Payroll processing is challenging since you need to pay your employees the right salary while withholding taxes according to local or international tax laws. Many online and offline payroll tools in the market mitigate some challenges. However, every payroll app has some advantages and disadvantages. You should not blindly choose just one of them and cope with it. Instead, the payroll tool must align automatically with your business. Rippling’s payroll processing tool is one of the best examples of a flexible payroll processor. Continue reading as we review Rippling Payroll software inside out in this article. In the end, you will get a clear idea of whether the tool is for your business or not.
What Is Payroll Software?
Payroll applications like Rippling help employers pay their employees on time without human errors. The tools come with the latest local and global tax rules, withholding instructions, employee benefits program information, etc. Hence, you can not just import the timesheet and employee payscale to the application and click a button to run payroll. The tool calculates all the bonuses, one-time payments, deductions, benefits, and taxes. These tools also help you send payments through online and offline modes. Not to mention file tax forms and pay tax amounts on behalf of the employees to the IRS, HMRC, or other competent authorities.
Rippling as an Online Payroll Software
Rippling is a modern payroll processing software with other features like finance, IT, and HR management. You can either get the complete Rippling solution for your business or subscribe to the payroll solution. When you get the complete solution, the payroll module automatically imports employee, vendor, and contractor data from the HRMS module. If you have just bought the Rippling Payroll solution, you can integrate the tool with other HRMS, ERP, timesheet apps, and accounting software for payroll purposes. You can completely automate the tool to submit one or more tax forms with the federal and state authorities on time. All you need is to update the employee database with appropriate details like pay scale, benefits, tax slabs, etc. It surprises your employees with celebratory artwork when it informs the disbursal of salaries in their accounts.
Rippling Unity Platform Features
It is important to know the administrative and automation features of the Rippling Payroll platform before we dig deep into the payroll functionalities. The following features will help an HR manager to control the overall tool and how their subordinates access it:
Workflow Automation
The workflow automation tools help you run different payroll process phases automatically. For example, you can automatically combine third-party data, internal HR data, and formulas to create payrolls on a certain date. Once the payroll is ready, the app will send you a notification to view the payroll and approve it. Then, Rippling Payroll will disburse the payments on a certain date. Similar automation is also possible for tax and compliance filings.
Policy Management Engine
Setting complex payroll policies throughout the organization is a daunting task. However, you can accomplish the task in less than a day with Rippling. Most of the policy-making and enforcing tasks are automatic. All you need to do is choose which policies apply to which payroll or HR team employee. The policy enforcement feature is a dynamic functionality. When you promote an HR or payroll employee, their profile automatically aligns with the effective policies for that job role.
Organized and Integrated HR Data
Payroll is not about just paying the employees and filing taxes. It is also about analyzing your organization’s expenses and making them more efficient in the next financial year. For that, you can utilize the robust data-fetching power of the Rippling platform. For example, you can bring all the payroll-related data from different departments, like HR, finance, IT, accounting, vendors, etc., into one screen. Then, you can apply formulas, charting tools, etc., to produce informative reports.
Approvals and Permissions Management
You can not just let everyone from the HR, admin, finance, payroll, and accounts team access all the employee payment-related data. Your organization’s compliance depends on properly handling employees’ data. Hence, you need the permissions and approvals management tool from Rippling. It lets you create role-based permissions. However, the tool is highly flexible and enables you to make ad hoc amendments, like giving a manager quick access to certain payroll data for an hour and blocking the access when the time runs out.
Core Payroll Features
Find below the payroll processing functionalities that the Rippling Payroll tool offers:
Faster Payroll Service
Opting for Rippling means running and reviewing payrolls rapidly, without any error. The software syncs all the HR data with payroll and lets you get rid of manual data entry or calculations such as hours and deductions. Click the Run button, and the tool will generate the payroll in less than 2 minutes.
Run Payroll From Templates
Here, users get several payroll-related templates that save them from creating reports from scratch. For example, the Payroll journal report template lets you view a detailed pay run breakdown. On the other hand, the Payroll report template shows your employees’ payroll information. Apart from these, Rippling offers other templates for workflow automation.
Compliance
Rippling comes with most of the tax and workforce regulations forms for all the states of the USA. These compliance forms include 941s, W-3s, W-2s, 1094-C, 1095-Cs, 1099s, and so on. Thus, you do not need to hire additional staff to source and fill out the compliance forms.
Tax Filing
This payroll app also includes all the regular wage types, taxes, and deductions toward employee benefits. Apart from standard taxes in the USA, you can set up custom tax rules for offshore employees. Hence, if you need to include VAT or GST and deduct those from employees’ paychecks, Rippling can help you.
International Payments
Rippling makes international payments a seamless process. Your company may have employees and contractors living in different countries, but there is no need to switch to another app to pay them. The payroll service of this tool allows you to pay them in minutes, regardless of their location.
PTO and Leave Tracking
Businesses can get rid of the hassle of manually tracking the PTO and leaves of their employees by letting Rippling do this job. The software enables you to customize the PTO policy and review the time off requests in one click. Furthermore, the PTO and approved working hours get synced with payroll automatically.
Payroll Reports
Payroll reports help you to make your business more cost-effective in the future. The leadership team always asks for payroll reports from the payroll team. The payroll staff needs to jump through hoops to collate all the data in one place and format it in tables. With Rippling, your payroll staff can generate professional and outstanding reports in just a few clicks. Reports can include advanced charts like Stacked bars, Columns, Donuts, Pies, Lines, etc., for effortless visualization.
Job Codes
Job Codes is a smart and sophisticated feature of this application. Using it, companies can get a clear idea of how employees spend their time and what it costs them. You can choose from these job codes — location, client, and task. Furthermore, companies can change the payment rate of their employees as they shift from job to job, and everything will get implemented in the payroll automatically.
Supports all of the USA States
Rippling is an acclaimed payroll software that works in all 50 states of the USA. So, if you are from the USA, you can use it to pay your workforce residing anywhere in the USA.
Instant Payments
Its employee and tax payments functionality lets you choose the right payment disbursal mode for your business. If you prefer direct transfers via credit card, debit card, ACH, wire transfers, etc., you can set up your payroll that way. Sometimes, you may need to send payments through a cheque. The Rippling Payroll tool also provides you the option to use cheques.
Mobile Apps
Rippling payroll is available for smartphones and tablets from the iOS and Android spectrum. Also, there are separate interfaces for the payroll managers and individual employees. Employees can use the mobile app to cross-check their PTOs, unplanned leaves, unpaid leaves, bonuses, payscale, tax withholding, etc. Your staff can also see their 1099s and W-2s. As an administrator, you can review the payrolls of individual employees on the go. If you find any errors, you can make notes to correct them later from the laptop or desktop app. Since Rippling Payroll is also available as a web app, you can access most of the features from a mobile phone that can run Chrome or Mozilla.
Third-Party App Integrations
Companies can integrate a variety of payroll and other apps in Rippling. Human Interest, Guideline, One Medical, TimeDoctor, Harvest, QuickBooks Time, Toggl, Clockify, Workers’ Comp, Betterment, Vanguard, Tapcheck, BlueStar, Money Intelligence, and ForUsAll are some supported apps for integrations.
Target Businesses
Rippling payroll is most suitable for small and medium businesses. According to its declarations, the tool is appropriate for organizations that need to run payroll for up to 1,000 employees, freelancers, or contractors. If your workforce is highly diversified and comes from different parts of the globe, do not worry. Rippling will also be able to handle payroll for a distributed workforce since it supports multiple payment modes like wire transfers, international payments, and check payments. Speaking of the target industries for Rippling, its official website says the app is suitable for the following businesses:
TechnologyHealthcareRetailManufacturingMarketingNon-ProfitsProfessional ServicesFinancial ServicesRestaurants
However, if you look at the overwhelming features and customization options, Rippling payroll is suitable for any business. All you need is a pre-built employee database to process payments. Hence, it is a great decision if you subscribe to the whole Rippling software.
Pricing
According to the Rippling official website, it will charge you $8 per month per user. However, it does not mention platform or individual module charges for HR, Payroll, IT, etc. On another section of the website, Rippling mentions that you can buy individual functionalities. For example, you can pay for the Payroll feature. In that case, you need to subscribe to the Rippling Unity Platform to operate the Payroll functionalities. The fees for the Rippling Unity Platform will be extra. Since the tool does not disclose any detailed pricing structure, you can get a customized quote directly from Rippling by submitting the Get a Free Quote form.
Alternatives
Find below some alternatives to compare Rippling with its competitors:
ADP
ADP offers a flexible and scalable payroll solution for different business sizes. For example, small business payroll for 1 to 49 employees and up to enterprise-level payroll for 50+ employees. The tool includes payroll, tax, and federal and state compliance. Furthermore, you can integrate the application with HR, financing, and accounting tools.
Zoho Payroll
Zoho’s payroll functionality helps you to run payroll automatically while you can focus on revenue-earning tasks like sales and marketing. Its crucial payroll features are industry-specific payroll, employee bonuses, one-click pay runs, custom deductions, online/offline payments, loan management, etc.
Final Words
Today’s hybrid and remote work organizations need robust payroll software to automate most payroll process phases. Not only that, but the tool also needs to account for state-wise tax compliances in the US, consider international tax laws, help with employee benefits, and more. Rippling is a full-service business management application focusing on HR, IT, and Finance. You can use the whole application or the Payroll service to process your company’s payroll effortlessly. It stands out as a complete payroll solution app based on many business standards. You may also be interested in SHRM certification prep courses.
