ZenPayroll Review: Modern Payroll, Delightfully Executed

Price Range: $24/Month + $4/employee
Free Trial: Yes
Availability: Web
Who it’s for: Small Business
Compatible with: N/A
Our Rating:

“Welcome to delightful, modern payroll”

ZenPayroll was launched in 2012 in California. The company started to grow slowly and a year later expanded their services to a few more states until April 2015, when they launched their services to all of the United States. ZenPayroll is focused around having a simple and easy way to handle all of a company’s payroll needs.

ZenPayroll is made for small and medium sized businesses based on the number of employees. Most commonly ZenPayroll provides their services to companies with 1 to 75 employees. These companies can be in involved in endless industries like service, retail, customer service and many more. Smaller companies will benefit the most because the costs are low when handling less than a 100 employees’ payroll procedures.

Advantages of Using ZenPayroll

Employee Self-Onboarding

This is an extremely useful tool when hiring new employees to help run your business. When you hire a new employee you typically have to deliver paper work to them and enter into your system and then send it to the government. ZenPayroll takes all these steps and turns them into just one single, easy, and simple step. While using the system you click “new employee”, then you enter their name and email. ZenPayroll then sends paper work to the employee, then files it for you and sends the proper forms to the government. This feature turns a multi-hour task into a few clicks of a mouse. This tool not only saves you money but also time that you can now use to run and grow your business and give your customers the best experience and service.

Low Costs and No Fees

A typical payroll company has a higher base price compared to ZenPayroll for their services but the competitors also have a lot of charges throughout a month along with a setup fee. ZenPayroll’s base fee is $25 plus a $4 per employee per month charge, whereas the competition charges anywhere from $65 to $100 per pay period. So if your company has 2 pay periods per month. The costs are already 8X higher. That does not include the price of checks, which can range from $3 to $4 per check. ZenPayroll does not charge for checks. Their only fees are the base fee and small fee per employee ($25+4/employee), whereas the other companies nickel and dime the businesses. There are no sick and vacation day recording fees, no W2 fees, and no start up fees. ZenPayroll focuses on you, your business, and your employees instead of focusing on charging you.

Auto Tax Filing

ZenPayroll is very big on having you do less. For automatic tax filing, there is no work for you to do. ZenPayroll calculates taxes for you based off the employees and information in your account. In the past you would have to complete a form, make a payment, and mail it, but with ZenPayroll they take care of all 3 of those steps. No paper, no forms, no confusion.

Quick and Easy Processes

Payroll can take 10 or 20 hours out of a month depending on the size of your company. ZenPayroll makes it fast and simple to complete the whole payroll process. All you need to do is enter the hours your employees worked in that period. You also have the option to add commission, bonuses, and reimbursements. ZenPayroll then takes that information and prepares for payday. The software will deduct withholdings like health insurance or retirement policies like a 401K and also the proper taxes. Then on payday the checks will be direct deposited into your employees’ accounts along with an email saying thank you with a link to their pay stub. The employees will all be paid on time and be happy. Also if there is a mistake or correction to be made to the payroll, there is a feature that allows you to adjust the information and the program will be ran again in a matter of minutes.

Integration

ZenPayroll is very user friendly, but not only for your business but also for third party companies or even your bookkeeper and/or accountant. ZenPayroll is able to integrate with third party companies like accounting software company to make your business run more effectively. For example, Xero, a small business accounting software, is able to send wages and hours to ZenPayroll and then the costs and tax information will be sent back to Xero. The two systems can work together so you don’t have to transfer information back and forth.

Additionally, ZenPayroll is able to integrate with bookkeepers. There is a feature available to bookkeepers that allow them to enter into your account temporarily in a contributor mode. From there they are able to access necessary information to do their job. With a few clicks they are able to run reports and retrieve tax and wage information.

Limitations of ZenPayroll

Transition to ZenPayroll Can Be Tedious

Businesses just starting and setting up their business will find ZenPayroll very easy to use and create an account. But unfortunately, businesses switching from a different payroll company to ZenPayroll may find it a little harder to begin using the system. It can take some time to upload the currently employees information. If you have numerous employees it could take a few hours of repetitious work to complete the setup. However, a temporary solution is to wait until the year is over and then switch because the books will be fresh.

Uploading Files

Another feature that ZenPayroll doesn’t have that some of its competitors do is file and contract uploading. Users agree it would be useful to be able to attach a file or document to a report produced by ZenPayroll.

Final Verdict

Overall, ZenPayroll has the ability to run all the payroll needs of a small business for a fair price. There aren’t any hidden charges or fees that will slow a business down. With many features and an easy to use interface the job can be done effectively and efficiently. To learn more about ZenPayroll, visit their website, https://zenpayroll.com/. Or download the free trial, zenpayroll.com/company_leads.