Zenefits

Introducing Zenefits Payroll — The First “Self-Driving” Payroll System

Today, we’re incredibly excited to announce the launch of Zenefits Payroll — the first payroll system that runs itself. It’s also the first payroll system that is totally free.

Here’s a 60 second overview:

You can pick from one of two versions of Zenefits Payroll, Self-Driving Mode and Pro. What Google’s driverless cars will do for your commute, Self-Driving Mode does for your company. It takes running and managing payroll — a wildly inefficient, manual task that wastes a lot of people’s time and energy — and turns it into one you never worry about again.

Because it’s deeply integrated with every employee system, from insurance to time-tracking and compliance to 401(k), Zenefits Payroll runs itself. Updates are made in payroll whenever information about your employees changes in Zenefits. You can set the service to run automatically every pay period too — and, if you do, you can get out of the payroll-running business entirely. Zenefits Payroll will do all the work for you.

Maybe the best way to think of this is — Zenefits isn’t launching a payroll system; we’re upgrading our service so that it can pay your employees and file your taxes for you. It’s not a separate system — it’s deeply integrated into everything that we already do.

And, because we view Self-Driving Mode as part of our core HR platform, we don’t think we should charge for it separately. So, we’re making it free.

We are also offering a paid “Pro” version of Zenefits Payroll, which gives you the same great features as Self-Driving Mode, but also gives you the ability to make changes directly in payroll the way other payroll systems do. But, our strategy is not to upsell you on Pro — we believe “Pro” is the equivalent to getting root access to your computer. Some people want that, but for most, it’s overkill. For most companies, Self-Driving Mode is the right choice — and again, it’s free.

Our philosophy on payroll: it should drive itself.

In the early days of Zenefits, I spent hours each pay period, manually inputting payroll changes, pro-rating salaries for new and departing employees, dealing with manual checks and special pay runs, calculating deductions, and checking everything over before finally hitting the ‘run’ button.

At Zenefits, we believe that the best possible payroll system is one that’s nearly invisible, operating in the background, quietly cutting checks to your employees, keeping you compliant, and remitting taxes to the government. The best possible payroll system is one you’d almost never have to go to, because everything works fine without you having to get involved. The best possible payroll system is the one that drives itself.

We still believe in the power of choice.

To give Zenefits’ customers the choice they deserve, Zenefits is continuing its partnerships with and support of other payroll companies. Want to use Zenefits Payroll? Great, we’d love to have you as a customer! Not interested? No problem, you can continue to use your current payroll provider and we’ll continue to help you automate your HR administration work. It’s entirely up to you.

Key Features

Unique features of the tightly integrated and automated Zenefits Payroll experience include:

  • Automatic Pay Runs: Select a recurring pay run schedule once, and Zenefits automatically runs payroll moving forward. Payroll runs become completely hands-free.
  • Automatic Tax Filing: Zenefits is the only free, full-service payroll provider that automatically files federal and state tax filings in all 50 states.
  • Automatic Onboarding: When a new employee is hired, Zenefits automatically adds them to payroll, enrolls them in benefits, calculates their deductions, and pro-rates their first check.
  • Automatic Offboarding: When an employee parts ways with the company, Zenefits automatically removes them from payroll and benefits, helps calculate their PTO accrual, administers COBRA, and finally generates and prints that employee’s final check all with the click of a mouse — something no other payroll provider does.
  • Automatic Upkeep: When an employee earns a promotion, works overtime, or takes a vacation, Zenefits Payroll automatically updates itself, eliminating ongoing data entry.
  • Smart Stubs: Employees can see what changes were made to their pay, when, and more importantly — why — directly on their paystubs. No longer will employees have to run to HR or business owners to ask them about changes in their payroll.
  • Payroll Timeline: Managers and accountants can see a complete linear history of every payroll change made for every employee. This type of visibility is unprecedented among payroll providers.

Run your first payroll with Zenefits in January 2016.

Businesses can now sign up and run their first payroll with Zenefits in January 2016. Learn more and get started today at www.zenefits.com/payroll.  

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