Payroll management can be time-consuming and challenging for growing businesses and startups. Many firms are turning to payroll systems that automate and streamline the process to make the process easier and more efficient.

Payroll can be a source of anxiety for a founder – we get it!

This blog post will expose you to the best five payroll solutions for managing your payroll and money in 2023.

Gusto

Gusto is a well-known payroll software for small businesses and startups that provides automated payroll and tax filing. It makes paying your employees, filing taxes, and handling other payroll-related activities simple. Gusto’s primary features are as follows:

Automatic payroll provides automated payroll processing, eliminating the need to calculate and pay your employees’ salaries manually.
Tax compliance: calculates and files your federal, state, and local payroll taxes, allowing you to avoid costly errors and penalties. These filings are automated.
HR features: provides HR capabilities like employee onboarding, time off monitoring, and document storage.
Affordable pricing: offers fair pricing with no hidden fees and multiple price plans to match different budgets and needs.
Integrations: integrates with QBO, Xero, Freshbooks, Shopify, and more.

Gusto is a powerful and user-friendly tool that can help you streamline your startup’s finance function and HR tasks. It is our number one recommended platform for tech start-ups due to its tech-forward approach and integration features. It also has a solid benefits administration, making Gusto an excellent choice for start-up founders looking for easy-to-use, affordable payroll service software. The customer support at Gusto is also outstanding and makes it very easy to work with them. We at Cypher ensure all of our founders get the help they need from our Gusto account manager to set up their payroll correctly.

Paychex

Unlike Gusto, Paychex has been on the market for over 50 years. Paychex is also an all-in-one HR solution. It offers a more comprehensive range of HR and payroll solutions.

Here are some of the key features of Paychex:

Talent and Workforce Management: streamlines the hiring and onboarding process.
Payroll & Financial Support: offers employee payment and manages taxes, bills, and more. It provides direct deposit as well as the in-house printed checks option.
Employee Benefits, PR, and HR management: offers employee benefits at the standard of a professional employer organization. It differs from Gusto, which integrates and partners with third-party brokers for employee benefits.
Employee Experience: provides access to self-service HR, training, and finance tools to save time and enhance accuracy.
Integrations: connects and transfers data between Paychex Flex and applications such as QBO, Xero, Clover, and Glassdoor.

Paychex is a complete, easy-to-use program that would be great for businesses with an established workforce. It is a top choice if health insurance options or a fully outsourced HR system is a priority. Paychex might be an overkill for early-stage or seed-stage startups with less than ten employees.

OnPay

Onpay is a SaaS cloud-based human resources platform that assists over 11,000 small and mid-sized businesses. Here are some of Onpay’s primary features:

Payroll processing: includes unlimited payroll processing. Tax calculations and filings are automated.
Human resource administration: offers a consolidated platform for managing employee data, benefits, and compliance.
Benefits administration: assists in employee benefits such as health insurance, retirement programs, and commuter perks.
Time tracking: provides access to a time tracking feature that allows employees to clock in and out, register their hours, and request time off.

Onpay offers a variety of price plans that vary depending on the features provided. It is a cheaper option than the two options above. Although Gusto remains our top choice, Onpay has multiple positive reviews from previous customers and would be a good option for early-stage founders looking for a cheaper payroll platform.

ADP

ADP Workforce provides tools to manage your workforce and make data-driven choices, not merely tracking HR information. As you expand, you can add features you require. Here are some of ADP’s essential features:

All-in-one: handles all your people management operations – payroll, HR, time, talent, and benefits — from a single database.
Self-assured Compliance: provides extensive compliance knowledge and solutions, including in-house retirement plans.
Usability: includes less automation than the other online platforms.
Insights into the workflow: provides insights on streamlining workflows.
An integrated and linked ecosystem: Integrations are available but only on some applications on the market.

Although ADP is a robust and comprehensive company that may help you manage your company’s human resources, we wouldn’t recommend it if you have a tight budget. It is more pricey and charges for most additional features. ADP is not tech-driven as Gusto and does not always present a great fit for companies using multiple online platforms. However, ADP could be a great fit for larger organizations that need more customized HR workflows.

Square Payroll

Square is an online application for small businesses and startups looking to simplify their process. You can save time and money by automating payroll tasks and maintaining compliance with state and federal tax requirements with Square Payroll. Here are some it’s important features:

Automated payroll processing: automatically calculates and processes your payroll, including taxes and deductions.
Employee self-service: gives your employees online access to their pay stubs, tax forms, and other payroll information.
Time tracking: provides time tracking features that allow you to track and sync your employees’ hours with your payroll.
Benefits administration: provides benefits administration solutions to assist you in managing your employees’ health insurance, retirement programs, and other benefits.
Affordable pricing: provides honest and cheap pricing with no hidden fees or long-term contracts.

It is a great and cheaper tool for small businesses and startups that want to save time, reduce administrative burden, and ensure compliance with tax laws. However, you must think of growth plans when selecting your tool and ensure that Square can continue satisfying your payroll needs as you add more team members.

Conclusion

We examined the top 5 payroll tools in this post to help you streamline your business in 2023. These platforms offer a wide range of features that can help you automate payroll, manage employee benefits, and ensure you’re paying the right taxes.

While each application has its own features and pricing, it is crucial to consider the best fit for your business model and industry. If you have doubts, connect with us for a free built-for-you tech stack to show you how to streamline workflows and integrate payroll transactions.