Paylocity vs APS Payroll

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Our analysts compared Paylocity vs APS 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

Paylocity is an all-in-one cloud payroll solution that enables organizations of every size to execute administrative tasks such as talent acquisition, time and labor management, and other core processes. Its functionality includes multiple configuration options that allow companies to customize according to their needs.

It contains robust security measures such as encryption, real-time backups and secure data centers. It also has a user-friendly mobile app that is compatible with both iOS and Android devices.
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Designed to meet the needs of small and medium-sized businesses, APS Payroll is a cloud-based solution for managing human resources. It provides features to help automate and streamline a variety of core HR tasks including processing payroll, tracking time and attendance, hiring the best talent, managing employee benefits, and creating analytic reports based on user data.

Users can access their account from any internet-connected device to conveniently complete tasks. Built with scalability in mind, it’s able to grow with businesses. Additionally, each organization has access to a dedicated support team and account lead that can assist with tech support and field general assistance inquiries.
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$19/Employee, Monthly
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$250 Monthly
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Tailored to your specific needs
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Product Assistance

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24/7 Live Support
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Product Insights

  • Streamlined Talent Acquisition: The software is equipped with capabilities that make the recruiting process more manageable. Users can automate tasks, create custom workflows for hiring, post jobs internally, configure applications and post jobs. 
  • Simplified Onboarding: The portal centralizes information to create a simplified process for new hires. It can be configured to gather necessary employee details such as contact info, withholding forms and an employee handbook with e-signature functionality. 
  • Competent Employees: The platform facilitates easy-to-understand training that equips employees with critical skills, regardless of the initial skill set or position. The built-in LMS suite offers multiple methods and formats that fit the user’s preferred learning style. 
  • Compliance Peace of Mind: The software can train users on compliance topics and assess them on a regular basis. It also aggregates news and industry trends into a feed to keep users updated on compliance laws. 
  • Automatic Notifications: Users can easily stay informed with push notifications that automatically send updates about new hires, changes, time off approvals and terminations. 
  • Employee Engagement: The platform offers engagement tools that promote community interactions, gather feedback and support peer recognition. This boosts engagement within teams and across departments, as well as improves productivity. 
  • Administrative Add-Ons: Services like FSAs, HSAs, TMAs and COBRA supplement standard plans with complementary programs, giving employees a wide choice of benefits to meet their specific needs. 
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  • Multiple Pay Options: Direct deposit and pay card options available. Partners with major banks, including US Bank, which offers a pay card and allows employees to use a bank card without an account. 
  • Training: Offers recurring and one-time training courses for individuals and groups. Managers receive notifications when users enroll and complete courses to help ensure that all employees are up to date on all training. 
  • Information Filtering: Offers employee search through filters by sorting according to employee name, number, social security number or description. 
  • Consistent Branding: Branded career pages guarantee consistent branding messages to clearly convey company values to potential new employees. Post on popular job boards including LinkedIn, Indeed and Glassdoor. 
  • Interactive Employee Performance Management: Allows managers to set goals for employees and measure them against specific job-related competencies. Employees can access information, complete self-assessments and electronically sign off on reviews. 
  • Easy-to-Use Templates: Prebuilt templates and customizable reporting options help build schedules and provide insight into the workforce. Create electronic versions of any existing forms for easy record-keeping using a PDF builder. 
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  • Payroll: Companies can simplify multiple financial tasks related to payroll with this feature. It automates payroll processes and takes care of tax compliance, expense reimbursements into paychecks, garnishment services and custom reports that derive whatever data that’s needed. It provides employees with the flexibility to access a portion of their earned wages when needed. 
  • Workforce Management: This feature helps eliminate the need for manual tracking of tasks, reduces administrative work and maintains accurate records of individual employees. The review forms can be customized to promote employees to set goals via an insight chart. 
  • Employee Self-Service: The software provides users with admin analytics, 24/7 secure access, enrollment and insurance access, and internal plans. This feature helps employees and employers to access, update, enroll and administer data respectively. 
  • Time and Labor Management: Workers can clock in and out via the mobile app, and managers can set geofencing rules that ensure accurate clock-punching. It also syncs with payroll automatically and allows managers to create and adjust schedules as needed, without manually correcting payroll data. 
  • Data Insights: The platform allows users to access demographic information, utilization, headcount, labor costs, position insights, turnover and retention. It also features real-time employee data, analytics for employment trends, strategic hiring and budgeting decisions, and programs to build a diverse workforce. 
  • Reports: The system comes with over 100 standard reports along with an ad hoc reporting tool. Users can schedule reports to automatically generate and track key reports with a favorites feature. 
  • Compensation Management: With this feature, administrators can configure settings such as the approval process and eligibility requirements. It also supports the customization of compensation plans to match organizational pay cycles. Company leaders gain a view into budgets and allocations, while managers can provide increases and view employee data like performance and pay history.  
  • Marketplace Integrations: Organizations can extend Paylocity’s capabilities to streamline the payroll regularity and HR data management across all policies. The solution connects with partner solutions in 20 categories, including single sign-on (SSO), ERP and a variety of HR-related functions. More than 300 integrations are available in the vendor marketplace. Data can flow into or out of Paylocity, or in both directions, depending on the integration. 
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  • Payroll: Simplifies payroll by reducing errors, avoiding penalties, calculating summary audits and providing a dedicated support team. It also assists in: 
    • Analytics: Creates data-driven decisions about important assets and offers better visualization of payroll metrics. It also offers solutions to questions such as overtime trends on payroll, cost of payroll expense and employee compensation trends. 
    • Compliance: Offers guided tax compliance with a defined process for tax management, payroll tax filings and payments. Also assists payroll process and tax compliance in 411 jurisdictions, in all 50 states. 
  • Self-Service: Provides separate portals for employees and system administrators, with different levels of access and dashboard capabilities based on designation. 
  • Benefits Administration: Tracks and manages all benefits plan types, including medical, dental, life insurance and disability plans. Automatically assigns deduction amounts via mass update during open enrollment. 
  • Multiple Carrier Compatibility: Compatible with all types of benefits providers and ensures coverage under any plan. Automatically sends relevant paperwork and ensures compliance with organizational requirements to guarantee coverage. 
  • Integration: Integrates with more than 100 third-party applications to create a more robust suite for businesses with additional needs that aren’t met by the system. Noteworthy integrations include Xero and Sage Intacct. 
  • Schedule Creation: Allows seamless creation of schedules based on a variety of factors including department, break times, length of time and much more. Employees can be added directly to the template and schedules without the need for recreation again in the future. 
  • Reporting: Organizes data metrics and provides insights into workforce efficiency via more than 80 prebuilt reports. Build reports based on factors such as income, employee demographics, custom options or a combination, and specify whether the reports are public or private. 
  • Affordable Care Act (ACA) Reports: Create and file 1094-C and 1095-C forms with a guided interface. The system automatically checks for discrepancies before filing the forms with the IRS. 
  • Time Management: Efficiently records and tracks HR and payroll processes. Calculates labor expenses, minimizes compliance risks and reports time through various channels such as mobile, kiosk, biometric and online. 
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Product Ranking

#3

among all
Payroll Software

#14

among all
Payroll Software

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Analyst Rating Summary

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78
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52
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50
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Time and Attendance Management
Payroll and Tax Management
Dashboard and Reporting
Time and Attendance Management
Security and Compliance
Platform Capabilities

Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

Paylocity
APS 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 80 60 80 63 87 77 77 100 52 100 50 56 81 91 92 95 0 25 50 75 100
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Analyst Ratings for Technical Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

86%
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User Sentiment Summary

Great User Sentiment 5068 reviews
Excellent User Sentiment 1249 reviews
84%
of users recommend this product

Paylocity has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 84% when considering 5068 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

92%
of users recommend this product

APS Payroll has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 92% when considering 1249 user reviews from 4 recognized software review sites.

4.6 (21)
5.0 (11)
4.5 (2500)
4.6 (577)
4.5 (825)
n/a
n/a
4.6 (610)
4.4 (245)
n/a
3.5 (1477)
4.4 (51)

Awards

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated Paylocity and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Time and Attendance Management.

Time and Attendance Management Award

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

User Favorite Award

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

User-Friendly Interface: 60% of users suggested that the interface is user-friendly, with automated payroll and simplified workflows that make it easy to operate and monitor teams.
Unified Dashboard: Paylocity enables HRIS, payroll, timekeeping and admin-related tasks to be handled from a single location, according to 60% of users.
Performance Benefits: It eases task management for essential activities such as checking time off balances and paychecks, conducting goal assessments and achievements, performing year-end reviews, and more.
Easy PTO: It’s easy to use and implement in a day-to-day work routine, with 30% of users mentioning they can check staff availability before approving leaves.
Streamlined Onboarding: The onboarding process checks in candidates and sends paperwork before they start, making it 10%-20% easier for admin setup and paperwork completion according to users.
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Ease of Use: Of users who mentioned the platform’s usability, 85% suggested it’s user-friendly and has an intuitive interface.
Payroll Tracking: The software offers seamless workday tracking and updates irrespective of employee location, according to 84% of reviews on this feature.
Support Team: Customer service is helpful and informative in resolving technical issues, as reviewed by 76% of users mentioning it.
Workflow Automation: Of reviews about workflows, 88% suggested it reduces the need for manual entries by organizing and automating tasks.
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Support Team: Paylocity's support process is lengthy according to 30% of users, requiring a lot of back and forth to get an issue resolved, which usually takes days.
Cumbersome Payroll: The payroll module requires set up by different people and doesn’t function accurately according to 10% of users.
Timesheets: Tracking time is difficult, as Paylocity doesn’t update and capture time entries until a shift is completed.
System Logouts: Despite automation, additional verification is required when logging in, causing 10% of users to completely exit and then log in again.
Tracking: Tracking functionality doesn’t work well for all the features in the experience of 10%-20% of users.
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Not Cost-Effective: The platform is a bit on the pricey side, according to 76% of users who reviewed cost.
Restricted Reporting: The system has limited report usage and exporting, as noted by 60% of users referencing this feature.
Unstable Mobile App: The mobile app’s functionality isn’t user-friendly and creates problems when processing payroll, according to 80% of users who reviewed it.
Limited Customization: Of users who mention customization, 60% stated that some commonly used features such as performance review aren’t customizable.
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Paylocity is a user-friendly HCM solution that works well for SMBs and delivers an array of features such as payroll management, hiring and talent management in a unified suite. Self-service capabilities help employees access their information. Some users found issues with its payroll, tracking and timesheet capabilities, reducing accuracy and limiting what can be done. However, it offers an intuitive interface, with tools like onboarding and PTO that make tasks easier while speeding up processes. Businesses looking for an end-to-end system to manage HR functions should consider this as a good contender.

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APS Payroll provides easy-to-use HR management tools and exceptional payroll tracking. Other notable features include workflow management to ease manual tasks, intuitive technology and stellar customer support. Users dislike its restricted mobile app functionality, lack of customization and reporting options, however. The system is a good fit for SMBs that are trying to organize and create workflows, as well as looking for core HR functionality in a unified platform.

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Screenshots

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