AccountantsWorldReviews of accountantsworld.com

It is absurd some of the functions one must go thru just to set up and process a payroll using Accounts World payroll program. The entire time we were setting up the program we felt that we were working with a want to be company. Input the payroll on their payroll input page is almost a joke, the page has all of the appropriate columns for employees, hours, OT, Vacation, etc., most of which will not be used. Can you go down the list of employees to post the hours, no, one must tab thru all eight columns to get to the next employee hour column. One would think that when you send out the payroll reports with payroll there would be a time sheet enclosed for the next payroll, especially for small companies. Not with Accounts World, you must generate a separate sheet and separate email to the client, 9 extra steps to accomplish this task. Client support is dismal at best and if you are on the west coast have your needs in the morning, they are closed for the most part in our afternoon and evenings. While they do have some support until 4:00 PST. After that, nada. Additionally, we found some of the staff to be not well informed as to how the program functions. The one highlight was a Nicole Savastano, very easy to work and relatively knowledgable. These are just a couple of the issues that make this program no workable for us.

Good Service

I have been using the software for over a year now and the support is mediocre, at best. The training and communication is non existant. If I had better training we would not have to call and find out how to handle various situations. Some reports do not support fiscal years. When I first started I informed them they were reporting the local wages incorrectly on the w-2 and had to show them in writing they were incorrect. They eventually made the fix but did not report it and made a change on the local tax setup for employees and did not communicate it either. They are unreasonable If your client has insufficient funds, in fact they will cut them off from all future electronic services plus charge you $100. This makes no sense as they do not release the funds to the tax authorities or employees until they have the funds from the client, so they are not at any risk. There client onboarding process takes way too long My advice is to steer clear, we are looking to switch.

By and large I find their software useful. That said, there is one major flaw with the AccountantsWorld payroll software (both PayrollRelief and After-the-Fact) that has nearly made me switch to a more fully functional software on more than one occasion. It has no way of dealing with employee withholding for the employees who work in multiple states. For a New England based software company you would think that the need for this would be apparent. To be clear, what I mean is that their software will allow you to withhold for up to two states...but it will withhold on all of the wages earned for both of the states regardless of how much time you put in either state. They have neither an A) entry method for breaking out wages and withholding, nor B) an override method for editing the tax forms themselves to break out the withholding and wages credited to each state. It's not that it's difficult or inefficient to accomplish, it's that the capability is completely non-existent. It can’t be done. This is a GROSS oversight and makes it completely untenable as a service for any firm that needs to deal with multi state withholding issues...like almost all New England firms do. With the states so close to each other in New England, multi-state withholding is common, and it's a horrible handicap to prepare some of your tax forms in the software and some of them outside of the software due to a lack of foresight in the coding. To have to prepare forms separate from the software for any payroll client who has multi state withholding on Roaming Employees is cumbersome and rage inducing, not to mention the added time and lack of efficiency. For a software company that touts "Automation" as its main selling point, the payroll products they put out are a letdown on this level. By and large I like the products fine, however failures and annoyance of this level cause firms to switch software companies regardless of how well their other features work. 3 stars at best...no more.

I have been using payroll relief for the past 10 years and I was very upset when they increased my annual fee from $195 to $350 this year. I emailed them and called and left them a message to talk about WHY the fee increased so much in this year and I have yet to get a reply!!! However, they sent me an email telling me that they took the $350 out of my account!! I am very unhappy and will be looking for a new package.

I've been with Payroll Relief for about 2 years. For the most part the services have been fine. They bog down with Nevada State Taxes. Beginning in 2016 they had the State Unemployment Form available fro e-file. Too late to use in the 1st Quarter but attempted to use in the 2nd Quarter; Report Failed. Attempted to use in the 3rd quarter; Report Failed. In both quarters I was forced to mail the Report and just barely met the deadline. 4th quarter they again said it was working. Guess what, it failed again. This time I did not get any notice that it had failed. State is assessing me penalties. Payroll Relief WILL NOT REIMBURSE PENALTIES because they said they ATTEMPTED TO FILE REPORT; therefore they did their job. Wait a second, isn't their job to ensure that the form is filed? Beware.

When I signed up for Payroll Relief, their website and their sales rep, Patrick Chilcoate, promised "full service" payroll. But three months later at the end of the quarter, I discovered that they were not e-filing or e-paying the Arizona Unemployment tax returns and payments. That means you have to process these manually or obtain a specific POA from your client to prepare an online return on the Arizona Unemployment website. It requires far more time to process and this was frankly embarassing for me because my clients were accustomed to full service e-filing. I have repeatedly requested that they make this a priority but can obtain no commitment. Nor are they willing to discount the price. The customer service has been inconsistent, but lately has declined. It took 7 contacts over a period of 9 days recently to get a response. Updated Response to Accountants World Delayed Reply: The ownership of this problem belongs to Payroll Relief and unfortunately reflects unfavorably upon their customer service and internal communications. I set up a handful of clients on their system at the beginning of 2016. When I called to ask why I couldn’t electronically file AZ unemployment returns, I was directed to the software which showed there was no option to electronically file these returns. During four subsequent conversations over the next 10 months, including two with technical support staff and one with Patrick Chilcoate in Sales, I requested that this be made a priority. At no time did any one of these individuals tell me that Payroll Relief had already begun electronic filing AZ unemployment returns. When they posted a reply to my review on Friday, nearly 5 months after my review was posted, claiming I had been misinformed, I was flabbergasted. I immediately called to ask when efiling of AZ unemployment returns had been implemented and was initially told they couldn’t tell me, but ‘had been working on it’. When I asked why they hadn’t sent me an email, I was told they don’t send emails notifying customers of programming changes. Later on Friday, I received a call telling me they had been offering this service for 10 months and that notification had been posted on the website, but of course, it is not posted there now. Nevertheless, they sent me yet another marketing email this morning inviting me to a webinar where they have experts who will tell ME how to run MY business. REALLY???

We converted to Payroll Relief in late 2014. They do have help screen and tutorials, but these could be improved upon. We ran into areas that did not have enough detail explanation to help prevent some problems. Especially when it comes to how and when funds will move. Their support has been very responsive, but some staff are better informed then others (we have our favorite!). The software is nicely integrated for processing, direct deposit, tax depositing and reporting. This has saved us a lot of time and errors compared to our old system. I also like their pricing model much better than the 3 other packages i investigated. They continue to make enhancements to their program.