ADP

About ADP Payroll

ADP provides payroll systems that are fast, easy to use and backed by expert support. ADP is ideal for small and large-scale businesses alike because it offers robust plan options with plenty of flexibility to accommodate growth, meaning employers can sign up for only the services they need and easily add on additional services whenever they’re ready. Here’s a look at some of the pros and cons of using ADP:

Services & Features

With 75 years of experience and more than a million businesses served, ADP is a leader in the payroll industry, offering smart solutions that take the burden of accuracy and compliance off your shoulders, freeing up your time to focus on other important aspects of your business. 

In addition to payroll, ADP offers a range of other services including time and attendance, talent management, benefits and insurance, HR outsourcing, compliance, AI capabilities and robust integrations. Next, we’ll delve into each of these services, to help you determine whether ADP is a good fit for your business needs.

Comprehensive Payroll

ADP offers payroll solutions for businesses of all sizes, so whether you have one employee, more than a thousand, or anywhere in between, ADP has your payroll needs covered.

Benefits to using ADP for payroll include:

• Process payroll in minutes, on your computer or via a smartphone app
• Set payroll on autopilot to run automatically on-schedule
• Automatic calculation, deduction and payment of payroll taxes
• Automatic quarterly and annual reporting 
• Forms W2 and 1099 created, mailed to employees and e-filed with the IRS on your behalf
• Easy integration with time tracking, scheduling and job costing for a seamless payroll experience and meaningful insights to help you grow your business
• IRS inquiries handled for you
• Compliance with payroll and tax requirements, wage and hour laws, new hire reporting and more, in all 50 states
• Intelligent tech that flags possible payroll errors for your review
• 24/7 live support via phone call or chat, plus a robust online help center with guides and articles

Time & Attendance

ADP’s time and attendance services include flexible time-tracking options, integration with payroll and more, to eliminate error-prone manual data entry and improve the accuracy of your payroll. 

Here’s how businesses can benefit from these services:

• Multiple Time-Tracking Options: Including physical time clocks, ADP Kiosk or enabling employees to use their computer or device to track time.
• Integration with ADP Payroll: Automates time, pay, benefits and more and helps you maintain payroll accuracy and compliance.
• Simplified Scheduling: Create, publish and manage schedules online, allow employees to swap shifts or request coverage, view real-time cost calculations and more, all from your computer or mobile device.

Talent Management

ADP has a full suite of talent management services to help support your business from recruitment to retirement. Here’s an overview of the services they offer:

• Recruiting & Hiring: Analytics and industry benchmarks for compensation and recruiting, software, data and services for hiring, screening services, digital onboarding tools and more to help simplify the hiring process.
• Talent Management & Activation: Integrated solutions for employee performance, development, engagement and more.
• Employee Experience: Tools to help create an engaging candidate experience, make it simple for employees to connect to their teams and identify unique strengths to help employees work with purpose. 

Benefits & Insurance 

ADP knows that in order for a business to thrive, they need to attract and retain the best employees—and an important part of that equation is offering attractive benefits packages. ADP can help with:

• Employee Benefits Administration: Simplified and engaging tools for employers and employees, including employee self-service, meaningful insights and innovative technology.
• Group Health Insurance: Offer medical, dental, vision, life, short- and long-term disability insurance and more via ADP’s affiliate insurance company. You’ll get year-round support, an established network of carriers and seamless integration with payroll.
• Retirement Plans: With seamless integration with ADP payroll, flexible plan options, personalized insights for your employees and solid security protocol, ADP’s retirement plan administration makes it simple for everyone.

PEO & HR Outsourcing 

ADP also offers Professional Employer Organization (PEO) and HR outsourcing services for businesses of all sizes. These full-service solutions give businesses access to dedicated experts and powerful technology that takes HR work off your plate and gives you time back to focus on other areas of your company.

Compliance

ADP SmartCompliance is a comprehensive and customizable suite of services that helps businesses stay ahead of compliance obligations, saving you time and reducing the complexity of these activities. 

Here’s an overview of these services:

• Payroll Taxes: Easily manage your employment tax registration, filing and remittance processes.
• Payment Solutions: Move money to your workforce with flexible, compliance-enabled payment solutions.
• Health Compliance: Proactively address Affordable Care Act and state health coverage reporting and requirements.
• Wage Garnishment: Improve efficiency of wage garnishment processing, court order responses and administration.
• Business Tax Credits: Harness ADP’s tax credit expertise to maximize tax credit opportunities that you may be eligible for.
• Contractor Management: Easily onboard, verify, manage and pay your 1099 workforce.
• Unemployment Claims: Improve claims management and help reduce unemployment insurance costs.
• Employment Verification: Simplify verification requests, speed up response times and protect privacy.

AI Capabilities

ADP Assist is the company’s AI-powered tool that can help with payroll, analytics and more. Here are some of the benefits of this feature:

• Automatically validates payroll information and flags potential errors for you.
• Receive notifications and easy-to-resolve approvals for missing timecard information.
• Make informed decisions faster with on-demand AI-driven analytics insights.
• Automate employee task reminders and set up nudges based on your employees’ roles and skills data.

Integrations 

From simple to complex integration solutions, ADP is able to meet the needs of every type of business. So whether you’re a small business looking to connect your apps, or an enterprise business interested in building custom integrations, ADP can help your business automate tasks, streamline processes and save time.

Plan Options

ADP offers a range of plan options, depending on business size. Small businesses with one to 49 employees can choose from four RUN Powered by ADP packages. Here’s an overview of these plans:

• Essential: Great for simple payroll, tax and compliance needs. 
• Enhanced: Suitable for more complex payroll needs, including garnishments, state unemployment insurance management, background checks and job postings via ZipRecruiter.
• Complete: Supports complex payroll needs, plus more advanced HR tools like live HR support, employee handbook wizard, proactive compliance alerts, HR guidance and job description wizard.
• HR Pro: Comprehensive suite of payroll and HR tools, including proactive HR support team, employee training, business advice and legal advice.

For midsize to enterprise businesses with 50 to 1,000 or more employees, there are three ADP Workforce Now packages available. Here’s an overview of each:

• Select: A streamlined suite of payroll and HR tools, suitable for simple business needs.
• Plus: Includes the same features as Select, plus benefits administration tools.
• Premium: Builds on the features of the Plus package, with the addition of Time and Attendance tools.

Pricing & Promotions

Due to the complexity of their plan offerings, ADP does not disclose pricing on their website. Instead, businesses are encouraged to call ADP directly, or complete their online form to have a rep reach out to you to discuss your business needs, answer questions and provide pricing information. This ensures that you’re matched with the right plan and services for your business needs, and you get your questions answered during the process.

ADP periodically offers promotions when you sign up for their payroll services. For instance, at the time of this writing, ADP was offering six months of small business payroll free for new customers with sign up.

How ADP Stacks Up

Now that we’ve covered services, features and plans, let’s take a look at how ADP stacks up against their competitors:

Bottom Line: Why We Love It

With 75 years in the business, there’s no denying it—ADP is king when it comes to the world of payroll. Only a company of this caliber will have the ability to serve businesses of all sizes. So whether you’re a small startup just getting off the ground or a midsize business looking to grow, ADP will have the tools necessary to get you to the next step, and serve your needs as a large-scale business as well. In addition to scalability, ADP excels with their customer support, from 24/7 live support to their dedicated new client onboarding support.

Automations, integrations and compliance tools ensure you get payroll and HR tasks done easily, quickly and correctly, freeing you up to work on other important tasks. ADP offers a wide range of services, so no matter your needs now or in the future, your business is covered with this one-stop solution. It tops our list for these reasons and more, and we recommend adding it to your shortlist as well.