The right small business payroll software can transform managing payroll from a daunting and time-consuming task into a quick and easy one. We lined up our top picks for the best payroll software that will best fit your business needs and budget.
Payday is everybody’s favorite day of the month–unless you’re the payroll administrator. You’re likely spending half the month making sure the checks and direct deposits you send out are 100% accurate, and let’s not even talk about all the calculations that must be done beforehand. Taxes, benefits, and everything else need to be on point down to the penny.
The right payroll software can take most, if not all, of those tasks off your hands and automate everything into a simple and easy-to-use payroll solution.
This will not only save you lots of time but will also save you from expensive mistakes. In 2020 alone, the IRS handed out more than $4.9 billion in penalties for avoidable issues such as failure to pay and bad checks.
Let’s take a look at some of the best payroll software that can save your small business time and money in the long run.
If you don’t have the time to read through our research, jump down to our quick comparison table.
Our Top Picks
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Best all-in-one payroll software for small businesses
Learn more -
Good for automating payroll processes
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Good for automating recurring payroll
What to Look For in a Payroll Software
When looking for a good compliance software solution, keep an eye out for the following aspects and features:
- Ease of use: It’s easy to set up and offers an intuitive user experience.
- Customizability: It’s customizable to suit your team structures.
- Reporting: It allows you to filter reports in multiple ways for a more detailed analysis. Reports should also be exportable.
- Direct deposit: It allows you to directly deposit paychecks to your employees.
- Integrations: If your operations are divided across multiple employee management software, it should let you integrate these existing systems into one.
- Employee accessibility: You employees should be able to access and review their personal payroll data.
- Tax filing: It helps simplify the process of collecting, generating, and filing taxes.
- Notifications: It sends you reminders, alerts, and push notifications, and enables you to notify your employees if they need to perform actions, for instance, review their timesheet.
- Price: It is cost-friendly and suits your budget.
- Support: It comes with good customer support to help you with any issues.
The 12 Best Payroll Software for Small Businesses of 2023
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Connecteam — Best all-in-one payroll software for small businesses
Available on
- Web
- iOS
- Android
Connecteam is all-in-one payroll management software that provides business owners and managers with all the tools they need to prepare 100% accurate timesheets for payroll.
With its fully automated GPS-Time Clock, your employees can clock in and out straight from the jobsite using the mobile app.
All tracked hours are automatically organized on a digital Timesheet. Here you can quickly see and review all logged data, such as total daily work hours, the number of hours worked during a payroll period, overtime, breaks, time off, and any irregularities.
Managers can make edits if necessary and notify users to check their timesheets, ensuring all information is accurate and discrepancy-free. You can then lock timesheets in a click to stop further adjustments.
When ready, you can simply process payroll using Connecteam’s Gusto or QuickBooks Online payroll integrations or directly export timesheets to any additional preferred payroll software.
Overall, Connecteam is extremely simple and intuitive to use.
Key Features
Payroll system integrations (QuickBooks & Gusto)
GPS-work hour tracking
Timesheet management
PTO & absence management
Overtime management
Timesheet errors/irregularities highlights
Pros
Intuitive and easy to use
All-in-one solution
Great customer support
Budget-friendly
Cons
Additional integrations in development
Pricing
Starts at just $29/month for the first 30 users Free 14-day trial Free plan available
14-day free trial, no credit card required
Start your free trial -
Gusto — Good for: Automating payroll processes
Available on
- Web
- iOS
- Android
- Windows
- Mac
Gusto’s full-service payroll software aims to help small businesses take care of their teams.
With it, you can easily run payroll for salaried employees and contractors as often as you need each month. It also allows you to automatically file payroll taxes, manage healthcare and other employee benefits, perform next day, 2-day, and 4-day direct deposits, and more.
Gusto is a good pick for small business owners and entrepreneurs looking to automate their payroll processes to minimize administrative hires and instead direct their resources toward the business’s mission.
Learn more about GustoKey Features
- Benefits management
- Check printing
- Direct Deposit
- Electronic forms
Pros
- Easy to use
- Feature-rich
Cons
- Poor customer support
- Limited reporting options
Pricing
Starts at $40/month Trial: No Free Plan: No
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RUN by ADP — Good for: Automating recurring payroll
Available on
- Web
- iOS
- Android
RUN by ADP is a payroll system for small businesses that aims to handle the “nitty-gritty” of processing payroll, so you can instead focus on running your business.
It offers step-by-step screens, guidance, and tips for managing payroll and allows you to set up automations for recurring payroll. It includes multiple payment options, including direct deposit and ADPCheck.
RUN also includes add-ons for benefits administration and tax form filing for additional fees.
This software is specifically designed for businesses with up to 50 employees. It can still be a good fit if you expect to grow beyond that, as it allows you to migrate to ADP’s enterprise platform.
Learn more about RUN by ADPKey Features
- Benefits tracking
- Check printing
- Compensation management
- Direct deposit
- Employee database
- Payroll reporting
Pros
- Good customizability
- Easy to use
Cons
- Limited data import capabilities
- Hard to set up
Pricing
Contact vendor for price Trial: Yes Free Plan: No
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QuickBooks Time — Good for: Automating state and federal tax filings
Available on
- Web
- iOS
- Android
- Windows
- Mac
QuickBooks Time is a great accounting software solution that aims to provide small- to medium-sized businesses with smarter business tools. This payroll software system offers the essential features needed to run payroll services, including wage garnishments, health insurance, and other benefits administration, and automated state and federal tax filings. Managers can also set QuickBooks payroll to run automatically so that they can focus on the bigger picture.
Learn more about QuickBooks TimeKey Features
- Activity dashboard
- Automatic billing
- Billing and invoicing
- Budgeting/forecasting
- Expense tracking
- Payroll management
- Inventory tracking
Pros
- Feature-rich
- Easy to use
Cons
- Learning curve
- Poor customer support
Pricing
Starts at $8.5/user/month Trial: Yes — 30-day Free Plan: No
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Paychex Flex — Good for: New-hire reporting to government agencies
Available on
- Web
- iOS
- Android
- Windows
- Mac
Paychex Flex is a payroll system for small businesses that aims to make handling complex HR, payroll, and benefits simple for business owners.
With this payroll system for small businesses, you can process payroll for your employees and contractors online or submit payroll by phone to a payroll specialist. It however does not include benefits administration offered by some competitors.
You can use different payment methods, including direct deposit, pay cards, paper checks, online tip sharing, and on-demand access to earned wages.
Learn more about Paychex FlexKey Features
- Check printing
- Compensation management
- Direct deposit
- Employee database
Pros
- Easy to use
- Good customizability
Cons
- Limited capabilities
- Hard to implement
Pricing
Contact vendor for price Trial: No Free Plan: No
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Sage Payroll — Good for: Accessing payslips online
Available on
- Web
- iOS
- Android
Sage’s payroll app for small businesses aims to simplify your payroll process and grant access to accurate reports for quicker decision-making.
With it, you can process weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly payrolls. Payslips are accessible online for you and your employees to view or look back on. It also includes tools to manage workplace pension schemes and to help ensure you comply with legislation.
One of its main strengths is security – your payroll information in the cloud is fully encrypted, and user access permissions can be customized to ensure data security and integrity.
Learn more about Sage PayrollKey Features
- ACA reporting
- Benefits management
- Check printing
- Compensation management
Pros
- Easy to use
- Easy to integrate
Cons
- Unintuitive user interface
- Poor customer service
Pricing
Starts at $8/month Trial: Yes Free Plan: No
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SurePayroll — Good for: Running payroll from your mobile phone
Available on
- Web
- iOS
- Android
SurePayroll’s small business payroll system aims to help simplify and saves time on important back-office operations.
It was the first software-as-a-service payroll company that expanded its services into a total online payroll and tax filing software. These include services for workers’ compensation, 401(k) plans, and health insurance.
SurePayroll’s services are specifically designed for small and micro business owners that don’t need a wide variety of HR support tools.
Learn more about SurePayrollKey Features
- Benefits management
- Check printing
- Compensation management
- Wage garnishment
Pros
- Easy to use
- Feature-rich
Cons
- Limited reporting customizability
- Poor customer service
Pricing
Starts at $19/month + $4/user/month Trial: Yes Free Plan: No
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Wagepoint — Good for: Automating payroll taxes
Available on
- Web
Wagepoint’s payroll software, created just for small businesses, aims to make it easy to pay everyone and stay on top of your payroll taxes.
With this online payroll software, you can automatically calculate incomes, deductions, and paid time off. It can also automate payroll taxes to ensure compliance.
You can then pay your employees and contractors using direct deposits. Everyone can then access their paystubs online.
Learn more about WagepointKey Features
- Direct deposit
- Tax compliance
- W-2 preparation
- Wage garnishment
Pros
- Easy to use
- Good customer support
Cons
- Limited reporting capabilities
- Insufficient customizability
Pricing
Contact vendor for price Trial: No Free Plan: No
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Paycor — Good for: Ensuring compliance
Available on
- Web
- iOS
- Android
PayCor is a payroll app for small businesses that aims to make the entire payroll process simple and seamless and make mistakes easy to catch.
With this payroll and tax service software, you can pay employees from wherever you are. The software constantly updates, making it easy to comply with local, state, and federal laws.
PayCor guides you through the payroll process and allows you to make real-time calculations. This way, you can see exactly what’s being debited before you run payroll. You can also set up automations to process payroll on a specific day and time without having to be at a computer.
Learn more about PaycorKey Features
- 401(k) tracking
- Benefits management
- Compensation management
- COBRA administration
Pros
- Intuitive user experience
- Easy to implement
Cons
- Limited reporting options
- Poor customer service
Pricing
Contact vendor for price Trial: Yes Free Plan: No
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Bamboo HR — Good for: Managing payroll reports
Available on
- Web
- iOS
- Android
- Windows
- Mac
BambooHR is another great payroll system for small businesses. While specifically made for US-based employees, BambooHR provides an easy, 3-step solution to payroll. This payroll app for small businesses saves employee information like wages, hours, bank account numbers, employee benefits, deductions, or withholdings and automatically transfers to the payroll process.
Additionally, they have an employee portal so employees can access their payroll information (paystubs, direct deposit accounts) at any time. Lastly, they provide over 100 exportable payroll reports.
Learn more about Bamboo HRKey Features
- Compensation management
- Benefits management
- Direct deposit
- Retirement plan management
Pros
- Easy to implement
- Good customer support
Cons
- Unintuitive user experience
- Features need refinement
Pricing
Contact vendor for price Trial: Yes Free Plan: No
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Rippling — Good for: Syncing HR data
Available on
- Web
- iOS
- Android
- Windows
- Mac
Rippling is a full-service payroll software for small businesses that aims to make processing payroll instant and reliable. To be precise – Rippling states that it runs payroll within 90 seconds.
The payroll software syncs all of your business’s HR data with payroll allowing you to skip manual calculations and data entry. It also provides automatic compliance and automatic filing of tax forms.
Rippling payroll software for small businesses allows users to create reports from pre-built templates or fully customizable. Lastly, Rippling’s payroll app for small businesses integrates with over 400 apps to simplify your payroll and HR processes.
Learn more about RipplingKey Features
- Check printing
- Compensation management
- Deduction management
- Life insurance administration
Pros
- Intuitive user experience
- Sufficient integration options
Cons
- Limited customization options
- Unresponsive customer support
Pricing
Starts at $8/user/month Trial: Yes Free Plan: No
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Paycom — Good for: Providing employees with a guided self-service experience
Available on
- Web
- iOS
- Android
- Windows
- Mac
Paycom is a payroll software that aims to empower employees to manage their own data.
With it, employees can do their payroll – as well as their timecard, PTO, expenses, and benefits – with a guided self-service experience. The system checks the payroll to ensure there are no errors and helps employees fix mistakes. Paycom also provides garnishment administration and payroll tax management.
Learn more about PaycomKey Features
- Benefits management
- Check printing
- Compensation management
- Health insurance administration
Pros
- Simple to navigate
- Easy to use
Cons
- Prone to bugs
- Unengaging user interface
Pricing
Contact vendor for price Trial: No Free Plan: No
Compare the Best Payroll Software for Small Businesses
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What Is Small Business Payroll Software?
Small business payroll software is a digital solution for small business owners to automate and streamline payroll processing instead of investing hours of their time or hiring HR or accounting personnel for this task.
Payroll software automates data entry and often includes modules or integration options for employee attendance and time tracking, payroll tax filing, and benefits management.
There are a large number of payroll solutions that are suitable for different business sizes. Small businesses usually need a payroll software system with basic capabilities such as payroll processing, time tracking, and tax filing.
How Does Small Business Payroll Software Work?
With payroll software, you can entirely automate payroll processing.
It automatically calculates the amount you need to pay each employee based on factors such as the number of hours they worked, their hourly pay or salaries, and whether they took time off during the pay period, and calculates and deducts taxes and other withholdings from gross wages.
It can usually also generate detailed payroll reports and pay slips each pay period and allows you to deposit payroll to your employees directly or through integrations.
What Are the Benefits of Small Business Payroll Software?
Shifting to an small business payroll software solution from running payroll manually has many benefits.
The main ones are that it:
- Automates tedious tasks: Rather than manually managing payroll tasks and filing taxes, small business payroll software helps speed up and simplify the entire payroll process.
- Saves time and labor costs: It frees up the time that business owners or their hired HR and payroll personnel spend on managing payroll, and so also cuts down on the labor costs associated with the processing of payroll. For some businesses, a small business payroll software may even replace the need for a full-time payroll employee.
- This means that the time, money, and effort once invested in manually managing payroll can now be invested in more important aspects of the business.
- Increases accuracy and ensures compliance: Automated payroll processing eliminates inaccuracies and the possibility of other human errors throughout the process. Payroll software also helps small businesses streamline processes and better fulfill compliance requirements, especially those related to taxes.
- Generates reports: Detailed payroll reports will offer you valuable insights and allow you to analyze your processes.
How Much Does Small Business Payroll Software Cost?
The cost of small business payroll software varies strongly per provider and is often dependent on the size of your business and the number of users. Most small business payroll software providers also offer different feature bundles for different fees.
When choosing the best payroll software for your business, it is important to make sure that it is both budget-friendly and offers you the features you need. Some payroll software options for instance are affordable when you have less than 10 employees but get very expensive when your team grows. Others may be expensive altogether while lacking certain important features.
Our top pick, Connecteam, offers a fixed price of $29 per month for the first 30 users. This is fair pricing and includes all important features for payroll management and everything related to it such as time tracking, making it a worthwhile investment.
FAQs
Do small businesses need payroll software?
Yes. In order to ensure there are no payroll errors and discrepancies, it’s important— even for small businesses to invest in payroll software.
Just consider:
- one in three small businesses report spending more than 80 hours – the equivalent of two full weeks of work – each year on federal taxes, including payroll (employment) taxes.
- 11% of small businesses report spending over 10 hours a month on payroll management.
With numbers like these, it is no wonder employers and bookkeepers are pulling their hair when it’s time to manage payroll.
After all, payroll is the last thing you want to deal with, but it is the first thing you should get right. It’s a double-edged sword!
And every small or medium business owner also knows that payroll is indispensable, just like human resources and time tracking.
You just can’t keep your business moving forward without payroll.
On top of that, even the most dedicated and loyal employees want a steady paycheck so you really can’t afford mistakes. Plus, the amount of time you need to dedicate to payroll is insane and that’s putting it lightly.
You need to invest time to calculate checks, properly manage withholdings, enter all the payment amounts picture-perfect, and process direct deposit and checks – yeah, that can take you the whole pay period to complete. And complete properly, without mistakes. Yikes.
With all that time spent on payroll, you would think that payroll would be bulletproof and immune to mistakes but, unfortunately, payroll is very prone to mistakes.
- In fact, 33% of employers report making habitual payroll mistakes.
- The American Payroll Association shows an error rate of between 1-8% of total payroll in companies that use traditional timecards.
- Roughly 40% of small businesses incur an average of $845 a year in IRS penalties as a result of mismanaged payroll processes.
So what do we do?
We turn to automation and increasingly sophisticated payroll and time and attendance software solutions.
The issue isn’t a lack of available, and often effective, payroll management applications but rather the challenge of picking the right one.
Can payroll software help with issues such as tax compliance and workers compensation?
Yes! A robust payroll software will be able to calculate payroll while simultaneously calculating taxes, workers compensation, wage garnishments, PTO, and more. Not all payroll software services provide this though, so make sure that the payroll software you choose supports these features.
Are payroll softwares hard to use?
That depends on which payroll software you choose is the best fit for your business. Not all payroll software is easy to use. Some payroll software tools listed above allow you to request a guided tour with a customer support agent who can help show you more about their software. After a demo, you’ll have a better understanding of whether it will be easy for you and your HR manager to use.
The Bottom Line on Payroll Software for Small Businesses
Payroll software is the first to enter the HR cycle in any business. Without payroll software, you cannot pay your workers or comply with tax laws without investing a great deal of time in paperwork. So it’s no wonder there’s such a broad selection of payroll management and automation solutions out there – there’s something for everyone.
Be sure to choose one that offers features that best allow you to streamline and run an accurate payroll process. Our number one pick, Connecteam, offers all the tools you need to track precise work hours, automate digital timesheets, and run these right through your preferred payroll software – all with one intuitive and fair-priced tool.