QuickBooks Payroll vs APS Payroll

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Our analysts compared QuickBooks Payroll 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

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.
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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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$250 Monthly
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Product Assistance

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24/7 Live Support
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Product Insights

  • 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.
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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 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.
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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

#47

among all
Payroll Software

#14

among all
Payroll Software

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Analyst Rating Summary

84
78
38
52
92
100
74
50
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Mobile Capabilities
Dashboard and Reporting
Payroll and Tax Management
Time and Attendance Management
Dashboard and Reporting
Time and Attendance Management
Security and Compliance
Platform Capabilities

Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

QuickBooks Payroll
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 38 92 74 94 91 75 80 91 52 100 50 56 81 91 92 95 0 25 50 75 100
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80%
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88%
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12%
88%
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Analyst Ratings for Technical Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

64%
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36%
86%
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14%

User Sentiment Summary

Great User Sentiment 626 reviews
Excellent User Sentiment 1249 reviews
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.

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.

4.7 (17)
5.0 (11)
4.0 (25)
4.6 (577)
4.5 (550)
4.6 (610)
3.5 (34)
4.4 (51)

Awards

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

Mobile Capabilities 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

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.
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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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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.
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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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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.

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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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