We are a small employer with approximately 56 employees, and we are looking for a new payroll system. I would appriciate any suggestions from the forum. We currently have Sage Abra. What other companies should we be looking at?

We use Ceridian's web client.  They do the data management and hosting so there's no impact on your IT infrastructure.  That was a major component of our decision not to go with PayChex or Abra.  The Ceridian product has good training programs and includes HRIS and substantial reporting function, self help, and benefits administration portions that you can opt for.

Thanks TXHR. Does Cerdian also provide tax services? I'd love to get out frm under payroll taxes - including quarterly and year-end.

They do the tax and they take the liability.

We are in the process of searching for a new payroll system as well.  We currently have 100 employees and use Paychex.  We're meeting with Sage in 2 weeks. I'm curious as to what issues you have experienced with Sage.

FWIW, we found Ceridian > Paychex, although I've used Paychex happily before in smaller environments (20 EEs), and Sage was competitive in many ways with Ceridian.  At the time we did our shopping, Ceridian had far better reporting mechanisms.  Perhaps the biggest item in the plus column for Ceridian was that it is a hosted solution: no added drag on our IT infrastructure.

We use ADP's PayeXpert for processing payroll and ADP's exLaborManager for our electronic time clocks. They handle our taxes, direct deposit and our FSA! I couldn't be happier with ADP - they offer tons of training courses on-line (via webex) or at their facilities if you are near one. All of the courses are free of charge to ADP clients and they even offer certifications! They Client Services (Customer Service) for all areas is absolutely excellent!

 I've used Paychex in the past - they are o.k., but definitely not as good as ADP in my opinion.

We are a smaller company as well & we are charged per paycheck processed. Their rates are very competitive!

We found ADP to be more expensive than Ceridian.  They also didn't have a hosted service in our price range.  However, in our Ceridian training classes (also included), there were 3 different companies that said they were there, switching from ADP, because ADP messed up their 401(k)s.  Ironically, we use ADP for our 401(k) administration but not our payroll and have had no problems.

We do not use ADP for our 401(k) - actually it's a Simple IRA - so I wouldn't know about that part of ADP. We go through someone else for the Simple IRA & only do the payroll deductions thru ADP. I make the contribution pymnts to the plan via ACH.

 Anyway, I've never used Ceridian.

We use Payroll Solutions who is backed by RBC.  For us, it's a local company.  We looked at PayChex and ADP, the fees are almost the same with each company.  Solutions is web based (so there is no IT infrastructure drag) and they have a web based time clock.  They offer a simplistic HR system free with the Payroll.  We went with People-Trak for HRIS instead of using Solutions'.  I know they handle the W-2s.

We are pleased for various reasons but the main one is that we can call almost anyone in the company and if we need someone to stop by the office to explain things further, they will be there.  We have around 40 employees.  Good luck.

ADP is web based as well - including our time clocks! Our retail & wholesale staff uses time cards at the electronic timeclock (they're like a credit card they swipe) and our office personnel punch in on the web. Then when it's time to run payroll I just have to download all of the punches from the timeclock website and transfer it over to the payroll website - the entire process takes about 5-10 mintues! So I don't have to calculate anything manually. ADP handles our W-2's too!

 They offer many different versions too & can custom build something for your company. There are plenty of options we didn't choose including the HR portions just because I can handle the benefits tracking, COBRA, etc. on my own without paying extra.

Ceridian's HRIS is included with the payroll at no additional fee although certain modules do cost extra (e.g., benefits and self-help).  We use them for COBRA administration as well.  All the time and attendance features are available either through Ceridian or an approved partner (we went with CyberShift and use web clocks for admin and biometric clocks for production staff: no swipey cards).

Please consider going to www.estarnow.com. We use their services and have been extremely happy. They will take care of all of your tax needs, too.

Just curious, does Ceridian have the capability of us running several different company's payroll separately?  We process payrolls for many different companies, including doing taxes, but we're looking for new software that offers web-based capabilities for viewing paystubs, w-2's, etc.- something our current software does not offer.

Ceridian will manage multiple companies and multiple payroll service IDs within companies (e.g., to manage different union contracts).  Their self-help module will let people do all sorts of things but I'm not sure if W-2s are part of that (we don't use that module).  However, shortly after W-2s are printed and shipped, they send you a disk so you have the W-2s under your own control.  Electronic, printable pay stub history is part of the regular payroll system.  I was actually just using that feature a second ago to explain to a manager why his employee wouldn't likely accept a new position he was creating because it had more hours and more responsibilities for what amounts to the same pay on his check at the end of the week.