Patriot Payroll

The simplicity of the software is so user-friendly. Also, if you do have a question you can call and speak with a professional and get patient and competent help and you don't have to strain to try to understand through a thick accent as to what is being said.

If you don't have anything nice to say, say nothing at all.

It is very inexpensive and takes on clients that have very few employees. Customer service reps are EXTREMELY HELPFUL, polite, and very knowledgeable of the program abilities and shortfalls.

You can cancel ANYTIME, but then you have to send all the State/Government taxes collect to their respective agencies with the appropriate paperwork. Patriot sends all the taxes back to you to deal with. Some taxes are due annually, due the end of January, so if you want Patriot to file it, you have to keep the subscription until that date. Nickel and diming. If you want them to track sick days, accumulated vacation days etc, it is included. If you want your employees to be able to track it through the online portal, that will cost you additional per month. Check out the list of add-ons to determine what is important to you.
They offer QuickBooks import of data, but I have yet to see how anything matches anything on the bank statement. Like taxes are deducted from payroll, they show in a different month than the payroll, and the payroll imports as the gross amount which is not the amount sent to the employee by NatPay. If you use a dummy account in your accounting software (QuickBooks) to run all the payroll functions through, this will not bother you and your accountant will made the journal entry additional adjustments. I could not get my first payroll to reconcile, and it was determined that Patriot made an error and did not collect $ 3.60 in taxes somewhere. I am going with when the taxes were going to be sent to the agency, the error would have been found and corrected (depending on the tax agency, some are sent monthly, some quarterly, some annually.) The next payrolls were done correctly.
NatPay is a 3rd party vendor that facilitates the employee direct deposit. If you enter a payroll incorrectly and want to cancel, even seconds later, Patriot says it is canceled, but you have to CALL NATPAY otherwise it goes through. Be sure to not miss the pop-up warning. I was advised they are working on a better solution to make sure it is clear what to do in order to cancel a mistake payroll that was submitted.
The site is not all that easy to navigate. There are report and default options that may not be easy to locate how to set. Strongly suggest that you contact customer services and they will walk you quickly through the process.
I have worked with 4 different Payroll service companies over the last couple of years. They are not all the same, they each have strengths and weaknesses and wide range of costs. From what I can tell, they all do the payroll functions of collecting and distributing employee payments and taxes correctly. The big difference, besides costs, is what they include in the base price, and if/how they enter this information into your accounting system like QuickBooks. With any payroll service, you always have the option to enter it manually into your system from the paystubs which ensure it is entered how you want it.

Easy to use and help line staff are wonderful. It cost a fraction of what QB cost with more service.

Setting it up the first time because it was different that what I was used to. But the help line folks were very helpful

What's not to love? Easy employee set up, easy weekly payroll entry, easy wire instructions if I enter payroll late, affordable monthly fee, and quick answers to online chat. When I've had to email questions or changes, it may take 1/2 to 1 business day for them to get back to me, but the cheerful and accurate answers are much appreciated.

Employees complain about the online portal they use, but as an employee myself, I think the portal works as intended.