What is Ultipro?
One of the most popular cloud-based payroll software services, Ultipro (Offered by Ultimate Software) offers both comprehensive features and valuable automation functionality.
Ultipro offers a level of customization that is nearly unbeaten. However, while that makes it a great payroll solution for many large and medium-sized businesses, many small businesses will find Ultipro’s additional features unnecessary and its pricing potentially steep.
However, it all depends on what you’re looking for in a payroll software.
It can be difficult deciding between the slew of payroll services out there, especially if you’re looking for your business’s first payroll software and don’t yet know which features will be useful to you and which not.
That’s why we’ve broken down everything there is to know about Ultipro’s competitive payroll software service so you can decide for yourself.
What features does Ultipro payroll offer?
If you’re new to payroll software, it’s important to know that while every software provides the same basic service of paying your employees on each designated payday, where each software varies is in its additional features.
So what features does Ultipro offer? Here are the most notable additional features offered by the Ultipro payroll software:
Direct deposit
The most basic of payroll software features, Ultipro offers direct deposit.
Instead of issuing checks each week, Ultipro allows you to issue deposits directly into employee’s bank accounts, provided you obtain their bank information.
Direct deposit is a standard in most payroll software. However, it’s still a feature that isn’t universal among payroll services, so make sure to confirm that any payroll software you’re considering offers it.
Mobile app functionality
Many payroll services still don’t have mobile app functionality.
However, Ultipro offers a simple and straightforward mobile app that gives you the power to check on the status of employee payments and other information.
That’s not all you can do with the app, though. You can also set up payments and make several changes from within the app.
Having said that, the Ultipro mobile app– as is the case with most payroll/accounting mobile apps– leaves much to be desired in terms of ease of use.
Employee logins
One of the most useful payroll software features is employee logins.
Employee logins give your employees the ability to login to an Ultipro dashboard and check the status of their next payment themselves.
If you have hourly employees whose pay changes by the week or month, this is an especially nice feature because it gives your employees more peace of mind and reduces the number of questions pointed at accounting.
In addition to their next payment, Ultipro can also allow employees to check their benefits and time off, making it an even more useful feature.
Time tracking
Ultipro doubles as a payroll and time clock software, including the ability to choose from several different time tracking systems.
The service offers a manual time clock if you prefer for employees to input their time in and out each day, or an automated system that also integrates with payroll.
Tax management
Ultipro tax management features are a great example of simple tasks that the software automates for you.
With Ultipro payroll, all tax fees, including federal and state, as well as other deductions are automatically calculated and deducted from employee payments.
That’s to be expected from any good payroll software. However, Ultipro also automatically edits those amounts based on any changes to the tax code and payments will immediately reflect those changes without any work required on your part.
Payroll reporting
Ultipro offers some of the most comprehensive payroll reports available.
With Ultipro reporting, you can analyze your payouts, tax fees, benefit amounts, and even build out custom reports if one of the presets doesn’t serve your purpose.
However, keep in mind that custom reports aren’t available in the basic version of Ultipro payroll.
Employee benefits management
Some versions of Ultipro also offer employee benefits management, further making Ultipro an all-in-one employee management software.
With advanced versions of Ultipro, you can track employee benefits such as retirement accounts, payments for vacation and off days, health and life insurance, and more.
Keep in mind that this is really just a short list of Ultipro’s features. There are over a dozen additional features not mentioned here that might be desirable to you and your business.
How much does Ultipro cost?
Ultipro offers a comprehensive list of features, but it’s on the costly side in terms of payroll software.
Still, if you can make full use of the additional features, Ultipro may be the perfect fit for your business.
Ultipro’s pricing structure can be a bit confusing to figure out as they’re not completely straightforward about certain aspects of it, especially as it pertains to additional features.
To make matters worse, they use a more old-school (or high-end, depending on how you look at it) quote-based structure, so you can only find out the full cost of the software by requesting a quote.
By doing so, a representative will respond back with information and several quotes, some with certain features and others without. It will then be your job to decide which features you need, which you can live without, and whether that optimized collection of features is worth the price.
Pros and cons of Ultipro payroll
Now that you know a bit more about the software itself, why might you consider Ultipro as opposed to other payroll software?
Here are the major pros and cons of the Ultipro payroll software:
Pros:
- Unrivaled feature list
- Time tracking and benefits management make Ultipro an all-in-one employee management software
- Comprehensive automation ability
Cons:
- Transitioning to Ultipro can be rough from other payroll software
- High price, especially if you include the service with many of their additional features
- As with many of the more complicated business software, it has a high learning curve
Ultimately, pros and cons depend upon what you’re looking for in a payroll software. You might not care about the high learning curve if your demands for features are highly specific and Ultipro does exactly what you need it to do.
However, on the other end, if Ultipro is outside your budget, the fact that many features cost additional won’t help its case.
Is Ultipro payroll right for you?
Ultipro is known for providing payroll services to some of the most notable brands in the world, from the MLB (Major League Baseball) to Subway restaurant.
However, whether Ultipro is right for you is another question.
To know whether Ultipro or another payroll software is right for you, consider these points:
- Features: First, look to its features. Make a list of what features you want and compare it to what features Ultipro offers.
- Pricing: With your list of features, review the quote provided to you by Ultipro’s representatives. Also, consider if giving up a particular feature will make it affordable for you and whether that’s worth it.
- Simplicity of use: Ultipro is known for being difficult to learn and get used to. As mentioned earlier, the additional features might outway that if the price point is within your budget. But if it isn’t, the difficulty of use might just be another breaking point.
If you’re shopping for your first payroll software, Ultipro payroll likely isn’t your best option.
That’s because you probably have no need for all those snazzy features and just need a payroll service that does its basic job (some features, such as time tracking, reporting, and mobile functionality might be desirable, but they’re common among payroll software).
And, chances are, even if it isn’t your first, the additional features probably don’t justify the price. However, if you’re searching for a new payroll software then chances are there is a specific reason you’re switching, so you already have a feature you’re searching for or a lower price.
In that case, if it’s a specific feature you’re searching for, you’ll probably be able to find a payroll software that offers it at a lower price point, just without all the bells and whistles of Ultipro.
But, ultimately, only you can decide what payroll software is the best fit for your business.
Use the points above to help guide and simplify your search for the best payroll software so you can move on to the important stuff– like driving your business forward.