Paycom Review: Is It the Right HR Payroll Software for Your Business?
Charlette has over 10 years of experience in accounting and finance and 2 years of partnering with HR leaders on freelance projects. She uses this extensive experience to answer your questions about payroll.
Robie has more than five years of content writing experience and specializes in writing about payroll and human resources software for small businesses.
This article is part of a larger series on Payroll Services.
Paycom is a comprehensive HR and payroll software for businesses that want to manage all their HR functions in one system. Its platform is designed to streamline and automate recruitment, time and attendance, payroll, benefits, and talent management processes. Paycom is best for growing businesses and midsize to large companies that want to take advantage of its integrated human capital management (HCM) system.
What We Recommend Paycom For
Paycom’s suite of HR and payroll solutions helps businesses manage their employees from time of hire to retirement. It lets you track applicants, onboard new hires, monitor time and attendance, pay employees, and deploy online training programs, among other tasks. It also offers mobile apps that allow your employees to view their information, pay stubs, and tax forms and, uniquely, run payroll themselves. This makes Paycom ideal for those who want a comprehensive platform with integrated solutions to lessen the burden of handling day-to-day HR administrative tasks.
In short, Paycom is best for:
- Growing businesses switching from a smaller provider: Changing payroll providers can be an intricate process but is necessary when you outgrow your old one. Paycom has a wide range of features (recruiting, payroll, HR, and benefits) to handle the HR requirements of growing businesses and midsize to large companies. It even provides a dedicated specialist so you get all the support you need, not just during setup but when managing payroll and HR as well.
- Firms that are hiring and want to streamline talent acquisition and management processes: Paycom’s recruitment and onboarding tools can help you find qualified candidates for open positions, monitor applicants as they move through the hiring process, and onboard new hires. Paycom also has online solutions for improving engagement through online learning sessions to boost skills, performance assessments to identify improvement areas, and compensation planning to reward and retain employees.
- Companies with remote workers: Paycom offers solid mobile apps (for iOS and Android devices) that employees and managers or system administrators can use when working out of the office—provided internet connection is available. Managers and system administrators can review and approve paid time off (PTO) requests, time and attendance details, and expense claims. Employees, on the other hand, can check their hours worked, update personal information, view pay stubs and tax reports, and even run their own payroll for every pay period.
When Paycom Would Not Be a Good Fit
- Small businesses needing basic payroll and HR: Small businesses may find Paycom’s extensive line of HR tools overwhelming, and there can be a learning curve due to all of the features available. It’s also not the most affordable solution for those just needing to process employee payroll. Check out our guide to free payroll software for more options.
- Companies looking for robust third-party software integrations: While Paycom has a GL Concierge feature, which makes it easy to create mapped reports that you can load into your accounting software, it doesn’t have robust integration options with third-party software. If you’re using multiple HR solutions from other providers and don’t want to switch to Paycom’s fully integrated system, consider our other recommended payroll software and HR payroll solutions, as many of these integrate with several third-party tools.
Looking for something different? Read our guide to the best payroll services for small businesses to find a service or software that’s right for you.
Paycom Overview
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
| Automated payroll processing and tax filings | Pricing isn’t transparent |
| Offers a wide variety of HR and payroll tools in one platform, including expense tracking | Has a slightly steep learning curve |
| Dedicated support specialist | Limited third-party software integrations |
Paycom Pricing
Paycom’s pricing is customized—you have to discuss your business’ requirements with the provider and request a quote. The quote we received indicates a one-time fee for system setup, training, and implementation of $500 for 15 employees and $1,200 for 40 employees. Pay runs are priced at $4–$6 per employee, per paycheck with an additional $6.95 for each Form W-2 and a $75 annual transmittal fee. Its other HR services and solutions also require add-on fees, like time and attendance, which is an extra $4 per employee in our quote.
Paycom Features
Paycom is a cloud-based HR and payroll software that businesses can use to find, hire, onboard, pay, train, and retain talent. Its extensive tools are designed to automate your organization’s core HR and payroll processes while helping you manage your workforce efficiently. Here are some of Paycom’s essential features:
Payroll Processing
Paycom has removed the burden of processing payroll from HR and payroll administrators with its Beti solution, which is one of the functionalities of Paycom’s mobile apps for iOS and Android devices. Beti enables your staff to run their own payroll for each pay period. This provides your employees advanced knowledge and full insight into their expected paychecks and deductions while reducing the payroll work you and your HR team need to do.
Paycom’s Beti solution is great for companies that don’t have a lot of off-cycle payouts. You only need to set the recurring pay cycles in the system, and Beti will automatically notify employees when it’s time to process their own pay. Running payroll through Beti is also easy given its in-app guide that assists employees every step of the way—it even provides tips on handling pay errors (like missing time data). In case there are errors, Beti alerts the affected employees so they can address it before approving their payroll.
Paycom’s Beti lets employees check, review, and approve their own payroll.
(Source: Paycom)
Direct Deposits and Paper Checks
Paycom’s standard mode of salary payment is via direct deposit but it also supports paper checks you can issue from Paycom’s bank account and not yours. Aside from eliminating the need for check reconciliations after every pay run, this service helps lower bank charges and reduce your general ledger transactions.
Payroll Tax Management
Paycom automatically debits and deposits your payroll taxes on their due dates, and remits and files your payroll taxes on time. It can also file quarterly and year-end tax reports (Forms 940, 941, and W-2) on your behalf.
Time and Labor Management
Your employees can clock-in/out through Paycom’s web-based time clock, mobile app, and a physical time clock you can purchase or lease. Aside from editing and approving digital timecards, its time tracking software lets you add restrictions (such as geofencing and IP address filtering) to prevent unauthorized punches. Employees, on the other hand, can review and submit time sheets, request PTOs, and allocate hours to different projects and locations.
Paycom also comes with a scheduling solution that includes shift templates, schedule swapping, and labor cost forecasting tools. Further, all data from staff scheduling and time tracking flows automatically into its payroll module. This eliminates the need for manual data uploads since Paycom’s products work seamlessly with each other.
Paycom’s time clock terminals support clock-ins/outs through fingerprint scans, RFID card swipes, and proximity fob taps.
(Source: Paycom)
Talent Acquisition Tools
Paycom’s talent acquisition solutions let you post open positions across online job boards, track applicants, send customizable offer letters, onboard new hires, and run background checks. In addition, Paycom will help you determine whether or not job applicants may be Work Opportunity Tax Credits (WOTC)-eligible, allowing you to enjoy financial incentives for hiring individuals belonging to groups that typically face significant challenges in finding employment. Some of these groups include military veterans, former felons, and designated community residents in rural renewal counties and empowerment zones.
Paycom’s recruiter dashboard shows snapshots of your open requisitions, job listings, and candidate applications.
(Source: Paycom)
Talent Management
Develop your workforce and improve employee engagement with Paycom’s suite of talent management solutions. Aside from a learning management module where you can deploy online training courses, Paycom has a compensation budgeting tool for creating merit matrices. You can also use it to control your compensation budget and ensure that salary increases are equal to the employees’ work contributions.
To help monitor your staff’s work performance, you can use Paycom’s performance management module, which offers assessment forms that employees can fill out and submit online. People managers can also give real-time feedback, while system administrators can track the submission progress from a dashboard.
You and your employees can access performance reviews on Paycom’s mobile app.
(Source: Paycom)
Position Management
To help streamline the process of managing personnel movements through various positions in your organization, Paycom offers a customizable solution that allows you to create an org chart, manage reporting relationships between roles, and set up salary grades for positions. This is helpful when adding, promoting, and moving employees as it increases the visibility of vacant positions. And since position-related changes are captured automatically throughout Paycom’s platform, it reduces the risk of human errors due to manual data entry.
You can even assign attributes to positions to help you manage permission settings, training programs, performance reviews, and compensation planning. Plus, if you link positions to benefits eligibility profiles and time tracking protocols, you don’t need to manually tag which employees are entitled to specific benefits and time tracking rules (like overtime exemption)—Paycom will automatically reflect the changes.
Electronic Personnel Action Forms (e-PAFs)
Paycom eliminates the need to maintain physical PAFs to document changes in the employee’s position and salary, including when they were hired or separated from the company. Its PAF solution lets your managers edit and submit e-PAFs through its software or mobile app. It has built-in change categories to ensure that the reason for the movements are uniform and accurate. You can even link it to Paycom’s position management module so that the position titles used in the e-PAFs are consistent across the organization. All approved changes will also reflect automatically across Paycom’s various modules.
Paycom will also send the approved e-PAFs to the concerned employees. Your staff can access this through its software or mobile app; the system will require employees to accept the change (i.e., promotion, lateral movement, or salary adjustment) by clicking the “Acknowledge” button.
You can create e-PAFs directly through Paycom’s organization chart.
(Source: Paycom)
HR Management and Self-Service Portals
Paycom’s HR management solutions include tools for managing online documents, employee satisfaction surveys, and checklists for staff onboarding and offboarding. You can also use it to set up your company’s employee benefit plan/s, deduction amounts, and enrollment dates. It even comes with an “Ask Here” feature to help your workers find the answer to their HR and payroll questions. While it can route the employees’ queries to the appropriate HR staff, you can set up custom FAQs to automate the process.
In addition, Paycom offers a self-service portal for employees to clock-in/out, submit time off requests, view pay stubs, access tax forms, take online training courses, and update personal information. Managers also have access to a self-service portal to approve PTO requests, timecard edits, ePAFs, and schedule changes.
Paycom Ease of Use
- User-friendly and intuitive interface
- Integrated suite of HR and payroll solutions
- Hands-on transition process
- Access to a dedicated specialist
- Mobile apps for employees and managers
- Beti payroll for employees with a guided process
Paycom is easy to set up and use. As soon as an agreement is reached, the company assigns a dedicated specialist to help you through the setup process and answer your HR and payroll queries. For midsize and enterprise clients, a no-cost on-site training for you and your employees is also available.
What’s also great about Paycom is its integrated solution suite where data flows automatically from one module to another. The system sends your employees actual hours worked from its time and attendance solution to its payroll tool for processing. Similarly, employee movements and salary changes as reflected in approved e-PAFs are automatically updated throughout the software.
Processing payroll through its Beti solution is also made easy for employees. Beti guides your staff through the whole payroll process to ensure accurate and timely payouts. Plus, HR administrators don’t have to worry about employees changing their pay rates or time entries since everything goes through an online approval process.
What Users Think About Paycom
Users Like | Users Don’t Like |
|---|---|
Software is easy to use | Inconsistent customer support quality |
HR and payroll tools are available in one platform | Has a learning curve |
Robust mobile app | Occasional software lags and login glitches |
Many users left positive Paycom reviews on online third-party sites like G2 and Capterra. Most of them appreciate its easy-to-use interface and robust mobile app with functionalities that aren’t all available in similar apps. Others like that they can access several HR solutions in just one platform.
Several reviewers, however, said that it has a steep learning curve given the wide range of features it provides. Some also dislike the inconsistent quality of its customer service, while a few users complained about having experienced login errors and software glitches from time to time.
At the time of publication, Paycom reviews earned the following scores on popular user review sites:
- G2: 4.2 out of 5 based on some 880 reviews
- Capterra: 4.4 out of 5 based on 610+ reviews
Top Paycom Alternatives
Best for: Small businesses with fewer than 100 employees | Best for: QuickBooks accounting small business users | Best for: Retailers and restaurants |
Base monthly fee from: $39–$149 | Base monthly fee from: $45–$125 | Base monthly fee from: $35 |
Per employee monthly fee from: $6–$12 | Per employee monthly fee from: $4–$10 | Per employee monthly fee from: $5 |
If you need help evaluating which software is right for you, check out our guide on choosing the best payroll software.
Bottom Line
Paycom is a cloud-based payroll and HR software for scaling businesses to established large enterprises. It has a single-database solution that allows users to access all functions without logging into multiple systems. It also provides its users with information and monthly enhancements to get full advantage of its system. Users attested that it helped them improve their business processes a lot and has a great support team.
