Ascentis Pricing, Features, Reviews & Comparison of Alternatives

We've used HR Office for about 20 years now -- started out with the in-house Access version and have used the .asp version since about 2001/2002.

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I have now had Ascentis HR for 2 months, and Payroll for a month, and I can sum my experience up in 4 words: Thank goodness for Ascentis. We are a small to medium company with the unique feature of being made up of multiple FEINs. We are also on an aggressive growth plan in terms of expansion. Although the company has been around for more than 30 years, it's only been in the last 5 it's gone from a small family business to a regional (soon to be national) distributor. When I took on the position with this company to build a HR department and functions, one of the task requirements/ requests from the owner was to bring payroll inhouse within the first year. Payroll was being managed by the accountants, and it was neither cost-effective or timely; corrections were always a challenge. The existing HR software, Sage, was full of bugs and not managing tasks effectively. Much of the historical data was inaccurate, as well. Literally, I was printing out time punch reports, manually entering onto a spreadsheet, and at the end of the paycycle emailing it to the accountant with all changes/corrections the very next business day. And then sending someone an hour away to pick up checks. And same for corrections. Not anymore. I did quite a bit of research early on for the right system. The multiple FEINs made some systems much more expensive. And even though I'm in a culture that has been embracing change, I knew doing everything at once would create shock waves. Additionally, the projected growth made it so easy, expandability was a absolute necessity. Finally, the system would need to be easy enough and intuitive enough to teach a Vice President to be an emergency backup. Selection of Ascentis was easy, actually. I asked lots of questions, and the response was usually either "oh, yes, of course, this is how we do that...." or "that does sound a little different, let me check" followed by "ok, this is how we can do that for you...". Things fit nicely. The implementation team has been wonderful. They made it easy, making sure I knew what they needed and when, and kept me updated on their statuses as well. I unexpectedly had to move up one of my timelines as my previous system had a different renewal date than I was originally told. It took two months to implement HR, and 3 to do Payroll, which in terms of transition is lightning speed. This is particularly true as I had other major projects going at the same time. Christy, Jean, Kimberly and the rest have been great about letting me mess around with it before going live, and been there to answer the phone as my safety net as I spend time double and triple checking things when I went live. We have had a few minor tech problems, and Jack solved them quickly and easily. Training was almost too much. There are videos, live demo, handbooks, and the team calls. They have been great about letting me do that part at my own pace. Once piece of advice: if you have more than one location, use the tax service. Payroll does not print coupons and is a little less helpful with the who-when part (although the related reports are awesome.) I have now had two zero-error payrolls; I had to make up mistakes to learn how to do that piece! We are likely adding Tax very soon, and anticipate adding Time later this year. We are eventually going to add self service. Ascentis has wonderful reports, and has cut the time involved significantly. It's less expensive, and just so easy to use. Even the Payroll person at the accountant who did it before is jealous.

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We have used the system for multiple business functions from open enrollment to employee reviews, etc. Each module has its own support, and once our employees learned the system, we don't field many questions. The system is reliable, and our employees trust the components (Timekeeper, LMS, Payroll, etc.). The reporting aspect is easy to use, and uploading documents is simple. We've built many customized "employee tabs" to be able to run customized reports, and are always working to improve our way of using the system to make our lives easier.

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We had always outsourced our HR and payroll, and as a rapidly growing company with more offices opening around the country, we were outgrowing the functionality of the third party HR firm; not to mention the enormous costs of their service fees, inflated benefit premiums, and customer service issues. During my research of in-house support software, Ascentis stood out for its completeness. There is a lot of software that will do HR, or payroll, or timekeeping, but I wanted something that was already built to work and flow together. I was looking for something that would provide a high level of detail in data storage and maintenance, as well as be customizable for the way we already operate. Ascentis definitely provides all of that, and has a good user interface as well. I appreciate how comprehensive it is - I'm happy that it handles our taxes as well as manages data flow to our benefits carriers through Carrier Connect. We began implementation in July 2012 and currently we use Time, Self-Service v 8.4, HR v 8.5, and Payroll 4.2.1. Since we started, there have already been big upgrades to Self Service and HR that has resolved some of the issues I was having. We have done an open enrollment already using the Self-Service, which creates a walk-through wizard for employees that makes the process of learning about company benefits and signing up for them really easy. The housing of the benefits structures is detailed and I was able to automatically build in nearly all the rules or restrictions that were associated with our plans. Implementation went smoothly overall - it was a daunting task but the support is terrific. Everyone I've talked to in all the software components are very available and patient, and extremely responsive. This was one of the most important considerations for me. This being our first time handling HR and payroll in-house, I knew we needed to work with a company that we could have a personal relationship with, and not be lost. I also appreciate the fact that the software is continually upgrading and improving. I do not expect anything to be perfect; it is more important to me that they are working to improve and are responsive. Any issues I've had, they have received thoughtfully and log the suggestions/needs to submit for potential changes. I'm extremely happy with the product and the company and look forward to continuing working with them.

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One of the things that I was looking for was an HR system that would link to the Payroll system so I wouldn’t have to do dual entries. This system provided that for me. The other tabs we have added on the HR side is Education (degrees held) and Salary survey information, so this has come in handy for requests that come up. It also makes it much easier for the EEOC reporting along with the Worker’s Compensation reports because data can be entered there too. The Employee Self-Service tool through Ascentis is very clean and uncluttered compared to other systems. I had another vendor do a presentation for me, and the screen itself looked way too overwhelming. I didn’t want to make it too difficult to use for both the managers and the employees. Since we have rolled out the Self-Service tool, my employees love it! They are so excited about the features and how much they can access for their own screens. In fact, we used the Open Enrollment feature so that the employees could go into this system to make changes for the upcoming year. The employees can also access their W-2 forms at any time during the year. I like everything: HR, Payroll, Timekeeping, Carrier Connect, and the Employee Self-Service tool.

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