Paychex Flex Reviews: 4.2/5 — Solid Choice

Paychex is a well-known name in the payroll industry that offers functionality geared toward small businesses to help facilitate their payroll processing to a third party.

Customer service. It would be one thing if the only problem with Paychex was it's technology, but customer service is severely lacking and that is for all Paychex services. We tried using their ACA reporting team with disastrous effects! We have used their TaxPay services where they have failed to remit tax information to states on our behalf and dealt with Paychex red tape to get it fixed for almost 12 months. And I cannot fail to mention the error in submitting an employee garnishment to the wrong state! The tool may work for what you need, but be prepared to be a babysitter for any problems that may arise.

Paychex is a basic platform for payroll processing by a third-party. Nothing fancy or special. Just a basic platform for mid-market companies, and they'll tell you that all day long.

The graphics for paid time off were a nice touch and the ease of seeing clock in and out times proved helpful. It was also nice to have a running balance of paid time off and personal leave when planning ahead for vacations.

The clock in, clock out system through the mobile application was frustrating to use. It can be off at times and fail to register correct times. I have also noticed that the employees at our company are unable to clock in and out at certain locations, which is difficult because we have several sites.

The payroll department enjoys the ease of paychecks being cut for the correct amounts to employees and being able to produce tax documents on the spot.

The online interface and clear tracking of hours

Interface is clunky; the time card often needs to be redone by admin

Tracking hours worked, meals, and breaks

My sales consultant has done a great job keeping me with Paychex. For years I played the rotating payroll game, best deal and perks I am in. Now Last year Paychex just matched the deal so I did not need to change.

Paychex has no safe guard against major mistakes on online entry. I.E. over paying an employee by 360 hours, my mistake I hit an extra 0 and has very busy and did not double check that day. A huge change like that should tigger a stop and check with the customer to verify the LARGE change in the norm.

Paychex has a new hirer reporting platform so I do not need to report new hirers.

It's pretty customizable for the needs of our company. We have contractors and needed to report on their expenses broken down by several categories. This was easy to do by making a request to their tech team.

Even with the new update it still looks like an antiquated system. We are actually getting ready to switch to Gusto Payroll and t-sheets for time tracking. I'm big on platforms that can integrate easily. Also, they need to update their policies to let users run extra payrolls without fees. Most other companies do this. What I dislike the MOST is that employees cannot register themselves!!! This adds so much extra admin work for me as I am the only HR person at my company.

The biggest benefit to me as an HR person is having a personal account manager to call when I need help or have questions. She's usually pretty responsive.

being able to easily access our company through the website and input the data quickly. Our rep is also very good, she keeps up with me if she notices i'm running late on payroll.

The website has a bad habit of going down for maintenance or simply crashing at the worst times. Their tech support and customer service team is almost never up to date with what's going on regarding the crashes, have no answers when you call for it, and slow to respond to inquiries online via their ticket system and social media. For example, the system crashed for the last payroll of the year in 2015. Website was down for 10+ hours. Called in to tech support, no one had any answers. Sent an email through the ticket system.. received a response about it 3 days later.

Ultimately it's nice to have payroll covered with a rep who is actively paying attention. A big benefit is the submitting of our business taxes for us, it's one less thing to worry about in the day to day.

The sales/on-boarding process was simple.

The payroll specialist assigned to our company constantly changed throughout the 4 years of service.

I needed a reliable company to conduct payroll services. The only good thing was that it was a company people recognized.

Ease of use; user-friendly system; integration with insurance companies

Horrible customer service, unfortunately; delays, system freezes; no tax knowledge

Payroll and insurance solutions (workers comp, disability, etc.)

Paychex was a one stop shop. They're able to do 401k, worker's compensation, and payroll of course. It's beneficial for startups to be able to get several services from one company.

One of the downsides to Paychex is they aren't very scalable. As a growing company the needs change and paychex isn't always able to assist with those growing needs.

Paychex is a good payroll platform, it helped us to pay our employees timely and in situations where we had changes to our payroll.

It offers unlimited data storage for employee records and documents.

All the features we use are not fully integrated as a single system but rather are several 3rd party systems forced to speak to one another. It cannot automate my processes.

PaychexFlex helps eliminate paper recruiting and onboarding.

It does most of the accounting you need done, with ease.

Inconsistency of help from staff. difficult to contact

Supposed to be helping without tax situation from 2021 but instead, seem to have dropped the ball and not helping us to correct the issue.

I like being able to access my tax docs, retirement info, pay stubs and change direct deposit info, withholdings, etc.

I think the features in the retirement section could be a lot more user friendly and comprehensive. It is difficult to navigate

retirement account management, accessing pay info and pay stubs, etc.

availability to see and print check stubs. seeing benefit info

Not being ale to stay logged in all day. have to constantly resign in in order to utilize clocking in out for day and meal breaks

NA

I love the new website. It is very intuitive

I wish PayChexFlex interacted more with HR. I have to manually do things that seem like they should flow thru automatically.

My team loves being able to access their bank accounts and change tax forms now.

The fact that I can go online and check my pay stub.

This was supposed to be perfect for our company, as they have mobile clock-in/out and GPS tracking, but unfortunately, none of these functions work properly. Also, managers need to constantly adjust times in the system because the app has errors all the time.

We were trying to find a system that was easy to use for both employees and managers...

I like the 2-step verification security login, the user verification codes, the speed, the dashboard and the ability to run multiple reports directly from the payroll entry screen, check preview. Recent updates this month may allow more capability and control for user but likely to replace hired people altogether.

State Q1 tax forms missing from Quarterly review, but Federal forms are stored and ready to print. Unfortunately, Paychex has gotten less and less personal. No one on one payroll agent to connect to. In Paychex Flex, I have no direct contact, only a customer service number and the assigned account. In the past, under more simplified payroll contracts, the Paychex agents were accessible either by fax, by direct line or by e-mail. This connectivity is breaking down more and more. No live chat, which is understandable since payroll should remain secure so not any live agent should be allowed to respond. It's sad nevertheless that we give up the personal service (because payroll can change with circumstances and the technology is not flexible (ha! Flex is not flexible).. For example, it is very difficult to locate the screen to allow for editing/customizing the payroll grid. No workflow available in Paychex Flex yet to simplify small business processes to incorporate benefits administration and tie with payroll. That is why an assigned, live agent should code the proper setup instead of users who don't have a background in HR or accounting processes. Filing the 5500 is not simplified at all by Paychex Flex.

Basic retirement administration that is tracked/stored along with payroll, S-Corp, single-member

Paychex makes it super simple to get your employees paid, but there are some downsides...

Onboarding process with Paychex is cumbersome, our payroll specialist is almost never available when you call, and the pricing is a bit too high.

We use Paychex for payroll services.

Paychex customer support has been phenomenal, they are responsive and knowledgeable and see the issues through. The Preview Report Writer function, once you get the hang of it, is fairly robust.

Paychex Preview cannot handle cross period reporting so if you have a fiscal calendar you are in for a world of hurt. Paychex has an integrated system and their component systems, Preview, HR Online and Time & Labor Online do not talk to each other perfectly. Setting up the user accounts for employees is another nightmare.

Our payroll runs from 250 employees up to about 350 in the summer. We use Paychex Preview to pay them and Paychex to do the tax filings. We are also using Paychex's ESR Service to do our Affordable Care Act employee tracking.

This platform can be good if you use Paychex already for payroll. The seamless integration is good. The platform is open architecture but some basic funds (i.e., PORIX) are not available. What is up with that?

Hold times are ridiculous. I sometimes find myself questioning the answers I am given. One of my plans had basic questions on Safe Harbor and I needed to re-read documents and correct the provided answers. I do NOT have time for this. I am also frustrated by how hard it is to find out fees. The 408b2 tells the reader to refer to the GIS. Just come out and state your value. Let the user judge if they want to use the platform.

This platform is trying to solve the 360 integration issue between payroll and 401k. But what is the use of solving that if your call center staff is not seasoned and if the hold times are enough to damped interest?

Being able to get info on past paychecks

Not being able to enter payroll. I have to resort to either calling or emailing my rep

None

They take care of paying taxes and filing all related paperwork. I barely have to think about it.

The customer service has gone WAY downhill in the last few years. I don't get replies to most of my requests. They generally do get taken care of, but if they don't there is no accountability whatsoever. They're also pretty useless when it comes to unusual situations. This past year when we were trying to get ERC money by including it on our form 941, they had no idea how I could go about making a change to a form they fill out automatically. I finally just sent them a spreadsheet and hoped for the best.

Provides direct deposit and online check stubs for my employees.

Everything is customizable if you know how to do it. There are tons of options to configure staff profiles. We have found some features don't work quite the way we were promised when purchasing. Almost no downtime.

Very cumbersome onboarding process. Admin have to input staff information into system. Then employees have to create a user profile and enter all the same information. User account creation is extremely overcomplicated for many end users. No good resources for onboarding. Completely disjointed experience across each module. Designated support lines for each module. Need help with Payroll? Call one number. Need help with Time and attendance? Call another number. Have a question about how Payroll and Time and Attendance interact? Nobody knows. I've been told that this system is better for companies with under 50 employees. I found that the disjointed experience existed when we were at 35 people. I've also experienced no outreach, besides sales. Nobody checks in to see that things are running smoothly. So, maybe this could be a better system, but nobody there is helping us to improve our experience.

For now, it is processing our Payroll and we use it to track time and attendance (including time off). Payroll integration with check distribution is helpful. Providing 401K maintenance is a nice feature.

All in one stop for payroll needs. Pretty nifty.

Software is down and errors out often, Payroll team that you send your files too frequently has errors on the payroll; often, we had payroll sent in that just wasn't processed, so employees didn't get paid.

N/A

Ultimately you can find what you're looking for, but it's difficult.

reports seem to be no longer available after a period of time. These are financial records, and should be available for years. I should not be penalized because I didn't download one.

none

The best part of Paychex has been the layout of the information available.

I have been trying for nearly a year to get my Company's information to come up on my Paychex Flex login with no success. I have requested correction for this at least a dozen times and no employee seems to be able to correct the situation.

It would be very helpful if I could get into my Company's info from Paychex Flex, but I can't.

Don't know, haven't gotten to use it yet.

No one has returned calls regarding our account, so I can't tell if it will be easy to use or not.

None

Over all the product is average - 5 out of 10. Entering in time is the best feature, I like that I can resize columns, save different layouts, etc on the time entry screen.

Let's see - If I click on Help > Help, this function doesn't actually work on my Chrome, Safari, Edge, or Firefox browsers. Sometimes one thing may work on one browser, such as "Search", another time something else may work on another browser, such as browsing alphabetically, but the help site overall is very poor and doesn't really do much good. Yes, I have tried no fewer than four browsers and no fewer than three computers, in various combinations. Training: There's no way to search for the specific topic you're interested in, you can only browse. And the training is very basic. Contact: You would assume there would be a "contact" button for issues. There isn't. If you click on Help and Having Trouble, it gives you a number to call, but no email so you can send your issue and get on with your day. The impression that I get from that, intended or not, is that they really want to discourage me from contacting them.

Well so far - none. I would like to eventually work up to having a full-service product that handles my payroll, benefits, human resources, and retirement, but so far after six weeks no area is 100% functioning.

It certainly has all the tools an HR software needs to have. Knowing that we can scale up is a good thing.

It wasn't easy to use. Too clunky and not very user friendly.

I am able to track my pay and easily see my pay stubs.

Its easy to clock in and our using the mobile app which is a great feature since I am usually working outside of the office. It is easy to login to obtain check stubs and W2's as needed.

At the time we used it, you were limited to what you could do on the mobile app. such as viewing hours worked.

The company that I work for decided after a year to no longer continue with this software as it did not meet our needs for time tracking.

I am able to login and view my paycheck from any laptop, not needed to check from my work laptop. I can even login through my phone. Additionally it is secure as it sends me a verification code for each login.

Bad customer support. I requested help in refunding SSN tax, which had been deducted by a mistake of Paychex, they refused to do it. they also did not send me the W2. I had to call multiple times to receive it.

Small companies are able to outsource their payroll to third party vendors and concentrate on their main business