Workday Payroll Review: Features, Pros & Cons, and Alternatives!

A Glimpse into Workday Payroll

Workday is one of the biggest and most popular business management software providers in the market. Launched in 2006, Workday is most popular for serving companies that are on the enterprise level. It is designed for organizations with complex personnel needs. One of their Humans Resources Management software is Workday Payroll.

Workday Payroll is a cloud-based payroll solution that includes an effective time tracking and payroll management system. Workday payroll comes with all the features you would expect from a payroll platform, including W2s, 1099 form preparation, flexible payment schedules, garnishments, and reimbursements. However, the software does not come with contractor payments or integrated pre-tax benefits.

Workday is not accredited by the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and has an F rating on the platform. However, based on more than 1,100 reviews, it received a 4 out of 5-star rating on G2. This review will help you have a better idea about what Workday is like in use, which features stand out the most, and how it can help your business prosper.
 

Workday Payroll Key Features

Workday offers versatile services that serve your business. Within its payroll software, it includes a variety of features that make payday less stressful for HR managers. Some of the features it includes are:

Pay groups

Because Workday payroll serves large companies, it understands that enterprises have much more complex payroll needs. Using the pay groups feature in Workday payroll enables you to categorize specific employee types into groups, rather than try to pay hourly, salaried, and executive-level payroll, all using the same method.
 

Automatic tax updates

The great thing about Workday payroll is that it allows you to put worrying about the latest tax updates behind you. This is because Workday updates payroll and all related taxes in real-time. This means that employees will always have the correct amount of tax deducted from their paychecks. This will also be useful for reporting purposes as you will have the most up-to-date tax info at hand.
 

Automatic payroll audits

If you wish to eliminate payroll errors and reduce the need for manual corrections, then Workday payroll might just be the one for you. Workday will help you audit the payroll before the pay run is complete. You can set up worker-based audit rules within the software so it can easily pinpoint errors before they occur.
 

Fully customizable

Another great feature about Workday payroll is its customizability. It allows you to create the interface you want by displaying only the options that apply to your role within the business. This means that you no longer need to click through various screens in order to find the feature you’re looking for.
 

Multiple tax filing options

With Workday payroll, you have the option to outsource taxable wages reports and tax filing tasks to the service provider of your choice. You can also choose to handle all tax reporting and payments in-house.
 

Workday Payroll Solutions

Workday payroll also offers business owners a number of payroll solutions that will make their work processes easier and smoother. Here are some of the main solutions that they offer:

High-level payroll processing

Workday payroll processing includes options to run both current and retro pay calculations, quickly add bonus and other one-time payments, and process on-leave employees or terminated employees. You can easily run a pay calculation in the command center if you want to know exactly how much the next payroll will be. You can also schedule the pay calculation for any future date.

Workday also enables you to choose to pay in groups and even choose multiple pay runs for multiple groups, paying your hourly employees, biweekly, while still paying salaried employees semi-monthly.
 

Mobile apps

Workday payroll offers a great mobile app compatible with both Android and iOS smartphones, that allows your employees to access their pay stubs, request time off, and enter their hours. The following are some, but not all, of the features that you can access through the mobile app:

• Payslips – Your employees can get a list of all of their pay amounts through the app. Once they click on a payment amount, payment details such as gross & net payment amounts, and banking information appear.
   
• Time tracking – Your employees can easily track their worked hours using Workday’s time tracking system.
   
• Dashboard – Employees can also create custom dashboards to view desired payroll info, including year-to-date payroll totals.
   
• Time off – Your employees can see how many vacation days they currently have by going to the time off-screen. So, you don’t need to deal with people frequently asking how many days off they have left any longer.
   

Audit and reporting

Workday payroll offers auditing features that allow you to create audit rules for your pay runs. It also includes common payroll reports such as payroll register and pays calculation report. All the reports can be fully customized. They also offer drill-down and actionable capability features that allow you to view the payroll-related info included in the report, which also being able to access tasks within the report if needed. Workday allows you to export the reports to Microsoft Excel or save them as a PDF.
 

Employee self-service

This solution allows your employees to access and view complete payroll info online from their desktops or mobile phones. Moreover, employees can edit current federal and state tax forms, view any year-end tax docs, and add or edit direct deposit info.
 

Workday Payroll Plans and Prices

Workday does not provide any pricing information for any of its applications, including payroll software, on its website. If you wish to learn more about their plans and prices, you need to contact one of their sales reps directly. The sales rep can offer you additional info and pricing quotes that are tailored to fit your business needs.
 

Workday Payroll Customer Support

Workday payroll offers various customer support options all around the world. If you go to the ‘Contact Us’ page on their website, you will see that they provide a phone number for each state, plus phone numbers for different countries in different continents like Canada, Mexico, Europe, Africa, and Asia pacific.

You can also fill out their online form and choose whether you want them to contact you via phone or email. Workday also provides users with help sections like blogs, community, support, events and webinars, and resources.
 

Final Words

Workday is a great choice for a payroll software if you own a large, enterprise-level company. This is because it is packed with advanced features that might seem superfluous for small businesses and startups. Workday payroll includes features like pay groups, automatic tax updates, automatic payroll audits, customizability, multiple tax filing options, and many more.

If you still don’t think that Workday payroll will fit your business needs, then you can read our other reviews and decide for yourself which payroll software fits you better. Here are some of our most recommended payroll software on our list:

• Paychex Payroll
• QuickBooks Payroll
• Toast Payroll
• Sage Payroll