ADP RUN vs QuickBooks Payroll

Last Updated:

Our analysts compared ADP RUN vs QuickBooks Payroll based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Payroll Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Product Basics

Like a classic rom-com montage, running a small business means trying on a lot of hats. Processing payroll alone is a complex, time-consuming task. That's where ADP RUN comes in—it's a cloud-based payroll service specifically for small businesses, keeping your payroll processing and HR management out of the horror genre.

When you need to complete multiple tasks without the manpower of larger corporations, ADP RUN (also known as RUN POWERED by ADP) helps you do the job(s).

Here's how:

  • Automating the entire payroll process (including recurring payroll with RUN & DONE).
  • Calculating deductions and withholdings.
  • Self-onboarding employees.
  • Detecting payroll errors.
  • Working on the go with the mobile app.

ADP RUN at a Glance

Price

Starting from $79 monthly (additional $4 per employee).

Deployment Method

Cloud-based.

Business Size

Most suitable for small businesses.

Popular Integrations

QuickBooks, Xero, Tsheets, When I Work, ZipRecruiter.

Customer Service Availability

Live chat agents are available Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. ET. A.V.A. (virtual assistant) is available 24/7.


User Experience

Nearly 90% of users recommend it.

Training

Documentation, videos, live online, webinars and demos.

Mobile App

Yes, 4.9 review score according to Google Play.


Let’s be honest: not everyone is a fast learner. Whether it’s your first time or your hundredth, ADP RUN has step-by-step screens and quick tips for completing tasks.

There’s direct deposit for paying your employees and additional options like Wisely Direct (an ADP-exclusive debit card) and ADPCheck.

Manage everything from your personalized dashboard, including upcoming payrolls, to-dos, payroll history and quick access to all RUN features.

Run powered by ADP is under the ADP umbrella, which earns recognition on our top ten list of the best HR software. Additionally, ADP Workforce Now is in the top five for applicant tracking and recruiting, compensation management, employee self service, and learning management.

read more...
Quickbooks is an Intuit payroll and accounting solution designed to meet the needs of both small and medium-sized, growing businesses. There are a variety of plans, starting with small packages built for independent contractors and self-employed individuals. It handles payment, calculating and filing taxes, benefits management, direct deposits and more.

The variety of products and packages enables users to find a solution that fits a company’s unique needs. Quickbooks offers specialized features for organizations in a variety of fields, including manufacturing and retail. Overall, it serves 1.4 million businesses.
read more...
$79 Monthly
Get a free price quote
Tailored to your specific needs
$37.50 Monthly
Get a free price quote
Tailored to your specific needs
Small 
i
Medium 
i
Large 
i
Small 
i
Medium 
i
Large 
i
Windows
Mac
Linux
Android
Chromebook
Windows
Mac
Linux
Android
Chromebook
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile

Product Assistance

Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support

Product Insights

  • Ensure Compliance: Plan for tax season (it’s never too early and let's be honest, everyone dreads it). ADP RUN handles filing and paying your company’s taxes.
  • Manage Overtime: Stay on top of overtime by managing schedules and checking worker classifications. The system comes with support for state unemployment insurance and garnishments.
  • Save Time: Automate payroll and onboarding tasks, kick off off-cycle payrolls, and streamline data entry with convenient worksheets. You can also adjust or correct past payments within the current quarter. The payroll dashboard provides a clear view of all ongoing and past payrolls, with relevant codes highlighted, and shows both in-progress and recently approved payrolls to keep everything organized.
  • Create an Employee Handbook: Keep employees informed about compliance issues and company standards with built-in tools for creating and maintaining employee handbooks (which are viewable online).
  • Go Digital: Reduce physical paperwork by storing company and employee documents digitally via a document vault, which includes a library of templates with best practices.
  • Provide Retirement Planning for Employees: Create retirement plans, including 401(k) and SIMPLE IRA.
  • Offer Employee Self-Service: Let employees access information, from benefits and retirement details to weekly pay stubs.
  • Receive HR Support: Integrate with ADP’s HR solution for expert support, toolkits and training, checkups, and legal assistance. Access resources on healthcare compliance, HR documents, state and federal forms, and pages for tracking employee information.
  • Educate Employees: Provide training courses on topics like sales and sexual harassment.
read more...
  • Save Time: Connects with bank accounts and syncs with various apps to help streamline payroll processing. Saves users more than 40 hours monthly on average and spares them from tedious manual data entry.
  • Save Money: Saves the average users more than $3,500 annually through its assistance with tax filing and other processes.
  • Easy-to-Use: Provides a simple interface so HR managers and others can store and access relevant accounting information easily. Centralizes and organizes data, making it simple to access.
  • Simplified Administration: Manages benefits, payments, time tracking, workers’ compensation, inventory, compliance and other essential business functions from one location. Simplifies processes and handles all of them through one solution.
read more...
  • Payroll: Check employee hours, adjust details like rates and bonuses, and review the payroll (helping estimate costs for your current pay period). This feature also integrates with general ledgers and exports to Xero and QuickBooks.
  • Insurance: Connects with licensed insurance pros to help pick the right coverage for your business with the ADP Insurance Agency. They've got workers’ comp, auto insurance, BOP, liability insurance and group health insurance. This setup makes it easy to handle premium payments and get certificates of insurance.
  • Mobile Solutions: Securely access the system anytime, anywhere, including clocking in and out with mobile timecards via iOS and Android-ready apps.
  • Hiring and Onboarding: Connect with ZipRecruiter to post jobs, invite candidates, access a resume database and use a wizard to create job descriptions. ADP RUN also includes background check capabilities.
  • Self Onboarding: Let employees fill out paperwork and set up account details, such as direct deposit, before their first day of work.
  • Reporting: View custom reports related to profiles, payroll, PTO and deductions. Arrange report fields with the drag-and-drop functionality and filters help you find what you need faster. Export reports in CSV, PDF or Excel formats.
read more...
  • Payroll Processing: Operate 24-hour direct deposit. Pay employees, access integration services for employees, calculate taxes automatically and file taxes directly through the system. Automate payments to save time.
  • Benefits Management: Administrate workers’ compensation, health insurance, retirement plans and more. Covers workers’ compensation through AP Intego. Offers medical, dental and vision insurance through SimplyInsured. Compare different plans to judge the coverage, value and deductibles and make informed decisions. Calculates deductions for health, medical and dental automatically. Deducts and calculates contributions for 401(k)s from each employee paycheck.
  • Mobile Capabilities: Create, track and send invoices via smartphone as well as payment reminders.
  • Workers’ Compensation: Manage workers’ comp, understand state requirements and laws and pick a policy through AP Intego. Provides a free quote and automates premiums.
  • Inventory: Import information from Excel and sync with Amazon, Etsy and other similar websites to track products, cost of goods, create purchase orders and manage vendors.
  • HR Management and Compliance: Provides HR resources and consultation to help with compliance through Mammoth Inc. Creates forms from templates for onboarding checklists, employee handbooks and job descriptions. Aids in creating policies, obeying HR laws, hiring and conflict management.
  • Time Tracking: Track and add billable hours to invoices. Review and put a stamp of approval on employee timesheets. Provides tracking through TSheets. Link hours to specific jobs, save time during payment processing and see real-time insights into employee work hours. Approve and enter employee time cards.
  • Reporting: Run and export a variety of reports. Create customizable reports for balance sheets, expenses and tracking profit and loss. Create, export, print and customize reports to share with accountants or critical stakeholders. Covers deductions, tax liability, contributions, more than one worksite, summary for taxes and wages, vacation, workers’ compensation and sick leave.
  • Taxes: Helps users find tax deductions. Store photos of receipts, share books with accountants and sort business expenses by tax categories to help streamline tax filing.
  • Penalty Payments: Covers payments of up to $25,000 if errors in local, state or federal taxes result in a penalty. Communicates with the IRS. Reviews taxes with experts before sending them to the IRS to cut off issues before they start. Doesn’t cover specific penalties in some situations such as fraud, insufficient funds, healthcare administration, employee classification and several others.
  • Project Tracking: Track project details such as labor costs, expenses and profits.
  • Payroll Plans: Offers three separate plans for payroll needs.
    • Core: Provides core functionality such as payment and calculating payroll taxes.
    • Premium: Covers team management and provides more powerful tools and services for payroll.
    • Elite: Gives access to experts on-demand to answer payroll questions. Gives access to tax penalty protection.
  • Implementation: Aids in transferring current payroll information to the new system. Provides expert support to help users with initial setup and compliance.
read more...

Product Ranking

#1

among all
Payroll Software

#47

among all
Payroll Software

Find out who the leaders are

Analyst Rating Summary

we're gathering data
84
we're gathering data
38
we're gathering data
92
we're gathering data
74
Show More Show More

Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

ADP RUN
QuickBooks Payroll
+ Add Product + Add Product
Benefits Management Dashboard And Reporting Expense Management Mobile Capabilities Payroll And Tax Management Platform Capabilities Security And Compliance Time And Attendance Management 38 92 74 94 91 75 80 91 0 25 50 75 100
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
0%
0%
100%
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
80%
20%
0%
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
40%
40%
20%
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
90%
0%
10%
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
87%
3%
10%
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
78%
0%
22%
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
80%
0%
20%
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
88%
0%
12%

Analyst Ratings for Technical Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
64%
0%
36%

User Sentiment Summary

Excellent User Sentiment 2835 reviews
Great User Sentiment 626 reviews
90%
of users recommend this product

ADP RUN has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 90% when considering 2835 user reviews from 3 recognized software review sites.

89%
of users recommend this product

QuickBooks Payroll has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 89% when considering 626 user reviews from 4 recognized software review sites.

n/a
4.7 (17)
4.6 (1450)
4.0 (25)
4.5 (779)
4.5 (550)
4.3 (606)
3.5 (34)

Awards

ADP RUN stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated QuickBooks Payroll and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Mobile Capabilities.

Mobile Capabilities Award

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Easy to Use: A whopping 88% of users found the design intuitive and user-friendly, including the mobile app. Specifically, the payroll side is noted for its clear presentation.
Excellent Customer Service: 82% of ADP RUN users praise its customer service, particularly the prompt assistance and effective issue resolution through the 24/7 chat feature.
Efficient Reporting: Users enjoy ADP RUN's reporting for ensuring accurate P&L allocation and payroll tracking. The report generator helps tailor payroll reports for seamless integration with accounting files for a more comprehensive overview.
User-Friendly Payroll Processing: Most users find the payroll feature easy and efficient. They appreciate the quick data entry process and fail-safe questions to prevent errors.
24/7 Customer Service: RUN offers phone and online support to ensure the speedy resolution of issues. In reviews, users say customer service is polite, knowledgeable and effective.
Automated Tax Filing: Companies can leave all their taxes to RUN. They don’t have to worry about filing on time. Instead, they can trust experienced professionals to handle it.
Easy to Use: The platform is easy to navigate and use, with a relatively small learning curve.
Multiple Reports: Built-in reports are easy to generate; you can also “favorite” frequent reports to save time. They’re also convenient to view online and export as a PDF or Excel file.
Show more
Excellent Functionality: Over 90% of users that discussed functionality were happy with the features, including the tax filing, automation and employee salaries and hours functions.
Simple to Use: Reviewers that talked about the ease of use felt it had a simple and intuitive interface over 80% of the time.
Manage Salary and Hours: More than 80% who discussed the employee time tracking and salary functions felt it worked well.
Affordable: Just under 70% of users who discussed price felt it was an affordable option.
Show more
Limited Timesheets: Some express a desire for a customizable timesheet.
PTO Woes: Users have mixed experiences with ADP RUN's PTO feature. They encounter challenges with managers not receiving timely alerts for PTO requests and being directed to incorrect pages when trying to approve requests. There's a desire for more customization options, particularly in setting PTO features tailored to individual employee needs.
Holiday Time Off: Some users also face difficulties updating company holidays for specific pay classes within the system.
Tax Questions: Some users request additional clarity when setting up earning and deductions tax status in payroll.
Add-Ons Get Expensive: Not all functionalities are available in the main application.
Costly Upgrades: It’s relatively expensive, and upgrading from one tier to the next isn’t always seamless. It’s not the most affordable for companies with many pay cycles per month. Other payroll options offer similar functions and cost less.
Difficult/Limited Functionality: Some issues include: Users can’t edit payroll after submission. No feature for escalating to supervisors. Hard to remove workers hired to cover during vacations. No unlimited payroll runs. No option to create multiple paychecks for one person during the pay cycle.
Implementation Miscommunication: Some reviewers have reported poor communication when working through implementation issues. However, some say that after setup, it’s easy to use, and potential hurdles are worth the trouble.
Slow Phone Customer Service: Customer service is ultimately helpful, but many users get frustrated by long wait times to speak with a rep. After all, any issue regarding money may be a serious one.
Show more
Bad for Large Organizations: Over 90% of reviewers that discussed using the system for big organizations felt the system wasn’t complex enough.
Mixed Customer Service: Users were split on customer support quality, with 52% approving and 48% disliking the service.
Issues with Price: While overall, reviewers that discussed price felt it affordable, over 30% were displeased and said they got overcharged or billed after they’d already canceled.
Show more

RUN powered by ADP is a popular payroll and HR solution for a range of small businesses, including startups and newer companies needing robust payroll and HR tools (without extensive expertise).Its efficient tools for managing employee records, benefits and compliance help these professionals minimize manual effort. Payroll specialists and accountants or bookkeepers also benefit from ADP RUN's automation and error detection.The main menu and search bar (with shortcuts for common tasks under it) made it easy to find what I was looking for without an annoying amount of redirects or feeling like a game of Where’s Waldo. It’s simple and uncomplicated to view your paystub and when payday is.For admins, the payroll feature seems straightforward. View your pay period, use “Calculate Paycheck” and check dates. Get an overview of payroll either for all employees or sort by things like last name. When you log in and get to the main page, there’s also a convenient reminder(s) section called “Top To-Dos.”For famous document misplacers, there’s a document vault that keeps important info secure and accessible.Onboard fully from your phone, including setting up direct deposit and tax withholdings without waiting for HR to show you how. For me, working remotely makes mobile access a must-have, and ADP RUN checks that box with mobile clocking in and out, viewing company policies, PTO, and pay info. Admins can also fully get payroll done on their phones.If anything seems off, payroll error detection activates a pop-up box asking, “Does this look right?” and gives a brief explanation of potential issues; from there, admins select “Ignore issues” or “Go back and fix.”Run a single report or select a popular report option. View payroll details, liabilities and summaries. Choose your date range and download the report from there (on the app or desktop).Recent reviews cite long wait times over the phone for customer service. When I called the general line, I shared my details and got a specific number to dial. I would prefer direct transfers over calling separate numbers, although this might change once you have a designated contact.Lastly, I've noticed that the cost is higher compared to competitors like Paychex or Workday. Purchasing add-on features “a la carte” affects the cost, which may be frustrating to some users who need more in-depth functionality on a smaller budget.The RUN Powered by ADP® Mobile Payroll app is a free download for mobile devices. With the app, you can complete payroll processing, view reports like payroll liability and access or update employee 1099 info. Additional mobile app features vary depending on Apple or Android devices, such as a chat feature for Androids and pay rate changes on Apple devices.Overall, RUN Powered by ADP is a comprehensive payroll solution for small businesses. Its intuitive design is great for users with little to no experience in most cases. It might be pricier than some alternatives, but most users find the added cost valid, considering its user-friendly interface, payroll automation and mobile app features.

Show more

Quickbooks Payroll is part of the Intuit suite of programs. Commenters felt it was easy to use, train and adopt with a simple interface that worked well. They found it affordable and found the integrations of time tracking with employee salaries made running payroll a quick process. Commenters said it was reasonably priced and the features worked well. The most popular functionality included automation, tax calculations and filing, and its ability to centralize and organize data. The largest complaint by far was that this program isn’t complex enough for larger organizations. Reviewers recommended only using it for small organizations. Reactions to customer service were very mixed. Reviewers who were satisfied said the support workers got back to them quickly, were friendly, helpful and called back promptly. Other users had adverse reactions say the staff was incompetent, complaining that there was only chat support and complained of always getting different answers. While most were pleased with the price, some reported getting overcharged and said it was difficult to cancel with charges showing up well after they’d terminated the service. Quickbooks Payroll is a good choice for small and medium-sized businesses. Be sure to understand what functionality comes with which pricing plan before purchasing.

Show more

Screenshots

Top Alternatives in Payroll Software


ADP Workforce Now

APS Payroll

Gusto

Namely

OnPay

Patriot Payroll

Paychex

Paycom

Paycor

Paylocity

Payroll4Free

QuickBooks Payroll

Rippling

TriNet

Workday HCM

Related Categories

WE DISTILL IT INTO REAL REQUIREMENTS, COMPARISON REPORTS, PRICE GUIDES and more...

Compare products
Comparison Report
Just drag this link to the bookmark bar.
?
Table settings