Paycor vs QuickBooks Payroll

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Our analysts compared Paycor vs QuickBooks Payroll based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Payroll Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Product Basics

Best for: Employee engagement and document management

Ranked at number two on our best HR software list, Paycor is a comprehensive, cloud-based HR system designed for businesses of all sizes that serve industries like healthcare, manufacturing, retail and technology.

It supports key HR functions, including talent management, benefits administration, payroll processing and compliance, catering to teams ranging from a single employee to over 1,000.

Paycor is a SelectHub award winner in employee onboarding and administration, self-service and performance management. It’s also in our top ten for applicant tracking and recruiting, benefits management, compensation management, and succession management.

The platform’s mission is to empower leaders with easy-to-access resources and personalized experiences featuring customizable homepages and learning paths. Managers can gain valuable insights to evaluate performance, track wins and identify areas for improvement.

Struggling with employee retention? Paycor helps by providing data on recognition frequency, promotion rates, pay adjustments and completed one-on-ones.

For recruiters, Paycor offers tools to enhance job postings and streamline the hiring process, utilizing AI for smart candidate sourcing. Key features include performance management, applicant tracking, recruiting, benefits management, compensation management, employee engagement, onboarding and employee self-service.

84% of users give it two thumbs up, noting its straightforward performance, payroll and scheduling management. In contrast, some have encountered complex reporting issues and occasional bugs following updates.

Pricing starts at $99 per user per month, with a free trial available.

To view other popular Paycor solutions, visit our Paycor company page.

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Quickbooks is an Intuit payroll and accounting solution designed to meet the needs of both small and medium-sized, growing businesses. There are a variety of plans, starting with small packages built for independent contractors and self-employed individuals. It handles payment, calculating and filing taxes, benefits management, direct deposits and more.

The variety of products and packages enables users to find a solution that fits a company’s unique needs. Quickbooks offers specialized features for organizations in a variety of fields, including manufacturing and retail. Overall, it serves 1.4 million businesses.
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$99/user, monthly
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$37.50 Monthly
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Product Assistance

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Product Insights

  • Centralize HR: Complete all core HR tasks through one unified platform, eliminating multiple logins on different systems. Track and consolidate data so HR managers can generate comprehensive reports that summarize HR practices. Interview management, document access control, AI-based benefits advisor, budget allocation, compensation grid, automated tax filing, mobile scheduling, charts and visualizations are all fully supported for every aspect of HR.
  • Improve Document Management: Add flexibility with Paycor’s document management function, which is rated 100 in our analysis. This system includes fully supported features such as a document repository, document search and sharing capabilities. Digital signatures and a range of compliance documents further enhance the process, particularly during onboarding.
  • Boost Employee Engagement: Gauge employee engagement with pulse surveys that earn our highest rating. They measure engagement and job satisfaction, while self-paced learning fosters career development. Additionally, Paycor provides easy access to employee information, including pay, time tracking and time-off requests.
  • Streamline Data Entry: Upload applicant information and automatically import data, modifications and relevant fields to eliminate duplicate entries.
  • Strengthen Applicant Tracking and Recruiting: Manage all job candidates, their statuses and priority job listings efficiently. Assign specific hiring processes to each job record and use AI to generate job descriptions. Rated 86 out of 100, this function also streamlines the post-interview process by automatically saving feedback with user-friendly scoring.
  • Save Time: Automate workflows, reminders and notifications to reduce tedious, time-intensive manual tasks. Let employees focus on the critical, ROI-enhancing tasks.
  • Facilitate Onboarding and Administration: Establish timelines and provide training resources tailored to business needs. Paycor offers status calls, project scopes and demos for comprehensive support throughout onboarding, earning a 96 for this module.
  • Tailor Experiences: Customize homepages and their features for efficiency and comfort.
  • Enhance Visibility: Put important information at the forefront with homepage-based trends and alerts.
  • Get Tax Assistance: Monitor tax registrations and get tax recommendations, including notifications on employee location changes.
  • Empower Managers: Sharpen soft skills, including coaching, optimizing and retaining employees. Paycor’s core leadership model focuses on helping employees set goals, get feedback, stay motivated and celebrate successes.
  • Provide Leader Insights: Give managers insight into who's clocked in and who's nearing overtime, snapshots of employee records, time-off requests, upcoming birthdays, and anniversaries.
  • Plan for the Future: Keep employees and managers informed on individual progress and areas for improvement with assessments and role profiles. Help managers plan by finding talent gaps and risks via dashboards and insights. New to succession management? Paycor has a succession planning template for beginners.
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  • Save Time: Connects with bank accounts and syncs with various apps to help streamline payroll processing. Saves users more than 40 hours monthly on average and spares them from tedious manual data entry.
  • Save Money: Saves the average users more than $3,500 annually through its assistance with tax filing and other processes.
  • Easy-to-Use: Provides a simple interface so HR managers and others can store and access relevant accounting information easily. Centralizes and organizes data, making it simple to access.
  • Simplified Administration: Manages benefits, payments, time tracking, workers’ compensation, inventory, compliance and other essential business functions from one location. Simplifies processes and handles all of them through one solution.
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  • Leader Insights: Just like report cards, give new managers a detailed look at their successes and areas for growth. Managers view the number of completed 1-on-1s, pay rate changes and recognition, supporting employee development and engagement.
  • Benefits Management: Centralize employee information and empower employees to self-enroll in benefits plans through the system. Gain high-level insights into maximizing employee benefits packages with analytics.
  • Compensation Management: Ensure workers are getting paid the correct amount based on experience, skillset, education, certifications, job title and performance (great for reducing turnover and boosting morale).
  • Career Development: Let everyone know when there’s an opportunity for advancement, develop goals that align with larger business objectives and reward high performers.
  • Learning Management and Development: Search for courses, take notes, provide feedback and access various learning tools from any internet-connected device.
  • Payroll Management: Enable easy access to pay stubs, history and tax forms without admin intervention. Ensure accurate payroll processing, calculations and deductions. Automate payroll calculations, tax withholdings and direct deposits, reducing manual entry errors.
  • Time and Attendance: Monitor employee hours and forecast labor costs using historical data. Clock in and out from Paycor's app. Manage time-off requests and resolve time clock errors.
  • Scheduling: Ensure peak productivity with real-time analytics. Manage leaves and sick days, ensuring there are enough people to get the job done when unexpected call-outs occur.
  • Reporting and Analytics: Combine HR, payroll and time data into a single report. Track, store and compile data to provide managers with insights into business practices.
  • Smart Sourcing: Use Paycor's AI smart sourcing to analyze job descriptions, focusing on key factors like responsibilities and experience to find the best candidates. Run targeted campaigns to attract and engage potential hires, speeding up your talent search.
  • Job Posting Assistance: Paycor has customizable templates and AI to take skills recruiters type in and turn them into job descriptions. The platform connects to various job sites, including Facebook and LinkedIn, letting managers see which employees share job postings.
  • Compliance: Paycor offers comprehensive compliance solutions, from application tracking and EEO/OFCCP compliance reporting to simplifying ACA requirements with detailed reports and employee eligibility tracking. They also have online resources on compliance updates and changes to state laws.
  • Performance Management: Ensure regular 1-on-1s, track goals and collect feedback. Use job assessments, role profiles, templates and role-based reviews.
  • Learning Management: Get self-paced tailored training and coaching. Employees and managers can take bite-size learning courses on key topics like compliance.
  • Pulse Surveys: Turn employee feedback into actionable improvements. Empower staff to share their experiences and identify needed changes to mitigate turnover.
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  • Payroll Processing: Operate 24-hour direct deposit. Pay employees, access integration services for employees, calculate taxes automatically and file taxes directly through the system. Automate payments to save time.
  • Benefits Management: Administrate workers’ compensation, health insurance, retirement plans and more. Covers workers’ compensation through AP Intego. Offers medical, dental and vision insurance through SimplyInsured. Compare different plans to judge the coverage, value and deductibles and make informed decisions. Calculates deductions for health, medical and dental automatically. Deducts and calculates contributions for 401(k)s from each employee paycheck.
  • Mobile Capabilities: Create, track and send invoices via smartphone as well as payment reminders.
  • Workers’ Compensation: Manage workers’ comp, understand state requirements and laws and pick a policy through AP Intego. Provides a free quote and automates premiums.
  • Inventory: Import information from Excel and sync with Amazon, Etsy and other similar websites to track products, cost of goods, create purchase orders and manage vendors.
  • HR Management and Compliance: Provides HR resources and consultation to help with compliance through Mammoth Inc. Creates forms from templates for onboarding checklists, employee handbooks and job descriptions. Aids in creating policies, obeying HR laws, hiring and conflict management.
  • Time Tracking: Track and add billable hours to invoices. Review and put a stamp of approval on employee timesheets. Provides tracking through TSheets. Link hours to specific jobs, save time during payment processing and see real-time insights into employee work hours. Approve and enter employee time cards.
  • Reporting: Run and export a variety of reports. Create customizable reports for balance sheets, expenses and tracking profit and loss. Create, export, print and customize reports to share with accountants or critical stakeholders. Covers deductions, tax liability, contributions, more than one worksite, summary for taxes and wages, vacation, workers’ compensation and sick leave.
  • Taxes: Helps users find tax deductions. Store photos of receipts, share books with accountants and sort business expenses by tax categories to help streamline tax filing.
  • Penalty Payments: Covers payments of up to $25,000 if errors in local, state or federal taxes result in a penalty. Communicates with the IRS. Reviews taxes with experts before sending them to the IRS to cut off issues before they start. Doesn’t cover specific penalties in some situations such as fraud, insufficient funds, healthcare administration, employee classification and several others.
  • Project Tracking: Track project details such as labor costs, expenses and profits.
  • Payroll Plans: Offers three separate plans for payroll needs.
    • Core: Provides core functionality such as payment and calculating payroll taxes.
    • Premium: Covers team management and provides more powerful tools and services for payroll.
    • Elite: Gives access to experts on-demand to answer payroll questions. Gives access to tax penalty protection.
  • Implementation: Aids in transferring current payroll information to the new system. Provides expert support to help users with initial setup and compliance.
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Product Ranking

#48

among all
Payroll Software

#47

among all
Payroll Software

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Analyst Rating Summary

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74
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Benefits Management
Security and Compliance
Payroll and Tax Management
Platform Capabilities
Time and Attendance Management
Mobile Capabilities
Dashboard and Reporting
Payroll and Tax Management
Time and Attendance Management

Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

Paycor
QuickBooks Payroll
+ Add Product + Add Product
Benefits Management Dashboard And Reporting Expense Management Mobile Capabilities Payroll And Tax Management Platform Capabilities Security And Compliance Time And Attendance Management 100 80 50 67 93 91 100 91 38 92 74 94 91 75 80 91 0 25 50 75 100
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Analyst Ratings for Technical Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

71%
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29%
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36%

User Sentiment Summary

Great User Sentiment 4226 reviews
Great User Sentiment 626 reviews
85%
of users recommend this product

Paycor has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 85% when considering 4226 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

89%
of users recommend this product

QuickBooks Payroll has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 89% when considering 626 user reviews from 4 recognized software review sites.

4.3 (14)
4.7 (17)
4.1 (758)
4.0 (25)
4.4 (2846)
4.5 (550)
4.5 (11)
n/a
3.7 (597)
3.5 (34)

Awards

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated Paycor and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Benefits Management.

Benefits Management Award

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated QuickBooks Payroll and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Mobile Capabilities.

Mobile Capabilities Award

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Time Tracking: 86% of users like Paycor's time tracking feature for its simplicity and accessibility.
Payroll: 88% of users found payroll processing convenient and reliable, particularly when processing bi-weekly payroll.
Ease of Use and Navigation: 77% of users appreciate Paycor's intuitive platform, noting that it’s easy to use and navigate, which simplifies daily HR tasks.
Integration and Customization: The platform's ability to integrate various features and customize settings to meet specific needs is frequently highlighted as a strength.
Training Opportunities: Paycor offers a variety of training options, including online webinars, recorded sessions and certification courses, which users find beneficial.
Employee Recognition and Communication Tools: Features that support employee recognition and communication are well-regarded. Users find these tools effective in engaging and managing their workforce.
Onboarding: The onboarding feature is praised for its effectiveness in streamlining the new employee integration process.
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Excellent Functionality: Over 90% of users that discussed functionality were happy with the features, including the tax filing, automation and employee salaries and hours functions.
Simple to Use: Reviewers that talked about the ease of use felt it had a simple and intuitive interface over 80% of the time.
Manage Salary and Hours: More than 80% who discussed the employee time tracking and salary functions felt it worked well.
Affordable: Just under 70% of users who discussed price felt it was an affordable option.
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Login Frustrations: Users note that the login process can be inconvenient as it adds an extra step to accessing information.
Customer Service: Some recent reviews cite difficulties with the support process, specifically over the phone with wait times.
Timecard Issue: A recent review notes experiencing a glitch with timecard integration, which impacted payroll processing.
Reporting: Users find the reporting features cumbersome and inconsistent. The complexity of reports and the lack of simplicity in generating them are notable pain points.
Integration With Third-Party Platforms: There are some minor issues with integrating Paycor with third-party platforms, such as benefits systems, which can lead to excessive delays and unresolved problems.
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Bad for Large Organizations: Over 90% of reviewers that discussed using the system for big organizations felt the system wasn’t complex enough.
Mixed Customer Service: Users were split on customer support quality, with 52% approving and 48% disliking the service.
Issues with Price: While overall, reviewers that discussed price felt it affordable, over 30% were displeased and said they got overcharged or billed after they’d already canceled.
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Paycor is a popular HR management software designed for both in-office and remote teams, as well as HR managers aiming to improve performance management. Suitable for small, medium, and large businesses across the United States, Paycor supports teams of 50 to 500 employees and can scale to accommodate organizations with up to 2,500 members.Key features include personalized coaching, Smart Source recruiting, online learning and leader insights. Financial managers benefit from Paycor’s analytics tool, which helps with compensation planning, pay equity monitoring and trend analysis. The software also integrates with general ledger data and offers self-service options for employees to access pay stubs, history and tax forms.Jumping on a live chat, I found Paycor's the most personable experience compared to competitors. I selected “just browsing” and received prompts for webinars, compliance checks, product info, and pricing. The only downside was there wasn't an option to start a new chat and the previous conversation kept reappearing even after refreshing.The mobile app provides employees with easy access to their wages, flexible pay options and paycheck details from anywhere. They can view deductions and adjust federal and state tax withholdings directly through the app.Users appreciate Paycor for its intuitive navigation, self-service features and employee recognition tools. However, some have experienced extended wait times for customer support and challenges with implementation, which sometimes require additional support team intervention.Pricing for Paycor begins at $99 per user per month. A free trial is available for prospective users to evaluate the platform before committing.I found Paycor’s platform pretty straightforward after trying it out, specifically when it came to managing compliance and employee details. I appreciate how the system highlights potential compliance issues and provides clickable warnings for detailed insights. For example, if there's a tax registration issue, I can quickly see specifics like the tax authority, client ID, and tax code, as well as the exact problem, such as a missing tax ID. The platform then guides me to a resolution page where I can easily add the necessary tax ID to fix the issue.When it comes to managing employees, I found the “Manage People” section intuitive. I can filter employees by department, location, title, or status, including options like 3rd-party payable, Active, FMLA, Laid off, or on paid leave. To perform tasks such as assigning a new responsibility, I simply check the box next to the employee’s name. If an employee needs a specific form or document, checking their name is all it takes.The homepage is handy for checking time-related information at a glance. I can see scheduled absences, approaching overtime, and current clock-in or break statuses without needing to dig through multiple screens.For new hires, I can view their name, hire date, email and onboarding progress in one place. Clicking on their name provides access to important details for updates, such as tax information, compensation, and work schedule adjustments.Sharing documents is simple with the “Bulk Actions” feature. I can select and send documents like the employee handbook, PTO policy, or exit interview questions by setting a date and clicking “share form(s).” I can also track the status of these documents in the Forms & Documents Tracking Center.I like the drag-and-drop menu options for customizing my homepage. Managing my tasks is made easier with the “My Task” option, and viewing my available PTO balance and requesting time off are just a few clicks away. I can specify the dates and whether it’s a full or partial day leave, add any necessary notes for my supervisor, and submit the request easily.Accessing and downloading my pay stubs and tax documents directly from the platform is convenient, and setting up direct deposit is straightforward. I can even split my paycheck between two accounts if needed, with one as the primary. Plus, I can check how many days are left until my next paycheck right from the homepage.I'm a fan of the Recognition Center because it lets me view positive comments from colleagues and leave recognition for others.Overall, Paycor’s platform has simplified many of my HR tasks and made the process more efficient.

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Quickbooks Payroll is part of the Intuit suite of programs. Commenters felt it was easy to use, train and adopt with a simple interface that worked well. They found it affordable and found the integrations of time tracking with employee salaries made running payroll a quick process. Commenters said it was reasonably priced and the features worked well. The most popular functionality included automation, tax calculations and filing, and its ability to centralize and organize data. The largest complaint by far was that this program isn’t complex enough for larger organizations. Reviewers recommended only using it for small organizations. Reactions to customer service were very mixed. Reviewers who were satisfied said the support workers got back to them quickly, were friendly, helpful and called back promptly. Other users had adverse reactions say the staff was incompetent, complaining that there was only chat support and complained of always getting different answers. While most were pleased with the price, some reported getting overcharged and said it was difficult to cancel with charges showing up well after they’d terminated the service. Quickbooks Payroll is a good choice for small and medium-sized businesses. Be sure to understand what functionality comes with which pricing plan before purchasing.

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