ADP Vantage (legacy) vs. ADP Workforce Now

ADP Vantage and ADP Workforce Now are both Human Capital Management (HCM) products offered by ADP. Each product is known for its core payroll function, but they also provide a full suite of HR capabilities, such as talent management and benefits administration. Workforce Now is designed for midsize to large businesses, while Vantage focuses on enterprises. 

ADP Vantage is an enterprise-focused HCM. It is used heavily for its payroll and related processes, such as timecards, scheduling, and PTO management, and Vantage provides these capabilities at scale. ADP Workforce Now is a cloud-based HR management system. It is used across company sizes but is most commonly found in midsized and large businesses. 

Features

ADP Vantage and ADP Workforce Now both have strong features tailored to their target company sizes. 

Vantage stands out for its payroll capabilities. Reviewers highlight the platform’s support for executing payroll across multiple high-volume pay groups simultaneously, which is crucial for enterprise scalability. Vantage’s reporting capabilities are also noteworthy, both in terms of prebuilt functionality and ad hoc reporting. Vantage also offers a range of supportive services, such as HR best practices and optimization assistance. 

While Workforce Now also has solid payroll capabilities, it’s focus on midsize companies scaling up is reflected in its cloud-first design. Reviewers frequently point to advantages from the cloud-based platform, such as employee self-service via web browser and reduced overhead for HR departments. Workforce Now is also relatively user-friendly for employees and other end-users. The ease of employee self-service reduces the time that HR administrators need to spend address employee confusion, questions, and concerns within their organizations. 

Limitations

There are some limitations to ADP Vantage and Workforce Now worth considering.

ADP Vantage’s enterprise scale can come at the cost of flexibility. Platform customization has been difficult to execute for some reviewers, as well as expensive. While this may be inconvenient for large enterprises, these barriers can be exclusionary for smaller organizations. Time management features, such as PTO requests and approval, has also been a difficult process for some users. 

In contrast, ADP Workforce Now runs into some scalability issues at high volumes. For instance, payroll administrators have to manually enter some payroll processes for certain groups, such as employees in multiple pay groups. User experiences with extended HR capability, such as performance and learning management, have also been more mixed. Some reviewers have cited performance issues and customization limitations. 

Pricing

ADP Vantage and ADP Workforce Now are both priced by quote from the vendor. Pricing varies by company size and which HR modules the company is looking to purchase and implement.