GoCo vs Ascentis

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Our analysts compared GoCo vs Ascentis based on data from our 400+ point analysis of HR Management Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Ascentis Software Tool

Product Basics

GoCo is a software platform designed to help businesses manage their HR tasks, offering features like payroll, benefits administration, and employee onboarding. It's a cloud-based solution that aims to simplify HR processes for small and medium-sized businesses. GoCo is known for its user-friendly interface, affordability, and comprehensive features, making it a popular choice among businesses looking to streamline their HR operations.

GoCo's key benefits include its ease of use, cost-effectiveness, and the wide range of features it offers. The platform is also highly secure, ensuring the protection of sensitive employee data. Popular features include payroll processing, benefits administration tools, and employee onboarding functionalities. GoCo's payroll tools are designed to save businesses time and money, while its benefits administration features help manage employee benefits programs efficiently. The employee onboarding tools facilitate a smooth and quick onboarding process for new hires.

Compared to other HR management software options, GoCo stands out for its user-friendly interface, affordability, and comprehensive features. It's important to note that pricing for HR management software can vary based on factors such as the number of employees and the specific features required. It's recommended to check with GoCo or other providers directly for the most up-to-date pricing information.

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Ascentis offers HCM services to companies of all industries via its cloud-based suite. Its five modules include time and attendance, payroll, HR and benefits, talent, and recruiting. Users can choose to pick individual functionalities or the entire package of services, depending upon their needs.

It facilitates process automation for several complex business processes and transactions, reduces the probability of errors, offers real-time analytics, eliminates manual work, and helps talent managers and organizations cater to their human resources and talent management requirements. It also provides ease-of-use through an interface that can be accessed anytime, anywhere on a desktop, tablet or smartphone.
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$5/Employee, Monthly
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$16/Employee, Monthly
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Tailored to your specific needs
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Mobile
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Mobile

Product Assistance

Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
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Videos
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Email
Phone
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FAQ
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Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support
Email
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24/7 Live Support

Product Insights

  • Centralized Record Keeping: Small businesses can spend less time on repetitive, manual tasks and more easily get accurate data of every employee. The unified platform centralizes employee records, time off data and HR documents. 
  • Flexibility: If companies already have benefits administration software, GoCo will include it to allow employees to register online. The system can also sync with an existing payroll solution if desired, so users don’t have to change the way they work or who they work with. This approach supports existing policies and service providers. 
  • Customizable Onboarding:  Embedded payroll, benefits and sync capabilities help new hires start strong from day one. From offer letters to tax withholding information, everything is done digitally.  
  • Simplified Leave Management: Users can build a policy for unlimited group PTO, adjust the accrual procedure for various locations and create a performance-based policy for each employee. It allows separating PTO from other absences when running reports.  
  • Business Growth and Compliance:  GoCo automates benefits administration, which removes the burden of remaining compliant to various regulations and eliminates costs so businesses can focus on growing. The system manages all types of benefits such as health plans and disability, and maintains strict adherence to the latest ACA, ERISA, COBRA, HSA and FSA regulations.  
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  • Optimized Team Performance: Gather information and feedback for each employee, from all sources. Uncover talent and top-performing employees as well as facilitate planning that results in optimized team performance. 
  • Quality Applicants:  Showcase an employer brand when seeking new employees to encourage the maximum number of quality applicants. 
  • Efficient Employee Onboarding: Eliminate duplicate data entry and leverage the cost saving benefits of switching to an online application process instead of an offline process. Cut costs, make onboarding more efficient and reliable, and gain complete access to data 24/7. 
  • Regulatory Compliance: Stay compliant with all essential employment regulations such as FMLA, FLSA, and other local and state laws that require consistency and vigilance. 
  • Real-Time Payroll Processing: Ensure accurate, efficient payroll processing and audits. Run payroll processing anytime, from any place, as many times as required. 
  • No Tax-Related Penalties: Remove the stress of incurring accidental late filing penalties by ensuring timely payroll deposits and filing. 
  • Complete Customization: Tailor the system in ways that best suit company needs, enabling maximum usage and functionality. 
  • Automated Benefits Administration: Save time and reduce manual effort by automating benefits management, administration and employee enrollment processes. 
  • Data-Driven Decisions: Compare metric goals with data insights to make data-driven decisions that lead to improved overall performance. Leverage more than 300 templates for standard reports or customize reports to suit organizational requirements. 
  • Real-Time Self Learning: Cultivate and encourage self-learning and employee development through training resources that are available in real time. 
  • Enhanced Employee Experience: Users can access upcoming schedules, select open shifts, view and request leaves, check paycheck history and statements, punch in and punch out, find co-workers, receive important notifications and alerts, and much more. 
  • On-the-Go Access for Managers: Stay on top of tasks from anywhere. Manage employee schedules, check notifications for employee requests, and approve or reject leaves and expense reports from the user-friendly mobile app. 
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  • Benefits Administration: The automated enrollment process ensures employees receive the right benefit packages. It also has the option of syncing benefits with payroll and insurance carriers. In addition, it provides employees with a self-service portal and access to certified benefit advisors. 
  • Payroll: This feature provides users with the option of keeping their current payroll software and syncing data with GoCo. Capabilities include automated time tracking and PTO (including COVID-19 paid leave), calculated final paychecks and benefit deductions.  
  • Employee Onboarding: The entire onboarding and talent acquisition process is done digitally. Managers can send customized offer letters, receive documents and allow new hires to enroll in self-service benefits. They can also assign onboarding tasks and set up payroll. 
  • Time Tracking: This feature supports PTO tracking, adding holiday hours and calculating overtime synced with a timesheet so that employees are paid correctly. It provides reports about teams’ working hours. Employees can request PTO through this feature, while managers can approve PTO and automatically notify the employee about their remaining PTO.  
  • HR Compliance: Companies can be sure they’re adhering to the latest benefits compliance regulations with tools that unify record keeping and streamline documents collection.  
  • Security: GoCo operates on Heroku, a technology that grants peace of mind by providing security checks at every layer of the software to protect customers from breaches. 
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  • Time and Attendance: Offers several functions such as leave management, time tracking, employee scheduling, advanced scheduling, a mobile app and compliance. 
  • Employee Scheduling: Provides management automation for several key aspects like split shift intervals, leave balances, overtime, expenses and total work hours. 
  • Advanced Scheduling: Helps schedule workflows and optimize all scheduling processes end to end. Evaluates unique rules and requirements within an organization and then auto-generates schedule recommendations based on that information. 
  • Payroll: Payroll processing occurs in real time, offering maximized accuracy, compliance, control and flexibility. 
  • HR and Benefits: Provides functionalities such as benefits management, HR compliance, HR solution customization, employee self-service, reporting and more. 
  • Talent Management: Customizable and user-friendly module. Capabilities include succession planning, compensation planning, performance management, learning management, check-ins, 360-degree assessments and real-time feedback. 
  • Recruiting: Acts as a dynamic career portal, helps with social media outreach, enables efficient onboarding and improves workflow management for HR-related functions. 
  • Ascentis Mobile Application: Two types of access are available — one for employees and another for managers and supervisors. Based on their role, users can share messages, update and access information, and perform other activities, all through a smartphone or a tablet. 
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Product Ranking

#117

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HR Management Software

#13

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HR Management Software

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User Sentiment Summary

Excellent User Sentiment 287 reviews
Good User Sentiment 626 reviews
95%
of users recommend this product

GoCo has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 95% when considering 287 user reviews from 4 recognized software review sites.

77%
of users recommend this product

Ascentis has a 'good' User Satisfaction Rating of 77% when considering 626 user reviews from 4 recognized software review sites.

4.8 (188)
4.0 (251)
4.73 (48)
4.2 (51)
4.7 (47)
n/a
n/a
2.0 (1)
4.2 (4)
3.7 (323)

Awards

GoCo stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award

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Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Simple Interface: GoCo's interface is clean and easy to navigate, making it simple for HR professionals to find the information they need quickly.
Automated Workflows: The platform automates many HR tasks, such as onboarding new employees and managing benefits, which can save HR teams a significant amount of time.
Employee Self-Service: GoCo's employee self-service portal allows employees to manage their own information, such as their contact details and benefits elections, which can free up HR staff to focus on other tasks.
Compliance Support: The platform helps businesses comply with employment laws and regulations, such as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and COBRA.
Integrations: GoCo integrates with a variety of other business software applications, such as payroll and accounting software, which can help businesses streamline their operations.
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Customer Service: All reviews mentioning this aspect indicated that the customer support services quickly resolve all user issues.
Ease of Use: An easy-to-use interface helps new users to quickly learn and understand its versatile features, according to 85% of reviews on this element.
PTO Calculation: 90% of reviews that mention PTO noted that all employees can send PTO requests via self-service and easily calculate their PTO earned by the end of the fiscal year.
Less Data Input: 100% of reviews on integration noted that the smooth integration between payroll and HR modules allows information to flow easily between systems, without feeding data in multiple times.
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Limited Customization: The platform's rigidity can be frustrating for companies with unique or complex HR needs, especially when it comes to tailoring workflows or data fields.
Payroll Integration Issues: Several users report problems syncing GoCo with their payroll systems, leading to inaccurate data and time-consuming manual fixes.
Mobile App Shortcomings: The mobile app's functionality falls short of the web version, limiting on-the-go access for employees and HR admins alike.
Customer Support Challenges: Response times and issue resolution can be slow, leaving users feeling stuck when they encounter problems.
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Inaccurate Reporting: 100% of reviews on reporting indicated that the software sometimes creates random reports or files that are outside the set criteria, and that it’s time-consuming and confusing to create new reports or look through report history.
Password Reset: Employees are unable to reset their own passwords for the employee self-service functionality, according to 60% of reviews on the element.
Implementation Process: 85% of reviewers who mention this feature indicated that Ascentis has a time-consuming implementation process, due to the numerous features it provides.
Data Entry: All reviews on data entry observed that the ATS feature sometimes has multiple data entries of the same information.
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GoCo appears to be a rising star in the HR software realm, garnering positive feedback for its user-friendly interface and robust features. Users frequently highlight its intuitive design, making it a breeze to navigate even for those with limited HR experience. The platform's comprehensive suite of tools streamlines core HR functions, including onboarding, benefits administration, and payroll, saving businesses valuable time and resources. GoCo's magic lies in its ability to automate tedious tasks, such as document management and employee data tracking, allowing HR professionals to focus on strategic initiatives. However, some users note that GoCo's reporting capabilities could be more extensive, limiting in-depth data analysis. Additionally, while the platform integrates with several popular payroll providers, some users desire broader integration options. Despite these minor drawbacks, GoCo's strengths in user experience, automation, and core HR functionality make it a compelling choice for small to medium-sized businesses seeking an all-in-one HR solution. Its ease of use and comprehensive features empower HR teams to efficiently manage their workforce, making it an ideal fit for organizations looking to streamline HR processes and enhance employee experiences.

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Ascentis provides à la carte solutions for human capital and workforce management. It can be a good pick for companies that are looking for software that has an intuitive interface, seamless integration between payroll and HR, PTO, benefits calculation and responsive customer service. However, several reviews mentioned reporting is inaccurate, challenging and cumbersome. There are also issues with duplicate data, and implementation is time-consuming. It can be a good choice depending on company needs and priorities.

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