2012 Review of Intuit Online Payroll for Accounting Professionals

Intuit Online Payroll for Accounting Professionals
888-236-9501
www.accountant.intuit.com/payroll

From the October 2012 review of professional payroll systems.

Best Firm Fit: Accounting professionals mainly reliant on the QuickBooks accounting software platform but need a higher level of outsourced payroll support

Strengths

• Internet-based solution to allow anytime payroll processing
• Provide platform for collaborating with clients on various payroll tasks
• Much improved mobile applications
• Predictable pricing to help ensure profitability

Potential Limitations

• No HR functions or add-in modules available
• Concurrent file access not allowed
• No after-the-fact payroll capabilities

Online Payroll for Accounting Professionals is an Internet-based solution for accountants to process payroll for small business clients. Built to process payroll for organizations with 150 or fewer employees, the service provides most commonly requested features at a fixed monthly rate. New features and enhancements for the current release are the addition of job costing and updates to the mobile interface.

Basic System Functions: 4.5 Stars

Online Payroll for Accounting Professionals is built as a web-based solution and requires an Internet browser to access and process payroll. Currently, Intuit is focusing programming efforts on the current versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari browsers. Other browsers may access the solution, but are not currently supported by Intuit.

User login information may be tightly controlled to allow full or limited access to various client and respective data. This additional user access control provides the unique ability to collaborate with clients on payroll related issues. For instance, clients may only be granted access to enter time data and the accounting professional manages the remaining payroll processing.

Unlimited clients and payroll runs are allowed with the service but programming limitations only allow up to 155 employees within each company. Multiple earnings, deductions and benefit codes may be setup and assigned to employees. The system will also track various time accruals for vacation and other time off.

To process payroll, all required time data will need to be posted manually or imported from the available online employee timekeeping module (available for a nominal monthly fee).Once time data is approved, Online Payroll for Accounting Professionals handles the remainder of the process. All required compliance filings, tax payments and direct deposits are processed on behalf of the client and a variety of reports are made available.

New for the current year is the addition of job costing. For current users of QuickBooks, all customer and related job information may be directly imported to the payroll service. Once imported, all time data may be allocated across these jobs.

Upon processing payroll, this information will be immediately available for import back into QuickBooks and will update all associated job cost reports as appropriate. Intuit has also enhanced the mobile offerings for the online payroll experience and now supports Android devices in addition to iOS.

The mobile platform provides accounting professionals the ability to process payroll for their clients as well as review a handful of reports. Additionally, tax payments for 22 states may also be processed directly through the iOS mobile app.

An additional mobile app was recently introduced by Intuit called Snap Payroll.This free app provides small employers the ability to enter time data and calculate individual paychecks on their iOS devices. For now the service is only available in a few states and does not provide any electronic compliance filings or tax payments.

Reporting & Monitoring: 4.5 Stars

As a full featured service offering, Online Payroll for Accounting Professionals processes all federal compliance filings and tax payments on behalf of the accounting professional. State electronic compliance filings and tax payments are also processed as required and allowed by the respective state agencies.