Ascentis

Ascentis

Comments: Overall we have implemented the system and we are using it. Ascentis support is helpful.

Pros:

The recruiting feature is collects good data, candidates are able to complete the application. The performance reviews module is straight forward and the wizard makes it easy, very easy, for employees to complete their reviews.

Cons:

It can be hard to get the system to do what you want! For example, our company uses the Kudos feature all the time. However it takes 3-4 clicks to find the "give kudos" button. I have made several requests to move the button, but I am told it can't be done. Applicants see a plain white page with small font as they use the wizard to click through the application process.

Human Resources Manager

Comments: I love it.

Pros:

Everything in one location and the security measures to make sure your documentation is safe.

Cons:

To be honest nothing really, the user friendly portal is vital.

Not a good product

Comments: Not good at all. Implementation was never complete, the system was outdated. The customer service was non-existent. It was not cost-affordable for the lack of services provided and we had to sign a contract.

Pros:

The only thing that seemed to work with Ascentis was the timekeeping. However, it did not bridge to our payroll system causing us to manually enter any non-productive time into payroll every other week

Cons:

The customer service for Ascentis is absolutely non-existent. It was so terrible that I had to send an email to the CEO and other members of the C-Suite to get my issues addressed.

If support is important to you, go with Ascentis

Comments: Overall, our experience with Ascentis has been positive. We saved a little bit of money, gained the support we needed, were able to streamline the close of payroll periods, and can process payroll much quicker.

Pros:

The best part about Ascentis is their support, hands down. It is very rare that we have to wait more than 1 or 2 business days to get an issue resolved or an answer to a question. If it is an urgent matter, they are on it immediately. In addition, we get a dedicated Account Manager that is very responsive and helpful. Even when our account managers have changed, they are always brought up to speed and haven't dropped a ball yet.

Cons:

The modules are somewhat segmented. We log into one application for payroll, another application for HR, and another application for timekeeping. They are working toward getting everything centralized and web-based, but they aren't quite there yet.

Ascentis solid programming software

Comments: outstanding by far.

Pros:

Ascentis has been easy to understand in the set-up interaction and backing has been extremely useful with any inquiries we have. This is our first HRIS, and it is so ideal to have all representative data in one area. The framework has been not difficult to make refreshes in.

Cons:

The most difficult thing for us is getting Tax questions replied when required as the assessment division isn't however effectively open as they may be in another city, which is a few hour time distinction for us and you need to email them with any inquiries to find a solution.

User friendly time coding and clock in/out

Comments: Overall this is a super easy performance review, time coding and tracking and PTO interface. I’ve also successfully done training within the platform for HR.

Pros:

I love the one button punch in/out as well as easy time tracking for PTO and my timesheet.

Cons:

You may need initial training to use time coding settings/categories. Easy to use once you get the hang of your project codes.

Ascentis

Pros:

I like that this software has a function that you can view everything at once. You can see your time offs and you current clock in on the same screen. It is relativity easy to use and it has book keeping function that allow pay checks to be issued easier than other software.

Cons:

That is sometimes have different leave amounts on the different screens without telling you why.

Good product needs some tweaks

Comments: Easily update and track employees and payroll.

Pros:

Finally getting away from useless paper! I used the HR side and information updated was easily transferred to the payroll side. Employee self service is great (if your employees know how to use computers) they can update all of their information and can even complete open enrollment online.

Cons:

The transition was a nightmare. I'm not sure how of that was on their end or ours. When did calls about the implementation their team often did not understand our concerns and questions making the transition even more difficult than it needed to be. I did not handle payroll but our payroll specialist said it was missing features our old basic software could handle such as different pay rates for employees who work different shifts.

Performance Management

Pros:

My light in to this software was one of the very first things I received as a new hire. Helps keep me on track, as far as work performance goes.

Cons:

Everything is pretty simple so far. Very user friendly and easy to navigate.

As an employee, this is great

Comments: I don't really like the color scheme, so if they ever gave the option to switch to a different color I would take it. That is not a complaint or a problem.

Pros:

It's very easy to punch in/out using this system. When I forget to punch, or there's any issue, it's simple to put in a request to my supervisor.

Cons:

It took a while to get used to the format, but I am starting to find it enjoyable and easy to use. Beats filling out the antiquated print-outs of time cards and remembering to get them to my boss.

Ascentis user

Comments: Ok experience, wished it saved previous years info.

Pros:

One website to track all benefits, time and payroll.

Cons:

Did not save the previous years information. Like if I wanted to change my 401k elections I can’t go back years and see what I selected.

Couldn't Work as Affectively without It!

Comments: Our overall experience with Ascentis has been amazing. We always get the support we need and feel very confident with the software.

Pros:

Very easy to use, and user-friendly... we are constantly training new Managers, etc., and everyone seems to understand the system quickly. Provides HR with a consistent, reliable system to work with. Employees appreciate having everything in "one place" (personal info., payroll, benefits, etc.).

Cons:

There is nothing we don't like about this software. They have been going through upgrades for quite some time, and actually, listen to customer suggestions. They provide very clear training on the system changes and are more than willing to assist with questions, etc.

Comments: I have now had Ascentis HR for 2 months, and Payroll for a month, and I can sum my experience up in 4 words:
Thank goodness for Ascentis.
We are a small to medium company with the unique feature of being made up of multiple FEINs. We are also on an aggressive growth plan in terms of expansion. Although the company has been around for more than 30 years, it's only been in the last 5 it's gone from a small family business to a regional (soon to be national) distributor.
When I took on the position with this company to build a HR department and functions, one of the task requirements/ requests from the owner was to bring payroll inhouse within the first year. Payroll was being managed by the accountants, and it was neither cost-effective or timely; corrections were always a challenge. The existing HR software, Sage, was full of bugs and not managing tasks effectively. Much of the historical data was inaccurate, as well.
Literally, I was printing out time punch reports, manually entering onto a spreadsheet, and at the end of the paycycle emailing it to the accountant with all changes/corrections the very next business day. And then sending someone an hour away to pick up checks. And same for corrections. Not anymore.
I did quite a bit of research early on for the right system. The multiple FEINs made some systems much more expensive. And even though I'm in a culture that has been embracing change, I knew doing everything at once would create shock waves. Additionally, the projected growth made it so easy, expandability was a absolute necessity. Finally, the system would need to be easy enough and intuitive enough to teach a Vice President to be an emergency backup.
Selection of Ascentis was easy, actually. I asked lots of questions, and the response was usually either "oh, yes, of course, this is how we do that...." or "that does sound a little different, let me check" followed by "ok, this is how we can do that for you...". Things fit nicely.
The implementation team has been wonderful. They made it easy, making sure I knew what they needed and when, and kept me updated on their statuses as well. I unexpectedly had to move up one of my timelines as my previous system had a different renewal date than I was originally told. It took two months to implement HR, and 3 to do Payroll, which in terms of transition is lightning speed. This is particularly true as I had other major projects going at the same time. Christy, Jean, Kimberly and the rest have been great about letting me mess around with it before going live, and been there to answer the phone as my safety net as I spend time double and triple checking things when I went live. We have had a few minor tech problems, and Jack solved them quickly and easily.
Training was almost too much. There are videos, live demo, handbooks, and the team calls. They have been great about letting me do that part at my own pace.
Once piece of advice: if you have more than one location, use the tax service. Payroll does not print coupons and is a little less helpful with the who-when part (although the related reports are awesome.)
I have now had two zero-error payrolls; I had to make up mistakes to learn how to do that piece! We are likely adding Tax very soon, and anticipate adding Time later this year. We are eventually going to add self service.
Ascentis has wonderful reports, and has cut the time involved significantly. It's less expensive, and just so easy to use. Even the Payroll person at the accountant who did it before is jealous.

Long-term user of HR Office

Comments: We've used HR Office for about 20 years now -- started out with the in-house Access version and have used the .asp version since about 2001/2002.

Pros:

I like that it's cloud-based, but most importantly for us, it offers employee self-service for PTO requests and information updates. The key reason we've stayed with this system is that it provides automatic calculations of paid time off based on a formula we set up, automatically changing accruals on employee anniversary dates. It also allows us to easily calculate PTO that will be earned through the end of the fiscal year since we allow staff to schedule (and generally use) PTO in advance of accrual. The calculations take into consideration any accrual rate changes and adjusts out any dates already scheduled. There are other HR solutions with a simpler interface, but this feature was a deal-breaker for us. The PTO request workflows can allow for more than one approval level and sends email alerts. Support has generally been very good in all the years I've used it.

Cons:

We only have 30 staff members, but years ago, they implemented a rate based on a minimum of 50 users. We recently implemented the self service to manage PTO requests and overall, we're thrilled to have made that move (we have multi-tiered approvals, which they didn't have in the past). I would really like to have more customizable fields in the request form to prompt the user for key information the supervisor needs to make an approval decision. The interface is sometimes very slow to load for the HR admin (it's a remote desktop configuration). Some of it's not intuitive -- when setting up a new employee and their PTO accrual, we get a prompt that the person is not employed 40 hours (part of our PTO calculation criteria), but rather than the person's hours worked being in the main employee tabs, you have to click out and go to a completely separate area to indicate that they are full time.

Comments: We had always outsourced our HR and payroll, and as a rapidly growing company with more offices opening around the country, we were outgrowing the functionality of the third party HR firm; not to mention the enormous costs of their service fees, inflated benefit premiums, and customer service issues. During my research of in-house support software, Ascentis stood out for its completeness. There is a lot of software that will do HR, or payroll, or timekeeping, but I wanted something that was already built to work and flow together. I was looking for something that would provide a high level of detail in data storage and maintenance, as well as be customizable for the way we already operate. Ascentis definitely provides all of that, and has a good user interface as well. I appreciate how comprehensive it is - I'm happy that it handles our taxes as well as manages data flow to our benefits carriers through Carrier Connect. We began implementation in July 2012 and currently we use Time, Self-Service v 8.4, HR v 8.5, and Payroll 4.2.1. Since we started, there have already been big upgrades to Self Service and HR that has resolved some of the issues I was having. We have done an open enrollment already using the Self-Service, which creates a walk-through wizard for employees that makes the process of learning about company benefits and signing up for them really easy. The housing of the benefits structures is detailed and I was able to automatically build in nearly all the rules or restrictions that were associated with our plans. Implementation went smoothly overall - it was a daunting task but the support is terrific. Everyone I've talked to in all the software components are very available and patient, and extremely responsive. This was one of the most important considerations for me. This being our first time handling HR and payroll in-house, I knew we needed to work with a company that we could have a personal relationship with, and not be lost. I also appreciate the fact that the software is continually upgrading and improving. I do not expect anything to be perfect; it is more important to me that they are working to improve and are responsive. Any issues I've had, they have received thoughtfully and log the suggestions/needs to submit for potential changes. I'm extremely happy with the product and the company and look forward to continuing working with them.

Ascentis review

Pros:

This software is very userfriendly. We use it everyday to make sure staff are up to date on all information. It also helps keep track of staff's personal information.

Cons:

Honestly the system is amazing. And the help desk is alwasy on top of things.

Ascentis fills a niche that has a vacuum but is not complete

Comments: What took it over the top with poor satisfaction is that they tried to be good partners but as of late they just throw in the towel and want money.

Pros:

Ascentis does the benefits, applicants and other HR functions on a basic level. Let me stress basic level.

Cons:

If you want any integrations or some of the complexities when have beyond 100 employees, would suggest not utilizing Ascentis. Coupled with the added burden of the 1095-c and the need to manually update various records because Ascentis has software issues, it is disappointing.

Good experience, has made my work load easier to handle and saved a lot of time.

Comments: I think this product is great. Our company is uniquely structure and has difficulty with systems fitting our needs. Ascentis gives us control to customize the system to how we need it, the only draw back is understanding the details on how things flow and what changes effect other areas.

Pros:

The best part about Ascentis is the versatility and customization. Everything flows together so it cuts down on duplicate work. The reporting is great and I like how we can basically create any report we need.

Cons:

Sometimes it is hard to determine what flows to what and how certain things / changes effect other parts of the system. Can be complicated to figure out. Deadlines for Quarterly and annual filings are hard to meet.

Employee self-service solution works OK but has room to improve

Pros:

All of your employee self-service options, from paycheck and W4 integration to benefits selection are integrated into one self-service solution.

Cons:

Timecard and payroll are not integrated directly, thus we must work directly with third parties, which can create problems if there is a problem with payroll.

Moving to Ascentis Was the Best Decision We Made for our Organization

Comments: I have never worked with a vendor who was so organized and supportive of us reaching our goals. There was never a gap when we needed help--calls and emails are always returned promptly. They are a great organization that employees top-notch experts who are there to help you. Wish other organization ran this smoothly.

Pros:

The implementation process is so well-planned. You have a team of experts supporting you for each module and they really work with you to learn and get through building. They also hold you accountable for your "homework assignments" to keep you on-track for your go-live date. This was helpful to us because we are so busy but they held our feet to the fire with deadlines (and we met our go-live date with ease). Our employees like the easy to use system and we have received much positive feedback since rolling out.

Cons:

Needing to use a Remote Desktop to access the back-end for set up and maintenance is cumbersome. I had to invest in a second monitor to make it easier. The end-user's interface (Employee Self Service) is 100% web-based, so no issues there. This is truly my only complaint. Everything else they said they system could do really is possible. They are honest in what they sell.

Overall quite pleased with Ascentis

Comments: I really do like the Ascentis system and would highly recommend it because it offers a lot of functionality and great value for a mid size employer. Many similar systems are often priced significantly higher or out of reach.

Pros:

The Ascentis payroll and HR systems offer a lot of functionality and value for the money. Their customer service is very good. It's a very good system for a mid size employer group.

Cons:

It is not a single sign on system and the HR changes don't automatically update in Payroll. Once changes are made in HR you have to go in to Payroll and individually approve the changes. While it is a good feature as a last step to double check your changes, it can also be time consuming depending upon the amount of changes to be approved. Also, it is easy to forget to update the change in Payroll if you get busy or distracted.

Ascentis is the best!

Pros:

One of the things that I was looking for was an HR system that would link to the Payroll system so I wouldn’t have to do dual entries. This system provided that for me. The other tabs we have added on the HR side is Education (degrees held) and Salary survey information, so this has come in handy for requests that come up. It also makes it much easier for the EEOC reporting along with the Worker’s Compensation reports because data can be entered there too. The Employee Self-Service tool through Ascentis is very clean and uncluttered compared to other systems. I had another vendor do a presentation for me, and the screen itself looked way too overwhelming. I didn’t want to make it too difficult to use for both the managers and the employees. Since we have rolled out the Self-Service tool, my employees love it! They are so excited about the features and how much they can access for their own screens. In fact, we used the Open Enrollment feature so that the employees could go into this system to make changes for the upcoming year. The employees can also access their W-2 forms at any time during the year. I like everything: HR, Payroll, Timekeeping, Carrier Connect, and the Employee Self-Service tool.

Cons:

There is nothing that I would change about Ascentis.

What product NOT to buy

Comments: N/A

Pros:

There is nothing positive to say about this product

Cons:

There is absolutely nothing I liked about this product as it was not user friendly for anyone.

Ascentis it's ok...

Pros:

I like that it is easy to navigate and search in

Cons:

The functionality is a little lax and slow. Not easy to build reports and upload and search of files and the support is sub par at best on the customer service side

Great System to Utilize

Pros:

- Splendid performance and options for human capital management - Offers great educational/professional development options

Cons:

- It runs a little slow sometimes but always runs