FunctionFox vs. Patriot Payroll

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
FunctionFox
Score 8.0 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
FunctionFox provides TimeFox which is a timesheet and project management solution for small creative companies. The vendor says TimeFox is currently used by over 100,000 creative professionals in Canada, the US, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
$5
per user
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
FunctionFoxPatriot Payroll
Editions & Modules
FunctionFox Classic
$5
per user
FunctionFox Premier
$10
per user
FunctionFox In-House
$20
per user
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
FunctionFoxPatriot Payroll
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsNo hidden fees. All customer support, and regular upgrades are included free of charge.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
FunctionFoxPatriot Payroll
Considered Both Products
FunctionFox
Chose FunctionFox
We switched from our outdated Sage Timeslips to user-friendly FunctionFox and have been very happy with the change
Chose FunctionFox
FunctionFox is simple, fast and there is no need for using task and timesheet management separately
Chose FunctionFox
When we were looking for software we tested several, and FunctionFox was hands down the best value. While there are other options, and each company is different, nothing could come close to filling our needs the way FunctionFox has. The money we spend has been returned several …
Chose FunctionFox
FunctionFox is better than things like teamwork or project management tools as it is truly made for time tracking. This decision came from our finance team as it was meant to be able to appropriately allocate how much time certain things were "costing" based on total team costs …
Chose FunctionFox
We evaluated FunctionPoint and Maven Link, but both were more than what we wanted to spend so FunctionFox won that contest. We'll be moving to T-Sheets even though it doesn't provide the best overall fit for our business, since it comes at about the same price as FunctionFox …
Chose FunctionFox
Employees would always leave it running, so we never got accurate time logs.
Chose FunctionFox
FunctionFox has limited use across other platforms I have used. It's really best for smaller companies with less projects and people to manage. There is really no way to track elements of the project (e.g. design changes), but serves as a really useful tool to monitor budget, …
Chose FunctionFox
I feel that Workamajig excels in the scheduling, task management, and being able to create predecessors areas. Microsoft Project is greate for allocating resources and seeing utilization. TimeFox is good for reporting but falls short in the scheduling area. TimeFox was good for …
Chose FunctionFox
I haven't really used any products exactly similar to TimeFox. However, I have used Intacct which is a much complicated software in which you can track your hours, projects, contracts, billing, etc. It is an accounting software and TimeFox on the other hand is just mainly …
Chose FunctionFox
TimeFox was the tool my employer had. I didn't have to choose between TimeFox and other tools. But I will say that Timefox is simple, and I like simple.
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
FunctionFoxPatriot Payroll
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
FunctionFox
-
Ratings
Patriot Payroll
8.3
Ratings
1% above category average
Pay calculation00 Ratings9.50 Ratings
Support for external payroll vendors00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Off-cycle/On-Demand payment00 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Benefit plan administration00 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Direct deposit files00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Reimbursement management00 Ratings6.30 Ratings
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FunctionFoxPatriot Payroll
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User Ratings
FunctionFoxPatriot Payroll
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(0 ratings)
9.7
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
3.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
4.0
(0 ratings)
9.3
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(0 ratings)
8.7
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
5.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
FunctionFoxPatriot Payroll
Likelihood to Recommend
FunctionFox seems particularly well suited for tracking time where there is one billing rate for each individual rather than the scenario where one person is billed out to clients at different rates. It would seem to be most appropriate for smaller organizations (< 10 people) since those with more people would certainly need the ability to have it integrate with QuickBooks. For the price though, it's great for those smaller companies. As we've grown, we've found other applications that are more expensive and more highly adapted to Marketing Agencies in particular. Plus, we now track our expenses directly in QuickBooks vs. using that FunctionFox feature (since the two don't integrate, there's no reason to track them in both places).
Read full review
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
  • FunctionFox allows 451 Marketing to pull and customize many different reports, which is important to us both internally and externally.
  • FunctionFox allows 451 Marketing to track time either by exact time, using the timer or by entering time in blocks. That is helpful to us because we have 6 different departments and each department likes to track differently.
  • FunctionFox allows administrators to assign different levels of usage per user.
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.
Read full review
Cons
  • Segmenting. It is so difficult to always select which activity/team you are on, which is a big time suck.
  • It shouldn't take you a significant amount of time to log time, but it does.
  • There is still a lot of improvements that can be made on the reporting side and the overall UI. That could make this a more valuable, tool.
Read full review
  • 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
All of my employees are used to it and introducing a new software to them requires them to get trained again increasing the costs. TimeFox is an easy to use and understand software. Another advantage of TimeFox is that is an online software and I can access it whenever I want to.
Read full review
It works well because it is cheap for us.
Read full review
Usability
It's a good tool for tracking hours and overall budget. It does not give you insight into why there are those hours, or what part of the project has over burned. The tool is also tough to export reports and find the correct information throughout. Not only this, but I also have a hard time changing project details - there's no real easy way to and there's a larger room for error
Read full review
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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Support Rating
I haven't used FunctionFox for a lot of support requests. On the times that i've been having issues I've had the issue resolved within a day, most questions I have had i've been able to source answers online or from a colleague. From what I have experienced the support team seems great.
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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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Implementation Rating
Unsure on implementation of FunctionFox - was before my time at the company. Everyone at the company had a good understanding of the product and how to use it by the time I joined. My understanding is we implemented ourselves with a few training sessions for the creative team and adding hours as well as training for the account team to add projects
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
FunctionFox is better than things like teamwork or project management tools as it is truly made for time tracking. This decision came from our finance team as it was meant to be able to appropriately allocate how much time certain things were "costing" based on total team costs across the organization.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • FunctionFox pays for itself just about every month in terms of how much more I am able to bill than before I started using the software, and how much less time I need to spend on non-billable admin tasks. I used to create invoices based mostly on what sounded fair, rather than on accurate time & cost records. I'm sure my clients loved it, but it wasn't healthy for my business. Now I base invoices on actual time and expense records, and end up with more money in my pocket.
  • It's not tangible, but FunctionFox has improved my ability to communicate with clients, and with freelance partners when I'm involved in a collaborative project. I can anticipate and discuss potential budget or delivery deadline overruns before they occur. The goodwill this builds has had a tremendously positive impact on client and partnership relations.
  • I fell into freelancing without a lot of experience running a business. FunctionFox has been a great teacher, helping me think through many issues that I wouldn't have even recognized as important. It is simple to use, with a UI that is neither intimidating nor overwhelming, and it has been super flexible in terms of molding it to suit the way I work.
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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

FunctionFox Screenshots

Screenshot of Easily navigate throughout FunctionFox from the customizable Home dashboard.Screenshot of CEO Desktop enables users to visualize budgets and deadlines for specific projects.Screenshot of The Project Status page provides the users with  an overview of the projects and the different stages they are at. With the filters users can drill down to see specific clients or projects.Screenshot of The Calendar provides a great weekly or monthly view of project start and due dates, along with deliverables, milestones, and meetings.

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.