Free Payroll Processing

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#1
Wiles  
Posts:
5052
Joined:
21-Apr-2014 9:42am
Location:
CA
Heard this ad on the radio today.

http://www.payroll4free.com/about.html
 

#2
Posts:
342
Joined:
22-Apr-2014 12:51pm
Location:
Cobleskill, NY
Interesting. Is this simply a do it yourself deal and they assist.
 

#3
Posts:
175
Joined:
23-Apr-2014 6:08pm
Location:
San Diego CA
I looked it up. They claim to offer free payroll for up to 25 employees including Direct Deposit, reports, and all tax reporting. Free. Nada. No Charge. It doesn't say anything about what States it supports or if there is a charge for State returns, but it infers that everything is totally gratis. Says it gets paid from a small side window advertising on your input screen.

Sounds like a hell of a deal, if it's for real. Of course, my dear ol' Daddy always tole me that if someone is trying to give you something for free, it's usually worth exactly what you pay for it!

Would love to refer my payroll clients here if it is for real and shut down that pesky payroll side of my business, but would be scared to do it. Will be interesting to see if anyone really tries it out and what the hiccup will be.
Jim
Pettit Financial Services
 

#4
Posts:
342
Joined:
22-Apr-2014 12:51pm
Location:
Cobleskill, NY
Why not try it for your own company. In fact, that is what I shall do. Check it out. I think any of us with payroll might want to review it. But we will be able to tell if everything is done and set up properly, clients might not.

What this really becomes is TurboTax Payroll. Clients don't pay me to punch numbers for payroll. they pay me to make sure payroll is done right. This is self service with tech support. Not oversight.

If it's good I would offer two options to my clients

1. I would offer to help them transition to the new payroll program if they wish to do it in-house

or

2. They could continue to use us as the preparer.

They don't use us for data entry, they don't wish to have to know payroll.
 

#5
Posts:
222
Joined:
23-Apr-2014 8:17pm
Location:
FL
Sorry-I'm skeptical. A company is willing to do payroll for free. We give them name, address, SSN, (maybe) date of birth and bank account info. They make enough money by selling ad space on the internet to do this for free? Hmmm.....
 

#6
chris  
Posts:
1209
Joined:
20-Apr-2014 7:31pm
Location:
New York
Well...they do charge for payroll >25 employees so maybe that's how they are covering the free option (along with the advertising income). However, the site is not very clear about whether or not it handles the state forms, electronic tax payment services, etc. In fact the site is very thin across the board. WHOIS search shows that it looks like a company run by a husband-wife team. I'm the last guy to want to knock a small business/startup but they could be doing a little more to edge us into the comfort zone on their offering.

They don't state how they keep data secure, which IMO makes it a non-starter. The site is not being served from SSL (no little green 'padlock', no SSL certificate) which is another flag, to me.

I'm currently using Intuit payroll for my s-corp but when the free one-year trial is up I may switch to zenpayroll.
Site admin and software developer for TaxProTalk.com and https://TheSiteFactory.com
 

#7
ATSMAN  
Posts:
2094
Joined:
31-May-2014 8:34pm
Location:
MA
I would not recommend a "free" payroll service to my clients! There is no free lunch. The risk of identity theft is not worth it!
 

#8
WBR  
Posts:
245
Joined:
17-May-2014 3:36pm
Location:
Cleveland, Ohio
I have a client who wants to switch to payroll4free. I instructed them to wait till the 1st of the year to make the switch. If anyone has any experience with them I would appreciate your comments.
 

#9
Posts:
885
Joined:
26-Apr-2014 10:47am
Location:
USA
I looked up the registrant information for the domain (Payroll4Free), here it is:

Registrant Name: Ivan Kolb
Registrant Organization: Galaxy Hosted Software
Registrant Street: 23900 Commerce Park
Registrant City: Beachwood
Registrant State/Province: Ohio
Registrant Postal Code: 44122
Registrant Country: United States
Registrant Phone: (216) 514-1050
Registrant Email: admin@galaxyhosted.com

This information is public. The domain is registered out of Ohio, but that doesn't necessarily tell us anything. I think it's odd that there is no "about us" page or anything like that. My main concern in this case is data mining (the theft of SSNs, etc).
 

#10
jon  
Posts:
1535
Joined:
3-May-2014 11:11am
Location:
minnesota
You get exactly what you pay for? No way do I believe it is free, or that is how much it is worth. Maybe $25 per W-2. $200 per 941 and State services for another $100 per payroll.
 


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