2018 Review of Justworks Payroll

From the 2018 reviews of professional payroll systems.

Designated a Professional Service Organization (PEO), Justworks provides complete payroll, benefits management and tax compliance in a single product. Best suited for smaller businesses that have limited staff, Justworks handles payroll, health insurance, HR, and tax and benefit compliance.

Justworks offers two versions of their product; Basic and Plus, with additional services such as medical and dental benefits available in the Plus version. Justworks offers complete payroll and tax processing for any business that has at least two employees. During setup, users can specify whether an employee is hourly or salaried, and if salaried, can just enter a total amount that they wish to pay their employees. Justworks supports weekly and biweekly payroll for hourly and non-exempt salaried employees, but salaried employees can only be paid twice a month, and the product does not offer the capability of tracking hours for salaried employees, which is a requirement in some states.

Justworks offers complete tax compliance, and includes tax tables for all 50 states. The product handles all tax filings and year-end compliance forms including W-2’s, 1099’s, 940 and 941 forms, New Hire Reporting, and Workers Compensation, along with several others.

Reporting options in Justworks is fairly limited, with all reports processed from the Reports Center. Report types include a Company Census, which provides detailed information on all employees and contractors, a Time Off Usage Report, which details all PTO requests and usage, and a Payroll Report, which provides a summary of payments made, insurance contributions, and tax payments made for each employee during any specified timeframe. Also available is a Benefits Usage Report, and a Retirement Report. All Justworks reports can be exported as a CSV file and later customized and saved as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Reports can also be saved as a PDF if desired.

Subscription pricing is inclusive, with each version of Justworks offering a variety of features and functionality. The product also offers integration with third-party applications such as QuickBooks, QuickBooks Online and Xero, with the ability to sync payment and other information between applications.

The Employee Dashboard allows easy access to a variety of employee resources including the ability to ask for time off, enroll in company benefits, access, review, and download current and historical paystubs, access the company calendar with the ability to sync to external calendars if desired, and access other employee documents such as W-2’s or 1099’s.

Along with payroll and tax compliance, Justworks also includes complete HR management which includes access to HR experts during regular business hours. The product also offers online document management, making it easy to safely store and easily manage all HR related documents. The Employee Onboarding process makes it easy for new hires to quickly fill out all the necessary paperwork including W-4’s, direct deposit details, and enter and maintain personal information. Employees can also sign up for company offered benefits such as insurance using the onboarding process. Other compliance issues are also handled by Justworks, including unemployment insurance Filings, ACA Filings (1094-C and 1095-C), and COBRA Management.

The Help Center in Justworks provides a variety of detailed articles that cover numerous topics, while the resource center provides small businesses with a variety of articles that cover everything from Health Insurance basics to Running a Small Business. Justworks also offers phone, chat, and email support 24/7, and also offers HR, compliance, and onboarding support as well. Users can also visit the Justworks website to download any product updates at their convenience.

Justworks can be a good choice for small businesses that wishes to combine payroll, HR, and benefits administration into a single product. Justworks is available in two versions; Basic and Plus, with the Plus version offering additional HR resources and reporting tools. Pricing for the Basic version for 5-24 employees is $49.00 per employee per month, with the Plus version running $69.00 per employee per month. Pricing may become prohibitive for companies with 25 or more employees.

2018 Overall Rating – 4.5 Stars