781-810-9000
www.MPay.com
MPAY Inc. offers a variety of employer, human resources, benefits management and payroll programs for small, mid-sized and enterprise-level organizations, with options for web-based and on-premise solutions. The company’s two primary payroll offerings, Payentry.com and Millennium, are designed to provide automated processing and compliance as a service and, therefore, fit into our “Outsourced/Referral” model. This review focuses on Payentry.com, a web-based system through which employers generally only handle basic employee data-entry functions and initiate payroll runs, with the vendor performing all of the back-end calculations, withholdings, payments and compliance processes. Consoles for accessing final reporting, additional employee management functions and benefits administration are also available.
BASIC SYSTEM FUNCTIONS
While Payentry.com can be used by accountants, the system does not provide client management features for managing multiple employer entities, making the program best-suited to direct use by employers, including those with separate payrolls and frequencies based on departments, branches and other factors. Users access the Payentry.com system through their browser, which opens into a web portal that can be tailored to include firm branding, which would help to minimize the visibility of the outsourced relationship if pages didn’t also display MPAY’s information.
Multiple users can access the site simultaneously, including employer management and their employees for self-service and time entry functions. The primary management interface provides a user-friendly menu for accessing payroll entry functions, reports, employee information along with additional options, Help and access to program preferences. Initial setup of new employees is fairly simple, and more detailed employee information screens use a tabbed view with categories for entering employee rates, deductions, taxes, accruals, histories, departments and HR-related functions such as tracking employee skills, education, performance appraisals and other data. It can support any type of paid employee or contractor, and any standard or custom pre- and post-tax deductions, including garnishments, unemployment, workers’ comp and other third-party pays.
Payentry.com includes support for multi-state employees, with simple options for distribution of income by date. Payroll tax tables for federal and all states are included, as well as most municipal taxing entities. Direct deposit is provided and fully automated, with distribution to any number of accounts per employee. Payentry.com includes batch processing functions for entering employee time on a multi-view screen, along with the option to import from time clocks or allow employees to enter their own time with an approvals process. Benefits options include time off accruals and, with add-on services, flexible spending accounts, employer transportation plans and COBRA administration. 4.25
REPORTING & MONITORING
Payentry.com’s reporting options include nearly 70 managerial and payroll reports, with the ability to customize some layout and data appearance using a built-in report writer. Once reports are run, they are only accessible in the system for 24 hours, perhaps as a means of saving online storage space, but allowing users to download and save the reports in PDF format to their file management system, or into Word, Excel, Crystal Reports, CSV and other formats. All federal and state wage and new hire reporting is performed by MPAY after payrolls have been processed and reports generated. Users perform payrolls as needed, with the main payroll menu giving notice of pending runs. The vendor tracks reporting deadlines and ensures compliance. 4.5
INTEGRATION/IMPORT & EXPORT
Payentry.com includes a QuickBooks Export function; and its reports, including the GL journal entry report, can be output to Word, Excel, text and CSV, allowing for import into most other accounting programs. The program also offers integration with the available human resources and benefits administration functions from the vendor. Employees can access online timesheet entry and time clock functions, with an approval processes that routes data into payroll. The program can also import from other time clock programs. 4.5
HELP/SUPPORT
As a web-based system, all tax tables and program updates are automatically performed and maintained by the vendor, with no action required by the user. Payentry.com includes a fairly standard and basic built-in Help utility, but provides some page/task-specific guidance. The vendor’s online resources center does not include program guides or knowledgebase options, instead focusing on providing an HR resources center and information on accounting subjects such as payroll taxability and record keeping, in addition to downloadable federal and state forms. Live support is included with system pricing. 4.5
CLIENT & EMPLOYEE SELF-SERVICE
The Payentry.com website can be tailored to include an accounting firm or service bureau’s branding, with clients logging into a site such as Payentry.com/FirmName, but with minor branding of MPAY still visible. As a system primarily designed for direct use by businesses, users have full access to time and data entry, employee management and reporting. Employees can be given access to self-service portals for entering their time, managing contact information, submitting change requests, and viewing current and prior pay information, W-2s and W-4s. 5
SUMMARY & PRICING
The Payentry.com system is best-suited to professional practices that want to let their clients manage their own payrolls, while maintaining a presence in the service via a firm-branded client login website. It includes unlimited direct deposit, support for multi-state employees and excellent employee self-service portals. Pricing depends on number of employees and payroll frequency, with a 10-employee staff paid biweekly costing $XX per payroll run.
2010 Overall Rating 4.5
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Tags: Payroll
