ADP Workforce Now vs. Patriot Payroll

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
ADP Workforce Now
Score 8.0 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
ADP Workforce Now is a cloud-based HR platform for mid-sized businesses. It features customizable modules of various HR services that businesses can tailor to their specific needs, as well as regulatory monitoring and alerts to help businesses remain compliant.N/A
Patriot Payroll
Score 9.7 out of 10
N/A
Patriot Software headquartered in Canton, Ohio offers Patriot PAY, their benefits administration and payroll software.
$174
Pricing
ADP Workforce NowPatriot Payroll
Editions & Modules
Essential
Contact sales team
Enhanced
Contact sales team
Complete
Contact sales team
HR Pro
Contact sales team
Payroll Essentials
Contact sales team
HR Plus
Contact sales team
Hiring Advantage
Contact sales team
Performance Plus
Contact sales team
Basic Payroll
$17/mo + $4 per employee/contractor
Accounting Basic
$20/mo (unlimited use)
Accounting Premium
$30/mo (unlimited use)
Full Service Payroll
$37/mo + $4 per employee/contractor
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ADP Workforce NowPatriot Payroll
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPlease contact ADP for a product demo and ask about a hands-on "test drive" of Workforce Now.Patriot Software has two payroll options to choose from: Basic Payroll, and Full Service payroll software. Both start with a simple three-step payroll process. With the Full Service Payroll, Patriot will collect, deposit, and file federal, state, and local payroll taxes on the customer's behalf; end-of-the-year payroll tax filing is included at no extra charge. Print W2s on 8 x 1/2 x 11 plain white office paper to hand to employees, or post to the free employee portal. Also, Patriot Software offers free direct deposit.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
ADP Workforce NowPatriot Payroll
Considered Both Products
ADP Workforce Now
Chose ADP Workforce Now
Our company was with Paycom and while it was very customizable - it required a lot of manual entry / management - often in multiple places within the system. Paycom did not offer the ability to easily scale that we were looking for - they also did not have a clean solution for …
Chose ADP Workforce Now
They pale compared to ADP because they each have broken systems that do not flow from beginning to end. Another system is required to support all of the functions needed to process payroll. That puts too much on me, the person, instead of the system. We should work smarter, not …
Chose ADP Workforce Now
The employee facing app for Paycom is better than ADP but on the back side administration ADP is more robust and provides a better experience for the payroll professional.
Chose ADP Workforce Now
With Bamboo they do not process Canadian payroll so we would have had to use a 3rd party to set this up which would have cost us additional money.
Chose ADP Workforce Now
ADP is more comprehensive and has more resources to help with employee information.
Chose ADP Workforce Now
No other program used - was manually done prior to ADP inception many years ago
Chose ADP Workforce Now
We need it for capturing employee data
Chose ADP Workforce Now
We only considered ADP Workforce Now. Since we were already using Workforce Now in the US, we only considered this offering and did not explore other products
Chose ADP Workforce Now
ADP Workforce Now is so easy to use, like a iPhone. UKG Pro was to complicated like a Android making it to hard to use and you cannot find half the stuff you are looking for. ADP Workforce Now made an easy tool to work with and actually use.
Chose ADP Workforce Now
We had previously used ADP's Run platform and thought it would make for an easier transition. We could not have been more wrong. Pay information was not transferred, we were told we would have access to our reports in Run for a year instead we were locked out after a month. …
Chose ADP Workforce Now
ADP Workforce Now is quite robust on the payroll side, but my overall favourite is BamooHR.
Chose ADP Workforce Now
I think every other payroll service is better. I left Payce because they were bought out by Deluxe. Paycom was fine, but need a HR component to our growing company. ADP Workforce Now proclaims to have this service, but I think it only exists on their time line and schedule. …
Chose ADP Workforce Now
ADP Workforce Now is lightyears ahead of Paycom! ADP's ability to accommodate our payroll needs surpassed anything that Paycom had to offer.
Chose ADP Workforce Now
not particularly different, except I think the customer service is worse with ADP Workforce Now.
Chose ADP Workforce Now
Although this SAS takes longer to perform the everyday functions related to payroll and HR data input, the difference in this software and our previous software is like night and day. We were on a very old server platform and had too many issues with continuous need for backup.
Chose ADP Workforce Now
The same if not a little better suited in a "start from scratch" type of way.
Chose ADP Workforce Now
The value of ADP Workforce Now is immense compared to ADP Run. There's so much more that can be tracked and managed in ADP Workforce Now.
Chose ADP Workforce Now
I've never used anything else personally. However, I have seen certain Kronos products and can 100% see why ADP Workforce Now is superior. It is 100% customizable and adaptable to suit your needs. A lot of other products are not this way and you kind of have to work with …
Chose ADP Workforce Now
In our evaluation of HRIS/Payroll systems we found ADP to be the most robust platform with the greatest number of features, fair pricing, quality, knowledgeable staff and so forth. None of the other systems offered as many features or options at the right price point for our …
Patriot Payroll
Chose Patriot Payroll
I haven't tried any online ones.
Chose Patriot Payroll
Paychex is considerably more expensive software granted they have services and analytics that are not available in Patriot. I am a small business with a tight budget, and that's why I ultimately selected Patriot Software because I can reinvest the savings in so many ways.
Chose Patriot Payroll
Overall a much easier to use interface, a more competitive price point, excellent customer service—just what we needed for our small nonprofit.
Chose Patriot Payroll
I briefly used Intuit Online Payroll, and it was expensive, had no support, and was very frustrating to use.
I also used 3 local tax companies for payroll - they were extremely expensive and messed up all of the time. Their employee turnover was very annoying (and it seemed to …
Chose Patriot Payroll
Patriot Payroll is cheaper with their partner program and customer service seems better. As well Quickbooks Desktop Payroll specifically was charging per direct deposit action which is cost prohibitive and Quickbooks customer service is virtually non existent. As well, Patriot …
Chose Patriot Payroll
I found Patriot Software to offer the best price and service package for me to be able to process payroll for a number of my smaller clients while still allowing me to make a profit on the added revenue.
Chose Patriot Payroll
Quickbooks Online Payroll is literally the devil. They make things unclear, very difficult to tell what has been filed and what has been missed, hard to adjust owner salary whenever you want. I hate it! Gusto is more robust than Patriot and so for bigger companies with more …
Chose Patriot Payroll
I did an internet research and it seemed like Patriot Pay was the most user-friendly and affordable and I am glad I chose Patriot.
Chose Patriot Payroll
My early experience with Gusto was exceptional...then the wheels started falling off. I won't go into the details but I lost a couple payroll clients due to their errors and was on the verge of losing more. That coupled with massive fee increases made it necessary to find …
Chose Patriot Payroll
I did A LOT of research prior to making a decision on which software to use. Patriot had an abundance of high reviews, so I finally decided to give them a try. And while I don't normally find reasons to rave about software, I loved both the product and the service!
Chose Patriot Payroll
I switched from ADP to Patriot PAY almost 2 years ago. I switched because Patriot was a much better financial deal. Also, Patriot has MUCH better customer service than ADP. They have an online chat, which is very quick and easy to obtain an answer. They also (usually) …
Chose Patriot Payroll
I don't think that Patriot PAY is more powerful than QuickBooks. However, it is way cheaper and so much easier to use.
Chose Patriot Payroll
I prefer Patriot to Paychex for several reasons. First of all, for a small business with less than 10 employees, the fees charged by Paychex are unnecessary overhead when Patriot offers high quality and more than sufficient tools to perform the same tasks. Paychex also does not …
Chose Patriot Payroll
Cost is the major factor here, but the ease of use (and design of the interface) is a big advantage for Patriot PAY. Items are (ironically) more "intuitive" to find and manage in Patriot PAY than Intuit. Patriot PAY is closer to ADP/Gusto/Paychex in how it looks and feels and …
Features
ADP Workforce NowPatriot Payroll
Human Resource Management
Comparison of Human Resource Management features of Product A and Product B
ADP Workforce Now
7.9
Ratings
1% above category average
Patriot Payroll
-
Ratings
Employee demographic data8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Employment history7.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Job profiles and administration8.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow for transfers, promotions, pay raises, etc.7.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Organizational charting8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Organization and location management8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Compliance data (COBRA, OSHA, etc.)6.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
ADP Workforce Now
7.8
Ratings
2% below category average
Patriot Payroll
8.3
Ratings
1% above category average
Pay calculation8.50 Ratings9.50 Ratings
Support for external payroll vendors6.70 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Off-cycle/On-Demand payment7.40 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Benefit plan administration7.50 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Direct deposit files8.40 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management7.70 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Reimbursement management8.20 Ratings6.30 Ratings
Leave and Attendance Management
Comparison of Leave and Attendance Management features of Product A and Product B
ADP Workforce Now
7.7
Ratings
4% below category average
Patriot Payroll
-
Ratings
Approval workflow7.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Balance details7.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Annual carry-forward and encashment8.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Employee Self Service
Comparison of Employee Self Service features of Product A and Product B
ADP Workforce Now
7.7
Ratings
5% below category average
Patriot Payroll
-
Ratings
View and generate pay and benefit information8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Update personal information7.70 Ratings00 Ratings
View company policy documentation7.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Employee recognition7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
View job history7.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Asset Management
Comparison of Asset Management features of Product A and Product B
ADP Workforce Now
6.0
Ratings
30% below category average
Patriot Payroll
-
Ratings
Tracking of all physical assets6.00 Ratings00 Ratings
HR Reporting
Comparison of HR Reporting features of Product A and Product B
ADP Workforce Now
6.8
Ratings
10% below category average
Patriot Payroll
-
Ratings
Report builder7.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Pre-built reports7.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Ability to combine HR data with external data5.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Onboarding
Comparison of Onboarding features of Product A and Product B
ADP Workforce Now
7.2
Ratings
9% below category average
Patriot Payroll
-
Ratings
New hire portal7.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Manager tracking tools6.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance and Goals
Comparison of Performance and Goals features of Product A and Product B
ADP Workforce Now
7.7
Ratings
3% below category average
Patriot Payroll
-
Ratings
Corporate goal setting7.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Individual goal setting7.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Line-of sight-visibility7.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance tracking7.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance Management
Comparison of Performance Management features of Product A and Product B
ADP Workforce Now
6.5
Ratings
19% below category average
Patriot Payroll
-
Ratings
Performance plans6.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance improvement plans6.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Review status tracking5.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Review reminders7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple review frequency6.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Succession Planning
Comparison of Succession Planning features of Product A and Product B
ADP Workforce Now
6.0
Ratings
26% below category average
Patriot Payroll
-
Ratings
Create succession plans/pools5.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Candidate ranking5.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Candidate search6.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Candidate development6.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Recruiting / ATS
Comparison of Recruiting / ATS features of Product A and Product B
ADP Workforce Now
6.6
Ratings
16% below category average
Patriot Payroll
-
Ratings
Job Requisition Management7.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Company Website Posting7.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Publish to Social Media6.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Job Search Site Posting6.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Duplicate Candidate Prevention2.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Applicant Tracking7.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Notifications and Alerts7.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
ADP Workforce NowPatriot Payroll
Small Businesses
Dayforce Powerpay
Dayforce Powerpay
Score 9.5 out of 10
Dayforce Powerpay
Dayforce Powerpay
Score 9.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Paypro Workforce Management
Paypro Workforce Management
Score 9.7 out of 10
Paypro Workforce Management
Paypro Workforce Management
Score 9.7 out of 10
Enterprises
PeopleStrong
PeopleStrong
Score 9.9 out of 10
Infor Human Resources
Infor Human Resources
Score 7.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
ADP Workforce NowPatriot Payroll
Likelihood to Recommend
8.1
(0 ratings)
9.7
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.2
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
2.2
(0 ratings)
9.3
(0 ratings)
Availability
7.3
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
6.4
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.3
(0 ratings)
8.7
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
5.8
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
1.5
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
6.4
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
6.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
7.4
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
5.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
6.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
ADP Workforce NowPatriot Payroll
Likelihood to Recommend
well suited for folks in manufacturing or building (jobs and tasks required). Good for small and big business, ease of forming to what you want rather then getting oversold on items that you will not use. Lots of training options available
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Patriot is well suited for an office with a small staff without complicated tax issues to manage. My office had 2 employees: one full-time and one part-time. There were no 1099's issued, and no special tax exemptions or other special tax situations for employees. The owner was a sole proprietor, so she was not paid as an employee through Patriot. It was easy to quickly run simple payroll tasks on a bi-weekly basis in my situation. However, I believe a more complex situation with more employees would still be suitable for this software if there was an employee dedicated to performing payroll and human resources tasks. Information must be manually entered each payroll period and submitted before 8pm to process at the scheduled pay date, so if there was not a dedicated employee for the task, it would be easy to end up paying employees a business-day late. I know that Patriot offers add-on services for human resource tasks, such as time sheets and tools to manage sick days, benefits, and record employee attendance. I did not require these extra services, but I like that Patriot offers services a la carte so that there is no need to pay for tools you do not need
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Pros
  • HRIS that is personalized for the employee and addresses DE&I needs.
  • Payroll, of course! The system addresses all needs, such as deductions, additional pay, premium OT, and shift differentials.
  • Onboarding is an excellent way to stay in compliance and have all documents completed.
  • Tax and Banking and resolution to any issues.
Read full review
  • Patriot's software is very easy to use for running payroll. It takes about 30 seconds to do.
  • The payroll reports are abundant, easy to find and print, and make my accounting very easy.
  • Having a full service payroll provider as easy to use as Patriot leaves me with more availability to focus on treating patients and running other aspects of my business.
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Cons
  • Customized pre-process payroll reports (Limited on pre-process payroll reports)
  • Labor Allocation (Allocations make payroll reporting very hard to review and find any errors )
  • Recruiting (ATS is very basic)
  • Geofencing (should be able to change shape rather than a circle)
  • Pay Classes (should be able to change at Practitioner level rather than reach out to support)
  • Cookies and Cache have to be cleared on a regular basis
  • Only able to see employee documents/acknowledgements one at a time in the employee file
  • Timecards can only be managed/viewed by 1 person
  • Timeoff emails do not have a link
  • Cost per payroll - not just monthly fee so cost with off cycle payrolls
  • Separate I9 step not needed - during onboarding - 2nd Everify step
  • ADP Workforce Now does not pull in allowances for Houly employees into payroll ONLY Salaried employees
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  • The third party direct deposit processor Patriot previously used was not particularly easy to work with...but Patriot just brought all direct deposit processing in house.
  • Clergy housing allowance has to be manually entered each payday. They tell me they're close to adding the capability of making it (and other similar pay types) as a recurring item.
  • The setup process is geared toward novice users who need to be hand-held through the process. That's great for those who need it but a more streamlined, no-frills process payroll pros would be welcome.
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Likelihood to Renew
We are happy with the service and options offered by ADP. Although the cost is a bit high for a not-for-profit organization, it is essential that we have multi-jurisdictional support for the 20 plus states where employees work and reside. As our company is diminishing in size, we may need to look at making a change to conserve costs. At this time, that would be the only reason we would not renew our WFN contract.
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It works well because it is cheap for us.
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Usability
Lack of documentation and test environment make it extremely difficult to deploy work processes through the system. While there are a handful of things throughout the system that work well, particularly from an employee's perspective, many tasks, which would be simple for practitioner users in other systems, require these users to ask for administrator support. Additionally, the ghosts in the ADP machine cause established process (e.g. automated report delivery) to stop working with no notice and no error report.
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I think it is great once things are setup as for general user looking to look for simple things like a copy of a paystub or a current pay rate for an employee. However, to find specialized things like a state withholding number or payroll integration settings those do require a bit more digging to find or possibly a call to customer service for help.
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Reliability and Availability
ADP outages are very rare
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No answers on this topic
Performance
Overall, I think the functionality of the program works pretty well. Sometimes, certain browsers do not work well for the policy function of ADP, but that is the only issue thus far
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Most of it is not local, which impacts barriers and customs. I do think they know a lot, but not the cohesive piece. Some naturally know more about certain things than others. The payroll section should be broken out more because payroll is a big topic with many problems, so it can be hard to get the right person who can actually help you.
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Generally speaking it is pretty good that when I need to call somebody up for a payroll question I can generally within five minutes get somebody on the phone and they can help me resolve the problem or specify where specifically I need to go or contact to find my answers. However, that being said, for my specific situation as a partner my assigned contact has not always been very responsive.
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In-Person Training
In-person training was pretty good - I think this significantly depends on the trainer. Our trainer was really good and showed what ADP can do - but I know that all trainers are not the same - and this truly makes such as difference. Overall, our training went pretty well.
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No answers on this topic
Online Training
At the time training was not as expansive as it is now. If it could go wrong it did for me so the process was difficult and lengthy. I needed to have more in person walkthroughs of things to ensure the transition was done correctly. Not sure what else I can say, we were part of the initial move to Workforce Now when it was introduced.
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No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Either assign more than one specialist to the implementation process, or assign less clients to the implementation specialist. The process requires attention to detail and the ability to test and re-test as well as verify the information. It also requires a lot of back and forth between the client ant the implementation specialist, so they need to be readily available during the whole implementation process.
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
I also used UltiPro (way back -- it didn't even appear in dropdown). Recommend ADP Workforce Now above all others. Paycor and Paycom were both very clunky. I even helped implement Paycom and could never get it to work how the business needed it to.
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Cost is the major factor here, but the ease of use (and design of the interface) is a big advantage for Patriot PAY. Items are (ironically) more "intuitive" to find and manage in Patriot PAY than Intuit.

Patriot PAY is closer to ADP/Gusto/Paychex in how it looks and feels and operates in a full-service capacity, but it is much more affordable.
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Scalability
We have been able to grow with ADP from just a few hundred employees to over 10,000 so it's actually very scalable for payroll usage. We do not use the benefits and onboarding offerings for most of our employees but they are built to scale easily enough for when our corporate team has over 1,000 FTE.
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No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • ADP Workforce Now handles all of our tax filing which frees up our time to do other things. They keep us compliant communicating updates on a timely basis.
  • Calculates payrolls accurately. Our management and employees have built a level of confidence due to the ease of pulling statements, year end documents etc.
  • A really nice feature is the follow up email what a change has been made to banking information. There were a couple of times the employee did not make changes to their account information. This kept their funds from getting routed into the wrong hands.
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  • Patriot allows the entire team to be on the same page when it comes to a campaign or donor. All of the information is in one place to see how much a donor gave or communication with that donor by a specific team member.
  • It provides comparative historic data and donor analysis. The organization of donations by appeal allows teams to know which campaigns were successful in previous years.
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ScreenShots

ADP Workforce Now Screenshots

Screenshot of ADP Workforce Now: a simple and complete human capital management solutionScreenshot of Benchmarking by ADP DataCloud: an application with an extensive data set ... available to ADP Workforce Now clientsScreenshot of ADP Workforce Now clients can equip their employees with the ADP Mobile self-service app

Patriot Payroll Screenshots

Screenshot of the 3-step process to carry out payrollScreenshot of the Payroll interface, which can be used run payroll on any device with internet or data connection. There is no need to download and maintain a separate payroll app.Screenshot of a payroll report, to sort by work location, employee, and date range.