SurePayroll, now in its twenty third yr, has lengthy been among the many finest payroll providers for small companies. It does an important job of making and managing worker data, processing payroll runs, dealing with associated taxes, and preserving small companies abreast of their obligations so they continue to be compliant. Lately, SurePayroll enhanced its person interface, on-line assist, dashboard, and different points. It additionally now integrates with FreshBooks. A number of years in the past, the service was acquired by Paychex, which continues to help lots of its efforts, together with advantages and compliance.
Although SurePayroll has acquired a ranking of wonderful (4 stars) from us for a few years, it does not fairly match this yr’s Editors’ Alternative winners, that are Gusto, OnPay, and Rippling. All three are superior in areas like usability, general payroll processing acumen, and suppleness.
How A lot Does SurePayroll Price?
SurePayroll has two choices for subscriptions, Full Service and No Tax Submitting, every with a free six-month trial.
SurePayroll Full Service prices $29.99 monthly, plus $5 per worker monthly. You may find yourself paying extra charges although, similar to costs for creating and distributing W-2s and 1099s, which might add up shortly. Opponents supply these varieties free of charge. SurePayroll Full Service additionally costs additional if you would like a time clock integration for recording worker time labored.
SurePayroll No Tax Submitting (previously known as Self Service) prices $19.99 monthly, plus $4 monthly per worker. It contains the whole lot in Full Service, however it’s a must to submit your payroll taxes and filings by yourself. The Full Service model submits them routinely whereas the cheaper No Tax Submitting plan solely calculates them. Moreover, if you would like the identical two-day payroll processing supplied by Full Service as an alternative of the usual four-day, it’s a must to pay an additional $7.99 monthly. However No Tax Submitting now contains two-day direct deposit.
An HR Advisor function is out there in each variations, although SurePayroll doesn’t supply as a lot on this space as some opponents. It does, nevertheless, present built-in entry to staff’ compensation (now all digital), 401(okay) plans, medical health insurance, and pre-employment screening.
Solely Patriot Software program, with its Fundamental providing ($17 monthly, plus $4 per worker monthly), is inexpensive. It, too, requires you to submit your payroll taxes. Even Gusto’s entry-level Easy plan prices greater than SurePayroll Full Service, at $40 monthly plus $6 per worker monthly.
How Do You Get Began With SurePayroll?
Each payroll service I’ve reviewed does a wonderful job of setting you up for paying your staff. All present human assist along with step-by-step walk-throughs inside the utility. This stage of the general payroll course of is excruciatingly detailed, irrespective of which service you select. It ought to be, as it’s a must to get it 100% proper.
SurePayroll has labored arduous on its essential onboarding instrument over the past couple of years, including enhancements to each usability and options.
The onboarding instrument makes use of a step-by-step wizard to information you, and it’s glorious. When you arrange your login with SurePayroll, the positioning takes you to its central setup hub, which is split into 5 sections. You’ll have already offered the data for the About You tab (identify, e mail, and telephone) by this level, and you’ll edit these particulars if crucial. The Firm Data part permits you to add your authorized identify, firm sort, and so forth. After that, you identify your payroll schedule and first pay cycle.
How SurePayroll Handles Historic Payroll Knowledge
Within the Staff part, you’re requested whether or not you have paid staff already in your present enterprise. In case you have, it’s essential to present SurePayroll together with your payroll historical past (staff, earnings, and deductions) for the present yr. It may be a time-consuming and exacting course of. A SurePayroll consultant will routinely contact you to help if in case you have a payroll historical past.
SurePayroll employees may assist you to enter worker data. These profiles comprise contact data, date of beginning, and so forth. You’ll be able to choose to permit the worker to edit their private data and have entry to pay stubs, time without work knowledge, and W-2s in an worker portal. Doing so can save the payroll supervisor a substantial amount of time.
You need to reply different questions, too, like what’s the worker’s standing (lively, new rent, or terminated) and kind (full-time, part-time, or 1099 contractor)? When had been they employed? And if the corporate has a number of areas, the place do they work? Pay sort choices embrace hourly, wage, models, or miles. I haven’t seen these latter two choices on every other web site.
Different data required contains cost technique (printed examine, direct deposit), Social Safety quantity, W-4 knowledge, submitting standing, and federal and state tax withholding particulars.
After getting into the common price and any extra time price that applies, you point out whether or not you wish to pay the worker by printed examine, direct deposit, or each. Lastly, you provide their Social Safety quantity and reply a sequence of questions on payroll withholding.
SurePayroll helps withholding for advantages and different causes, like garnishment and union dues. You too can create your personal deductions.
The location requires federal and state tax data, after all, as part of the setup. When you’ve paid staff earlier than, it is best to have the data requested at hand. If not, you’ll have to do a little analysis to supply the information wanted. SurePayroll may help, however it doesn’t supply as a lot on-line steering on state payroll tax registration as Gusto and Patriot Software program do, for instance, although it’s simpler so as to add states to your payroll than it was. The final setup step includes offering the numbers in your payroll checking account, which SurePayroll verifies.
An Glorious Setup Evaluation Device
The location’s setup instrument permits you to proceed by way of your complete wizard even in the event you’re lacking a bit of knowledge. When this happens, you see a web page titled Points to Repair with hyperlinks to the pages with lacking knowledge. You comply with the prompts so as to add or edit data you’ve entered.
This setup overview instrument is exclusive to SurePayroll, and it’s very efficient. Tax preparation web sites may take a web page from the positioning’s dealing with of the overview course of.
Even after you full the wizard, there are nonetheless some elective setup steps. For instance, you’ll be able to export reminders of birthdays. anniversaries, and vital payroll dates to any of a number of fashionable calendar apps, similar to Outlook or Google Calendar. You too can arrange customized reminders.
Properly-Designed Pages
The corporate has up to date the design of its pages so that they’re absolutely responsive whether or not you’re accessing SurePayroll on a smartphone, pill, or any dimension show. The redesign of the account particulars part helps, as do updates to the alignment and spacing of all pages. The font sizes are additionally bigger to help higher readability.
The retooled pages are exceptionally well-designed. I’ve an enormous monitor, and the pages fill your complete web page and are very straightforward to learn. This new usability makes components of the positioning really feel fully totally different, in an excellent approach. SurePayroll continues to make different enhancements that make the positioning extra user-friendly. For instance, some pages, like the worker listing, now show coloured buttons on the prime of the web page that can be utilized to filter content material.
SurePayroll has a critical, skilled look—which isn’t a criticism—in contrast with Gusto’s lighter, extra state-of-the-art visuals. It’s somewhat simpler to get the lay of the land with SurePayroll than with Gusto. SurePayroll’s menu-based navigation system factors you in the proper path extra skillfully and shortly.
SurePayroll’s Considerate Dashboard
SurePayroll opens to the Dashboard, which is healthier than most different dashboards I’ve seen in on-line payroll providers. Details about your present payroll, which is essentially the most essential knowledge on the web page, seems within the upper-left nook. It exhibits the present pay interval begin date, approval date, and examine date. There’s additionally an enormous orange button that claims Begin Payroll. You’ll be able to’t miss that.
Instantly under is a abstract of your most up-to-date pay run (with earlier ones in a drop-down listing). Different content material contains reminders, a customizable chart displaying snapshots of payroll developments, and hyperlinks to off-cycle actions, similar to extra checks. This web page is extra informative than the dashboard in Sq. Payroll, for instance.
The house web page shows eight different tabs for the positioning’s foremost sections in a horizontal toolbar: Payroll, Reviews, Staff, Firm, Payroll Plus, HR & Compliance, Assets (similar to reminder preferences, enrollment varieties, and year-end data), and Assist. Click on on one, and a drop-down menu shows all of the duties for the part. That is the positioning’s international navigation instrument. The whole lot else is dealt with inside the working pages.
Payroll Plus and HR & Compliance are comparatively new. They’re good examples of how SurePayroll is making some lesser-known instruments and assets customers might have missed earlier than extra seen. Payroll Plus shows hyperlinks to your 401(okay)s, time monitoring, built-in accounting, and well being and advantages. Click on HR & Compliance within the toolbar to see hyperlinks to the HR Help Line, staff’ comp, pre-employment screening, and the HR Advisor.
I like how the positioning’s evolving person interface fills your complete web page whereas additionally making it simpler to seek out instruments and knowledge. The tradeoff is that pages are sometimes gradual to load. It’s additionally somewhat jarring to maneuver from new pages to previous ones. The corporate is engaged on transferring extra pages to the brand new format in order that ultimately the pages will all be constant all through. I like what they’ve completed thus far very a lot, and stay up for seeing extra.
Including New Staff and Viewing Worker Profiles in SurePayroll
As your enterprise grows, you’ll have so as to add new staff. Whenever you click on Add Worker, you present the identical data you probably did throughout onboarding.
SurePayroll’s worker data are thorough sufficient, however they aren’t as all-encompassing as some opponents’, primarily as a result of the positioning doesn’t supply as a lot in the best way of HR instruments and knowledge. You’ll be able to, nevertheless, add as much as 12 customized fields to worker data, which seem as textual content bins once you click on on the HR part within the left vertical toolbar. When you want the very best advantages administration and human assets administration, it is best to have a look at Rippling.
How Do You Change Settings in SurePayroll?
SurePayroll doesn’t have a Settings part like opponents do, however most of the preferences that may sometimes be included there are discovered by clicking the Firm tab within the toolbar. If it’s essential to add or modify your organization settings, you are able to do so on these pages. For instance, you’ll be able to add and edit the positioning’s default earnings sorts (similar to common hours and extra time) and different compensation (like reimbursements, bonuses, sick and trip pay). SurePayroll doesn’t present as many default sorts as opponents, however you’ll be able to at all times outline your personal.
The Firm menu additionally incorporates a hyperlink to your organization’s advantages and different deductions. SurePayroll companions with its mother or father firm Paychex (Paychex Insurance coverage Company) for assist acquiring medical health insurance and staff’ compensation, and it supplies steering and enrollment assist for built-in 401(okay) plans. After all, if in case you have established advantages, you’ll be able to set them up in SurePayroll so employer and worker deductions and contributions are part of the payroll course of.
Is There A lot Assist in SurePayroll?
Final yr, SurePayroll improved its assist assets and simplified its data-filtering capabilities. For instance, once you click on on the massive query mark within the decrease proper of the web page (the Fast Launcher, launched final yr), the positioning’s Useful resource Middle opens. Right here, you’ll be able to view walkthroughs of widespread payroll-related actions and get in line for chat, which has a option to go in studying how to answer queries. 12 months-end and quarter-end guides can be found from right here, too.
SurePayroll presents telephone, chat, and e mail assist, in addition to a web-based assortment of how-to guides. They’re written clearly and could be useful, however the web site doesn’t have a library of articles as sturdy as what OnPay presents, for instance. The assistance web page has been reconfigured to focus on among the mostly requested questions and to supply hyperlinks to particular person assist from SurePayroll (some websites make the latter arduous to seek out). As well as, some pages show a hyperlink that claims, “Want a Hand,” which supplies hyperlinks to context-sensitive assist. A slight criticism right here: Assist hyperlinks open new browser tabs, so you may get fairly just a few clogging up your display shortly.
How Do You Run a Payroll in SurePayroll?
SurePayroll presents a kind of flexibility not present in most competing providers, except OnPay. It will possibly deal with the specialised wants of a wide range of enterprise sorts, together with family, nonprofit, restaurant, and dental companies. It additionally helps vertical industries similar to transportation, agriculture, and healthcare. It integrates with extra accounting functions than the competitors, too. In addition to QuickBooks and Xero, SurePayroll shares payroll data with websites like Kashoo and Sage 50, Zoho Books, and most lately, FreshBooks.
Assuming you entered each element required in the course of the setup, the method of operating a payroll is easy. SurePayroll’s opening payroll run web page defaults to an everyday payroll, although there are hyperlinks on the prime for added checks, void examine, and further payroll. The principle web page is split horizontally into hourly staff, salaried staff, and 1099 contractors.
Worker Pay and Hours
Every employee’s row incorporates 4 kinds of data. Within the Earnings column for hourly and salaried staff, you enter the hours they labored at their common pay price, extra time, and so forth (common and different hours for salaried staff). SurePayroll presents its personal time clock integration—for a payment of $5 plus $3 per worker monthly—that simplifies the method of getting into hours and may enhance accuracy. It additionally helps integration with third-party time-tracking apps, although you will pay an extra $9.99 monthly to help integrations.
Within the Different Compensation column, you’ll be able to enter the quantity for default earnings sorts like bonuses and commissions, or add your personal on the fly. Within the third column, Extra, you click on the pencil icon within the time without work, deductions, and division fields to open knowledge entry home windows for these choices if that data isn’t already there. Departments are particularly versatile. You’ll be able to assign wages and hours to them, and cut up these values between a number of departments, so long as the full is 100%. The fourth column shows gross wages.
SurePayroll doesn’t let you view worker data throughout a payroll run with out shedding what you’ve entered like you’ll be able to in OnPay. You’ll be able to add earnings sorts and different compensation, although. The fields and hyperlinks on this web page are pretty self-explanatory, however it has a claustrophobic really feel and isn’t as straightforward to learn because the newly designed pages on the positioning.
Default Payroll
The Default Payroll possibility was added just a few years in the past. In case your payroll stays the identical from cycle to cycle, SurePayroll can fill within the values routinely, however you continue to should course of it. You may wish to set this up for less than a few of your staff, like these on wage. After all, you’ll be able to change these values each time crucial. You too can set it as much as run routinely. Different providers, like Gusto, supply automated payroll as effectively.
Reset, Save, and Preview Payroll
The underside of the web page incorporates three choices: Reset Payroll (clear what you’ve entered to start out over), Save (save your work and are available again later), and Preview Payroll. Just a few websites do not supply a Save possibility. Like SurePayroll, Gusto does, and it might probably save a number of duplicate knowledge entry. The numbers of checks paid and whole gross wages additionally seem on the backside of the web page.
The location’s preview web page is among the finest I’ve seen. It tells you what SurePayroll will do in a single column, itemizing the quantity to be withdrawn out of your checking account on the acknowledged date, damaged down into direct deposits, worker taxes, and employer taxes. The second column shows what you as an employer should do. It incorporates reminders of any worker checks needing to be printed along with the quantities as a result of advantages suppliers. Then, in large numbers you’ll be able to’t miss, the positioning shows the quantity to be withdrawn routinely and on what date, the quantity it’s a must to put aside for paper checks and deductions, and your whole payroll bills for the present pay run.
Payroll Abstract Desk
Beneath all that, your listing of staff seems in a desk containing the important thing numbers of that run, sort of a mini-pay stub. Click on on one, and you’ll see extra particulars. Totals for all disbursements seem on the backside. Click on the Particulars tab to see full pay stubs and lists of totals for earnings sorts, worker taxes and deductions, and employer taxes and deductions.
Submit Payroll for Approval
You’ll be able to solely click on on the Submit for Approval button after you examine a field subsequent to an announcement saying you perceive that the required sum of money can be withdrawn on a particular date for payroll and taxes, and also you wish to approve the run. That’s a pleasant security function. There’s additionally an Edit Payroll button in case it’s essential to return and make modifications.
When you approve the payroll run, SurePayroll calculates and submits your payroll taxes and tells you when to anticipate direct deposits to reach for workers. It additionally reminds you to print and distribute paper checks and ship the required funds to advantages suppliers. SurePayroll additionally prepares the reviews that should be filed with the IRS and different taxing businesses periodically. And it permits you to cancel the payroll in the event you imagine you made a mistake.
Expedited Pay Possibility
SurePayroll presents an expedited pay possibility. When you miss a cutoff date, for instance, and also you meet sure standards, you’ll be able to have your run accomplished the identical day or the subsequent day (the usual ready interval is 2 days), although you will need to pay an extra payment. In actual fact, quite a few actions require an extra payment, like voiding or canceling a payroll. They’re all spelled out in your Subscription web page.
Customary Reviews in SurePayroll
SurePayroll presents the usual report templates you’d anticipate to see on a small enterprise payroll web site, like Payroll Abstract, Taxable Wages, Worker Earnings Report, and Staff’ Compensation. Many are payroll reviews displaying detailed output about payroll over a wide range of date ranges. There are additionally worker and worker benefit-centric reviews and required IRS reviews (quarterly and annual), like W-2s, 1099s, and 940s. A few of SurePayroll’s reviews supply show and export choices which might be higher than Gusto’s: PDF, Excel, Wealthy Textual content, and Printer-Pleasant.
Reviews will not be very customizable, nevertheless, and there’s no choice to construct customized reviews, one thing OnPay, Gusto, and Rippling all supply.
SurePayroll Cell Entry
SurePayroll presents employers each an iOS app and an Android app. Whereas they don’t replicate the desktop expertise almost as comprehensively as some opponents do, they do allow you to enter and run a payroll remotely. There’s a really abbreviated dashboard (subsequent examine and approval date and reminders), partial worker data you’ll be able to’t edit (contact data solely), and a payroll report, along with the processing instruments.
Staff can set up a separate app to entry a restricted quantity of their compensation data: paycheck and worker profile knowledge, and time without work. Staff may entry worker portals on the web site. They cowl fundamental payroll data (present and previous paychecks, private profile, time without work, and tax and deduction data) fairly capably, however they don’t transcend that. Opponents like OnPay supply higher worker portals.
A Certain Alternative
SurePayroll has been a trusted DIY payroll service for a few years. It is a good selection for very small companies and a few bigger corporations (together with in vertical industries), due to its affordable pricing (additional charges apart) and value. SurePayroll additionally presents top-notch buyer help, together with on Saturdays. It additionally has nice employee-tracking options and payroll integrations with time-tracking and accounting programs.
Editors’ Alternative winner Gusto, although, is tops with regards to person interface and navigation, and it covers the fundamentals of payroll with out including a number of complexity many small companies do not want. It’s a nice possibility for a novice payroll supervisor or a really small enterprise, although it might probably deal with dozens of staff. Rippling, one in every of our different Editors’ Alternative winners, is greater than succesful by way of each payroll and HR. It’s advanced sufficient to deal with bigger companies, too, although its Core and Payroll modules alone are priced like a small enterprise utility. OnPay, too, wins an Editors’ Alternative, due to its distinctive person expertise and payroll processing excellence.
