TriNet Zenefits Review: Is It Right for Your Business in 2022?

TriNet Zenefits (formerly Zenefits) is an HR platform that helps businesses hire, onboard, pay, and manage their employees. It also offers time tracking, employee benefits, and compensation management tools. Businesses like it because it’s flexible, offers a wide range of HR solutions, and helps ensure they are complying with tax laws and labor regulations.

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What We Recommend TriNet Zenefits For

Launched in 2013, TriNet Zenefits started out as a product to manage insurance and employee benefits in a single platform, and then grew from there. Now, its core product is HR, but you can buy payroll as an add-on. It has all the essential features you need to streamline HR processes and manage people operations, which is why it is one of our top picks for best HR software for small business.

In short, TriNet Zenefits is best for:

• Employers who need an affordable payroll tool: TriNet Zenefits’ payroll module may be a paid add-on to its HR plans, but the cost is still affordable. Its basic Essentials tier with payroll is priced only at $16 per employee monthly—much cheaper than the basic plans of small business payroll software providers like Gusto.
• Growing businesses with a small HR department: Rated as one of our top HRIS/HRMS software for small businesses, TriNet Zenefits offers a comprehensive HR platform for managing the entire employee lifecycle, from pre-hire to retirement. Onboarding is completely electronic, so your HR team doesn’t have to spend time collecting paperwork or managing checklists on paper. Employees also have access to an online portal where they can view their personal information and submit requests, like for paid time off (PTO). This reduces the administrative tasks your HR staff handles, making employees more self-sufficient.
• Companies with hourly workers: Time tracking and scheduling is included in all of TriNet Zenefits’ HR plans. Aside from creating staff work schedules and monitoring PTO requests, its clock-in locations and clock-in identity verifications can help prevent buddy punching while tracking employee attendance.

When TriNet Zenefits Would Not Be a Good Fit

• Companies that only need help with payroll: If your small company simply needs payroll, this product can be costly. TriNet Zenefits’ Essential HR package plus payroll costs $16 per employee monthly. If you only have 10 employees, you can find other solutions that let you run payroll without having to sign up for the extras. Check out our article on the best free payroll services to learn more about the top payroll options.
• Employers looking for an all-in-one HR and IT platform: TriNet Zenefits may have a wide range of HR solutions, but it lacks basic IT tools to help you manage the provisioning and deprovisioning processes when providing employees their company computers and business software. We recommend Rippling if you want robust solutions for handling HR, payroll, and benefits, including computer devices and employee apps.
• Businesses that need global payroll tools: While TriNet Zenefits can help you onboard international workers, it lacks the capability to pay their salaries. This is where the services of a global payroll provider can come in handy. For a list of suitable options, check out our best international payroll software guide.

TriNet Zenefits Overview

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TriNet Zenefits Pricing

TriNet Zenefits’ pricing is very affordable—monthly fees range from $10 to $27 per employee. You can choose from three options (Essentials, Growth, and Zen) and each comes with a variety of HR solutions, from onboarding to employee information management and compensation planning. However, payroll and HR advisory services are paid add-ons. All plans and add-on products also require a minimum of five employees, so if you have fewer employees, you still have to pay the minimum five user seats for your chosen plan and each add-on you use.

*Discount available if you sign up for an annual contract

**Includes tools and pre-built assessments to help measure and track employee well-being

TriNet Zenefits Add-ons

• Payroll and payroll tax filings: $6 per employee monthly
• Benefits administration using your own broker: $5 per employee monthly
• HR advisory services: $10 per employee monthly ($8 per employee monthly if billed annually)

TriNet Zenefits Features

TriNet Zenefits offers a free demo with populated sample data so that you can test its HR and payroll tools. Navigating through its system is easy, and you can quickly add new employees or change staff details when needed. And, in case you’re already using TriNet Zenefits’ HR platform and plan to get its payroll product, adding this module won’t be difficult at all to adopt.

HR Tools

TriNet Zenefits helps onboard your employees, as the system is set up to allow them to complete their new hire paperwork online. It also enables you to send offer letters and run background checks. Maintaining an online staff database is also made easy with TriNet Zenefits’ employee management tool. It even includes org charts, reports, and employee directories.

With TriNet Zenefits’ higher tiers, you are granted access to compensation planning, well-being and productivity assessments, employee engagement surveys, and performance management tools. It even provides a “People Hub” where you can post company updates, communicate with employees, and track tasks. If you need assistance on how to handle HR and payroll issues, TriNet Zenefits provides advisory services but for a fee ($10 per employee monthly).

TriNet Zenefits has a document management tool that lets you store and track forms that employees are required to submit.

Payroll Processing

TriNet Zenefits offers a complete payroll processing solution. Available as an add-on to your base plan, it can handle multiple pay rates, complex deductions, different payout schedules, and payments for hourly and salaried employees, including contract workers. Salary payments are processed either as paper checks or through direct deposits. It also supports wage garnishments and tip reporting and can even send child-support payments to the applicable agencies.

With TriNet Zenefits, you can run payroll as many times as you need. While it allows you to input bonus amounts directly into its system, you don’t need to manually add your employees’ pay rates, actual hours worked, and benefits deductions since TriNet Zenefits automatically lifts the information from its other modules.

Aside from letting you run payroll, the Zenefits Payroll dashboard contains important reminders and tasks, including a list of your previous pay runs.

Tax Services

Employee Benefits

TriNet Zenefits can help you search for benefits that you can offer to employees. The options include medical, vision, dental, 401(k), flexible spending accounts (FSAs), health savings accounts (HSAs), life and disability, and commuter benefits.

With its TriNet Zenefits Health Insurance Marketplace, you are granted access to certified brokers and carriers (such as Humana, UnitedHealthcare, and Guardian) that can provide online quotes and the best health plan coverage for your workforce. You can even compare plans directly from TriNet Zenefits and have your employees complete their enrollments online.

You can choose to continue using your own benefits broker and integrate your existing plans into TriNet Zenefits’ platform. However, you have to pay $5 per employee monthly for the service.

With Zenefits, you can easily track your employees’ benefits enrollments online.

Time Tracking & Scheduling

While many payroll solutions include time tracking features, the tools are often limited, and you have to upgrade to a higher plan or pay extra for it. TriNet Zenefits competes well with the best time tracking software as all its HR plans come with robust tools to help you monitor complex schedules, employee attendance, schedule changes, and project hours. It also includes a mobile app for clocking in/out, viewing time data, and requesting PTO in addition to accessing benefits details and pay stubs.

TriNet Zenefits’ Time and Attendance dashboard lets you review employee time sheets and shows who is working and on a break in real time.

Reporting

TriNet Zenefits provides extensive reporting options to give you better business insight. Its general reports include employee attendance, labor distribution, and payroll summaries. You can also generate comprehensive reports that show meal break compliance, deductions and contributions, garnishments audits, and tax liabilities.

Zenefits’ reporting options are shown side-by-side, making it easy for you to find the ones you need.

Third-party Software Integrations

TriNet Zenefits Ease of Use

• Onboarding support
• Intuitive admin dashboard
• Chat, email, and phone support
• HR and payroll advisers available
• Active user forum
• Self-service training portal
• Online “Zen Assistant” help tool

TriNet Zenefits’ platform is simple to set up and use. You shouldn’t run into any issues setting up your company and performing basic functions. It includes features that automate essential HR processes, from onboarding new hires and tracking employee attendance to calculating salaries and deductions and paying and filing payroll taxes. This takes a lot of stress off your valuable company resources, helping you and your HR team focus less on day-to-day administrative tasks.

TriNet Zenefits also offers a wide range of do-it-yourself support online, including an active forum where you can interact with other TriNet Zenefits users. You can also use its online “Zen Assistant” tool to access help articles and how-to guides. If you want to contact TriNet Zenefits’ customer service via phone, its support team is available Mondays to Fridays from 7 a.m.–4 p.m. Pacific time. However, you need to have your TriNet Zenefits ID and case reference number (which you can get through Zen Assistant) on hand as these will be asked from you.

Subscribing to TriNet Zenefits’ paid advisory services also grants you access to HR and payroll advisers. You can contact them via email or phone Mondays to Fridays from 8 a.m.–5 p.m. Pacific time in case you need expert advice on how to handle HR, compliance, and payroll issues. TriNet Zenefits’ advisory team can even help you review your company policies and employee handbook.

What Users Think About TriNet Zenefits

Most of the online TriNet Zenefits reviews are positive, with users commonly remarking on how feature-rich and easy to use it is. They also like how it helps them to save time when processing payroll and HR tasks like onboarding. However, some said they wish its integration options were more robust, while others complained about the slow response time of its support team and having experienced software glitches from time to time.

At the time of publication, TriNet Zenefits earned the following scores on popular user review sites:

• Capterra: 4.2 out of 5 based on 780+ reviews
• G2: 4 out of 5 based on about 430 reviews

Top TriNet Zenefits Alternatives

Visit Gusto	Visit QuickBooks Payroll	Visit Square Payroll
Best for: Small businesses looking for full-service payroll	Best for: QuickBooks accounting small business users	Best for: Retailers and restaurants
Base monthly fee from: $39	Base monthly fee from: $45	Base monthly fee from: $35
Per employee monthly fee from: $6	Per employee monthly fee from: $4	Per employee monthly fee from: $5
Read our Gusto review	Read our QuickBooks Payroll review	Read our Square Payroll review

If you’re not sure this solution is right for you, see how it compares with its top HR competitors.

Bottom Line

If you are looking for an HR solution that can help you with managing your employees throughout their employment, TriNet Zenefits may be a good fit. It offers robust HR tools with full-service payroll, automatic tax filings, and employee benefits options. While its payroll module is a paid add-on to its base HR plan, the cost is very reasonable and even cheaper than other small business payroll providers. If you need assistance, TriNet Zenefits provides an extensive library of how-to guides in addition to providing chat, email, and phone support.

Learn more about its functionalities—sign up for a TriNet Zenefits demo today.

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