FSAs (Flexible Spending Accounts), HRAs (Health Reimbursement Arrangements), POPs (Premium Only Plans), TMAs (Transportation Management Accounts), and more.

Modern Workforce Solutions Features

Staying on top of evolving modern solutions can be challenging. Be sure to check our Small Business page for useful insights.

Paylocity includes multiple features that improve employee engagement in a modern business; they call these modern workforce solutions. Some of these solutions include:

• Improving the workforce community by including a system for messaging, group announcements, and collaboration.
• Surveys to collect information from the workforce to understand their thoughts on specific aspects of the business.
• A virtual peer recognition system to increase workforce satisfaction.
• A modern workforce index, which is essentially a workforce database. The database includes insights that the workforce provides and workforce recommendations.

Data & Analytics Features

Paylocity’s analytics break up data and information into user-friendly segments. Some of the data sets include:

• Demographics: Includes information on gender, ethnicity, generation, and gender identity to determine diversity and equality in the business.
• Utilization: Translates utilization of the system into engagement data.
• Headcount: Collects data on current or terminated employees.
• Position Management: Data on the various positions in the business like management or sales representatives. The data allows the company to make position decisions and predict any changes.
• Retention: Creates data on employees at risk. Data takes into account aspects like compensation.
• Labor Costs: Data on labor costs can help discover overspending or room for new purchases.
• Reports: A database that stores all the reports from the reporting system.

Mobile App Features

Businesses can use the Paylocity mobile app in multiple ways, but it mainly gives employees easier access to cloud features. They can perform various administrative tasks on the app, such as viewing balances and timesheets, requesting vacation days, and viewing tax forms.

It’s also a communication tool with a messaging system for employees to connect and collaborate and for employers to contact employees. Employers can also display announcements through the app. In addition, users can see reports, directories, and policies on the app.

Essentially, all of the software’s main features are available on the mobile app.

Paylocity user experience ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The layout and user experience are a bit more cluttered than Paylocity’s competitors and take time to learn. Overall, working with the interface is a positive experience because the screen provides easy access to multiple features.

The home screen contains primary information, including company news, recent paychecks, vacation dates, and a time-keeping feature.

You can find the software’s other features along the top bar, including payroll, HR, company information, employee information, talent, and tax admin.

This layout works well on the app, and if anything, it’s simpler and more efficient on a mobile device. In addition, the admin tasks that employees commonly perform on the desktop are also available on the app, making it a helpful option for extra flexibility and accessibility.

Companies like Paylocity work hard to deliver a positive customer experience. How does your firm measure up? Check out our Customer Experience page for ideas to grow your business.

Paylocity customer service ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

There are multiple customer service options for Paylocity customers. The main option is an account manager (sometimes a customer experience manager) assigned by Paylocity to your business. You can usually contact the account manager via phone or email. This person is the main point of contact.

However, if you can’t contact your account manager, other options are available. These options include a phone number, email address, help center on the website, and a help center built into the software.

These customer service options are available Monday-Friday, 6 am — 7:30 pm CT.

Paylocity pricing ⭐⭐⭐

Paylocity doesn’t announce any prices on its website. So if you want to know the exact price you need to pay, you need to get a quote from Paylocity. To get a quote, you need to schedule a demo in advance so Paylocity can determine what level of service your business needs.

When you obtain a quote, it will likely be a monthly cost, plus a cost per employee per month (Paylocity reviews from users suggest this is usually around $8).

Although Paylocity does not make prices public, there are three main pricing tiers on offer:

• The Effortless Payroll tier includes payroll, tax, HR services. Specific features include direct deposit and new hire reporting.
• The Efficient Tech tier adds on enhanced HR services, benefits services, unemployment management, and more.
• The Modern Workplace tier adds modern workforce solutions, including online recruiting, onboarding, and performance management.

The Effortless Payroll tier is the one we would recommend to small businesses. It has all of the essential features that a business needs.

Who Should Get Paylocity?

Paylocity is great for small to medium-sized businesses that mainly operate remotely. Cloud-based software is an excellent choice for the current working climate, as more and more companies are changing to become at least partially remote.

In terms of the pricing tiers, the Effortless Payroll tier is best for small businesses, with the Efficient Tech and Modern Workplace tiers more suited to companies wanting to expand.

However, if you are the owner of a small business and want the features from the Modern Workplace tier, you can still go for that tier because they base the pricing on the features you get, not the size of your business.

Overall, Paylocity is a great accounting software option that offers many unique features that set it apart from competitors.

Frequently Asked Questions about Paylocity