SurePayroll provides a Custom Payroll Service designed to handle companies with 100 or fewer employees for accountants wishing to offer service bureau style payroll to clients. SurePayroll is a privately held company located in Skokie, Illinois. Their customer base has grown to over 10,000 businesses, with payroll payments totaling in excess of $2.5 billion in 2003. The company’s focus is on providing payroll services for the small business marketplace through an online payroll model. One of the more attractive features of their business model is the option to link their service to your web site and offer it as a privately labeled service of your firm.
Pricing for the prototypical firm outlined on page 26 is as follows: For weekly payrolls, the charge for accountants is $16.16 per pay period and $1.12 for each employee. For biweekly or semi- monthly, the cost is $24.25 per pay period and $1.35 per employee. For monthly payrolls, the cost is $36.85 per pay period and $1.35 per employee. These prices are 10% off SurePayroll’s standard pricing. Accountants are welcome to customize their own pricing. These charges include all tax filings and deposits, direct deposit for each employee, and complete online access to reports and payroll history. The program can also handle tax filings for employees in all states, including MI, OH, NY and CA.
SurePayroll enables the accountant or company to print checks off their custom payroll account. However, these would need to be on pre-printed checks. Also available is a check delivery service for the price of $2 per check and $15 for delivery. Again, direct deposit is included for no extra charge. The only additional charge is for W-2s: $27 for the company and $3.15 per employee.
LEARNING CURVE – 5 Stars
SurePayroll offers an intuitive, easy-to-follow interface with the appropriate level of prompts and reminders. They also provide an Internet enrollment system called SureStart that will walk you through every step of the process online.
BREADTH & DEPTH OF FEATURES & SERVICES – 5 Stars
SurePayroll offers numerous features and services, some of which include the following:
SureView preview system allows you to preview payrolls before deposits are made.
SureReminder e-mail reminders are sent to customers two days before payroll is due with a link to directly login to the system.
Employees can receive payday e-mails with a link to view and print pay stubs online.
Option available to print checks and stubs from local printer and check stock.
The system maintains a continuous schedule of past and future payroll dates extending out to the end of the next fiscal year.
SureCheck provides the customer with a clear view of year-to-date payroll totals for each employee.
W2 Preview allows customers to preview and correct discrepancies with year-to-date information for each employee before the end of the year.
REPORTING CAPABILITIES – 5 Stars
The system provides the ability to print reports from the current and prior calendar year. Report selection includes the following: payroll report, pay stubs, 401k, Benefits, Department Summary, Department Detail and Cash Required. You can also print W-2s, W-3s, 940s and State annual tax forms for the prior year.
INTEGRATION / IMPORT & EXPORT – 4 Stars
SurePayroll has recently announced a partnership with Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. to offer worker’s compensation to its customers. As well, direct integration with QuickBooks is provided. SurePayroll will handle all tax filings and payments as part of their group.
CUSTOMER SERVICE & SUPPORT – 5 Stars
In addition to the typical technical support services, the company will customize the payroll application for your needs. A data privacy and security statement is published on the web site as well as a directory of SurePayroll Partners by state.
SUMMARY
SurePayroll provides a nice balance between leveraging state-of-the-art Internet technology with a relatively concise feature and reporting set that would appear to accommodate the majority of payroll situations for small and mid-sized businesses.
2004 OVERALL RATING: 5
Review Attributes
In order to maintain as much consistency
in our reviews as practical, the
payroll software solutions were
rated on the following five areas:
Learning Curve; Breadth & Depth of Features & Services; Reporting Capabilities; Integration/Import & Export; and Customer Service & Support.
We also looked at the vendor’s
history and vision in terms of the
company’s experience, resources
(personnel and financial) and reputation
in the profession and the extent
to which they are focused on payroll
services. We also considered how
the vendor approaches the accountant’s
role in the payroll service delivery
model.
The user interface is the primary
attribute evaluated to rate the
system’s Learning Curve. If
the software has an easy-to-follow
and intuitive interface, it received
the highest rating. On the other
hand, if it is not readily apparent
how and where to find features and
functions in the system, even though
the feature set may be complete,
we assessed a lower rating. This
is a key factor to evaluate because
of the intensive interaction of
the system that is required by your
staff and, in some cases, your clients.
The functionality of a payroll system
is a key characteristic to evaluate
because it will directly influence
the range of clients to which you
will be able to provide payroll
services, as well as the scope of
the services you will be able to
offer. Functionality is measured
in large part by the Depth &
Breadth of Features & Services.
How many options does the package
offer? Does it provide features
that meet the needs of a growing
company such as EFTPS (Electronic
Federal Tax Payment System)? MICR
(Magnetic Character Ink Recording)
and Direct Deposit? An extended
set of these types of features resulted
in a very high ranking in this category.
The following questions all relate
to the rating of the software’s
Reporting capability. What types
of reports does the system produce?
What is the content? How are they
designed? What flexibility is offered
in the sorting, selection and design
of the report contents?
Integration/Import & Export
assesses the packages ability to
integrate with other software applications,
such as client write-up, the client’s
accounting system, HRIS (Human Resource
Information Systems) and other applications
to minimize data entry and optimize
the potential to leverage the information
flow into and out of the payroll
system.
The true measure of a software’s
value is not limited to the program
itself, it is heavily influenced
by the vendor’s ability to
help you use and apply it. All it
takes is one frustrating afternoon
of system problems on a day when
multiple client payrolls need to
get out the door and you can’t
get the help you need from the vendor
to leave you with a long-lasting
distaste for the entire system.
We have done our best to rate the
vendor’s ability to deliver
Customer Service & Support,
but at the end of the day you need
to conduct your own due diligence
on this attribute and talk to a
few client references about their
experience with the vendor in this
area. It is one thing for a vendor
to say what kind of support they
offer, it is quite another to deliver
it. We have included the vendor’s
direct support of the accountant
in terms of marketing and practice
aids to help establish a payroll
service bureau style offering in
this category.
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