Feature

Priority (0-10)

R-Required
I-Nice to Have
N-Not Needed

Vendor 1
Rating  (1-3)

Vendor 2
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Vendor 3
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Comments

Company

How long have you been in business?

How many clients do you have?

What other modules do you have that are integrated with payroll?

Do you have clients in my states?

Support

How many support staff do you have?

Can support ever come to my office?

What are the support hours?

Are they open on weekends?

How much expertise does support have with taxes?

Can I escalate problems?

Is there multilanguage support?

Technical

Do you own your payroll software or lease it from another company?

How often to you roll out new features and enhancements?

Where is my data physically located?

Is the data stored at your company or held somewhere else?

Is the data continuously backed up?

Do you run annual business continuity tests?

Is all data encrypted when sent over the internet?

Was the system ever down for more than an hour last year?

If I move to another system from your system how will I convert my data?

Is there security at the module, file, or field level?

Can the administrative user control security for everyone else?

Are there reports of attempted breakins or improper access attempts?

Implementation

How long does it take for a new company to get setup?

Does the system allow for the importing of payroll data from my old system?

Do you have a printed guide for the implementation process?

Training

Do you provide payroll training?

Do you provide any live training?

Is there help built into the system?

Company Setup

Can you import company information?

Can you setup and modify pre-populated tables and user defined tables?

Can you setup all the defaults for employee fields?

Can you specify allowed pay periods?

Employee Setup

Can initial employee information be uploaded to the system?

Can you setup employee user defined fields?

Is there an automatic or user defined employee number?

Are there multiple pay types like salaried, hourly, commissioned, tips, etc?

Can you track citizenship and work permit information?

Can you setup bank information for direct deposit?

Can mass raises be generated?

Can payroll be tied to cost departments?

Can payroll be broken out to multiple cost departments?

Is there deduction priority management?

Payroll Processing

Can you input payroll online, by phone, by fax, by email, by import from excel?

Are there pre-payroll run reports?

Can employers generate manual checks?

Can you track bonuses and extra payments?

Can you process adjustments?

Are all the standard deductions automatic like federal, state, local, FICA and medicare?

Can you add other deductions like retirement plans, garnishments, savings plans, etc?

Can you track advances and the employee paying it back?

Is their union support for deductions and reporting?

Can you setup overtime and automatically calculate pay?

Can you track vacation and year end payouts?

Can you track paid leave?

Are Federal, State, and Local tax tables updated automatically?

Are State and Local tax updates done in all 50 states?

Are there start and stop dates for deductions?

Does the system maintain all federal and state regulations for garnishment processing?

Are garnishment payments automatically generated to the payee?

Does the system keep an audit trail of changes and actual payroll run?

Does the system print checks?

Can you have customizable check stock?

Does the system do direct deposit?

Does the provider stuff the checks into envelopes and deliver them to the employer?

Does the system calculate the final check for an employee?

Can your system setup non-employees?

Can you have inactive employees?

How long does the system maintain pay history for current and former employees?

Taxes

Is there historical access to tax information?

Does the system handle back dated tax law changes?

Does the employer get printed copies of all filed tax forms?

Does it support Electronic Federal Tax Filing?

Multi-State Tax Filing?

Does the system make sure taxes are actually paid?

Employee Service / Time and Attendance Tracking

Can employees enter time over the internet?

Is there any integration to a time clock punch in system?

Can employees see paystubs online throughout the year?

Can employees see W2 information online?

How many years of pay history can an employee see?

Year End

Are W2s automatically printed and mailed?

Are W2s available online for employer and employees?

Are 1099s automatically printed and mailed?

Are 1099s available online for employer and employees?

Reporting

How many predefined reports does the system have?

Are there reports that look for data discrepancies (bad birth date, etc)?

Does the system provide a report writing tool?

Does the system allow generation of reports on all fields?

Does the system provide point-in-time reporting capabilities?

Does the system have the ability to product headcount reports?

Does the system provide the ability to schedule standard reports?

Does the system provide the ability to set up and run batch reports?

Are standard reports available for OSHA and EEO requirements?

Is there any special employee setup required to print government compliance reports?

Human Resources / Benefits

Do you have an HR module outside of Payroll?

Do you integrate with any third party HR modules?

Does the system track worker's compensation information?

Does the payroll system integrate with benefits?

Will benefit election changes update payroll deductions?

Integration

Does the payroll system generate journal entries for my accounting system.

Are journal entries automatically created and integrated?

Does the payroll system integrate to my accounting system?

Does the payroll system integrate to my HR system?

Does the payroll system integrate to my Retirement / 401(k) system?