Ascentis vs UKG Ready

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Our analysts compared Ascentis vs UKG Ready 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
UKG Ready Software Tool

Product Basics

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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UKG Ready delivers essential HR capabilities like payroll, talent acquisition and management, benefits, scheduling and attendance management via a core suite. It also offers an ACA module, accruals, attestation and mobile functionality. Companies can leverage it to address needs across the employee lifecycle.

Employing automated data collection, it simplifies the task of aggregating workforce information from multiple sources including mobile, timeclock and web interface. Analytics features give users insights into the workforce to make decisions based on data. Payroll services are also available.
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$16/Employee, Monthly
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$21/Employee, Monthly
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Product Insights

  • 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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  • Less Admin Work: Eliminate physical paperwork, maintain all HR operations digitally and integrate core activities. 
  • Better Engagement With Employees: Saving time allows managers to provide regular feedback and interact consistently. 
  • Strategic Focus: Reduced workloads and greater task efficiency allow HR to focus on leadership development, culture building and other strategic initiatives. 
  • Reduced Complexity: Remove manual processes surrounding ACA compliance, automating a large part of the process to save time. 
  • Mobile Access: Provide greater convenience with access to information on any mobile device. Managers can complete tasks like approvals and check reports, while employees can turn in timesheets, request leaves, check schedules and clock in and out. 
  • Improved Planning: Build data-based strategies and boost performance by spotting trends across the workforce using predictive tools and AI. 
  • Centralized HR: Simplify work, minimize errors and streamline the user experience with data, features and connected modules available in one unified platform. 
  • Less Compliance Risk: Reduce the potential for fines and legal issues by leveraging proactive compliance for FLSA and ACA. 
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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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  • Payroll: Supports unlimited payroll runs, ensures information is always up to date, manages a variety of components like tax considerations and garnishment processing, and provides self-service access for employees. Surfaces relevant data via standard and ad-hoc reporting, equipped with filters, grouping and customization. 
  • HR Management: Access a unified database for tracking and managing employee information. Configuration settings and the ability to build processes help workflows match internal requirements. Also offers: 
    • Onboarding: Streamlines processes with checklists, task assignments, automated reminders, forms with e-signature and more. 
    • Benefits: Includes employee self-service tools for selecting plans and updating information, configurable reports, and support for multiple plan types. Also shows data on costs, enrollment statuses and more. 
    • Training: Enables building courses, scheduling internal classes, reporting on learning outcomes, assigning training to employees, tracking completion and more. 
  • Workforce Analytics: Improves decisions and strategies by collecting and visualizing real-time workforce data. Uses AI to assess trends and identify risks to make predictive recommendations. 
  • Talent Acquisition: Simplifies the application process with custom application options, including populating from a LinkedIn profile. Also helps: 
    • Create a career site and integrate with more than 8,000 free and premium job boards.
    • Set up workflow approvals for job requisitions.
    • Manage recruitment processes in one place and sort candidates using criteria-based filters.
    • Configure email templates and pre-screening questions.
  • Employee Development: System administrators can define training courses, schedule classes and assign employees to take the classes. Managers are able to monitor open seats and gain visibility into employee participation and performance within the courses. 
  • Time Keeping: Automates many time and attendance processes, including alerts when employees cross leave limits and breach company policies related to attendance. Real-time data updates support accurate payroll and compliance. 
  • Performance Management: Delivers performance data that aids employee development efforts. Also includes: 
    • Goals tied to organizational objectives.
    • Unlimited profile types for the company, department or job level, offering weighted or numerical ratings and customizable criteria.
    • Automated review cycles, which include alerts, real-time status tracking and configuration options to set review dates and frequency.
    • Custom reports showing employee skills and required training, which aid succession planning.
  • Scheduling: Provides auto-generated schedules based on company needs, along with automatic employee sorting using preset conditions such as skills and availability. Other features include call lists for filling unexpected openings, employee self-scheduling, automated workflows and forecasts to anticipate demand. 
  • Compensation (Add-On): Simplifies compensation tasks by removing the need for manual tools and processes. Offers configurable cycles, automatic approval workflows, a budgeting interface, security settings and mass finalization of proposals. 
  • Attestation: Sends prompts to employees reminding them to confirm they’ve taken mandatory breaks for purposes of legal and internal compliance. Also offers: 
    •  Several course options: build-your-own courses, over 400 premade courses from the library and third-party content thanks to SCORM compatibility. 
    • Configuration of prompts to capture relevant information.
    • Automatic notifications alerting employees if they’ve missed attestation.
    • Reports that help validate compliance and aid attestation tracking.
    • Ability to attest time from the mobile or web time tracking app.
  • Accruals: Reduces errors through automated accrual tracking. A variety of criteria are available to configure accruals. Reports show thorough summaries of each employee’s accrual data for every type of PTO. 
  • ACA Management: Dashboards show real-time and historical data, with the ability to view individual employees for full visibility. Alerts help managers track schedules and employment changes, as well as let employees know about benefits eligibility. 
  • Payroll Service: Seamlessly integrates with the payroll module to ensure compliance, process garnishments, remove the need to manage tax paperwork and provide accurate information for tax filing. 
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Product Ranking

#13

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#73

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HR Management Software

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User Sentiment Summary

Good User Sentiment 626 reviews
Great User Sentiment 2859 reviews
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.

81%
of users recommend this product

UKG Ready has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 81% when considering 2859 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

4.0 (251)
4.0 (846)
4.2 (51)
4.1 (778)
n/a
4.1 (790)
2.0 (1)
4.3 (129)
3.7 (323)
3.9 (316)

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

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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Streamlined Onboarding: New hires can electronically complete onboarding tasks, such as I-9 and W-4 forms, before their first day, saving time for both HR and employees.
Centralized Employee Data: The platform serves as a single source of truth for employee information, including contact details, job history, performance reviews, and benefits enrollment, reducing the need for multiple systems and spreadsheets.
Efficient Benefits Administration: UKG Ready simplifies benefits enrollment and management, allowing employees to easily compare plans, make selections, and track their coverage.
Time and Attendance Tracking: The system offers various methods for tracking employee time and attendance, including mobile clock-in/out, which can help ensure accurate payroll and compliance with labor laws.
Performance Management: UKG Ready facilitates performance reviews, goal setting, and feedback, enabling managers to track employee progress and development.
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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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Limited Customization: Users express frustration over the inflexibility of the platform, particularly when it comes to tailoring the system to their specific needs. For example, setting up unique approval workflows or customizing reports can be challenging.
Complex User Interface: Some users find the system difficult to navigate, describing the interface as clunky and unintuitive. This can lead to decreased efficiency and frustration, especially for new users.
Occasional Technical Issues: Users report experiencing occasional glitches and errors, such as system slowdowns or difficulty accessing certain features. These technical hiccups can disrupt workflow and impact productivity.
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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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User reviews from the past year indicate UKG Ready is a comprehensive human resources management software solution best suited for small and mid-sized businesses, but may not be the best fit for every organization. Users praise UKG Ready for its user-friendly interface, robust reporting and analytics, and seamless integration with other business software, such as accounting and CRM software. For example, one user noted the software's intuitive design made it easy to navigate and complete tasks efficiently. Another user highlighted the value of the detailed reports, which provided actionable insights into key HR metrics, enabling data-driven decision-making. However, some users have reported that the software can be expensive and may require a significant upfront investment. Additionally, some users have found the initial setup and implementation process to be somewhat complex and time-consuming. UKG Ready differentiates itself from competitors by offering a mobile app that allows employees to access their information and manage tasks on the go. This feature is particularly beneficial for businesses with remote or mobile workforces. Users also appreciate the strong customer support provided by UKG, noting the team's responsiveness and helpfulness in resolving issues. Overall, UKG Ready is a solid choice for businesses seeking a comprehensive HR solution with a user-friendly interface, robust features, and reliable customer support. However, businesses with limited budgets or those seeking a simple solution with minimal setup may want to consider alternative options.

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