PayCycle has earned PC Magazine's highest rating.  SurePayroll is a very close competitor, but PayCycle is stronger in areas like setup, reporting, and price. It provides a clear processing path from start to finish and does so in great depth and with the needed flexibility.

The good: Easy for beginners; inexpensive; good employer controls for tax payments; files tax forms for the feds and for 22 states electronically; useful for restaurants and contractors.

The bad: Can't import data from QuickBooks or other accounting apps.

The bottom line: PayCycle serves businesses with an affordable, easy-to-learn online payroll system.

PayCycle setup wizard is intuitive

A setup wizard takes the guesswork out of getting started. It walks you through the process of adding in-depth employee and company payroll information. A personal Web site displays current and prior pay stubs. It also helps with other setup tasks, which include defining deductions and establishing electronic services. After setup, PayCycle helps keep you on top of your duties by dispatching interactive e-mail reminders of tasks and maintaining a to-do list on the opening page.

By comparison, SurePayroll's Account Center provides similar details but is cluttered with ads that serve their own agenda.

PayCycle's advantages include giving employers more control over tax impounding and the collection of payroll taxes, which are due quarterly. SurePayroll also impounds taxes from each employee paycheck and immediately withdraws the money from the employer's bank account for quarterly taxes. But PayCycle withdraws payroll taxes only upon an OK from the employer, typically a few days before the taxes are due.

PayCycle is flexible in other ways, too. For instance, it can handle non-white-collar payrolls. Unlike SurePayroll, PayCycle offers a tax allocation system for restaurants, as well as a time and attendance interface for multiple pay rates, often needed to pay overtime rates to hourly workers.

After each payroll, you can export your payroll data with a few clicks to leading small business accounting software. Exporting is optional, and is not required to make full use of the PayCycle service. PayCycle exports to Quicken, Quickbooks, Quickbooks Online Edition, Quickbooks for Mac, Peachtree, ATX accounting products, CCH ProSystemfx Write-up, Microsoft Money, and Microsoft Excel.

Who would benefit from PayCycle

The Palo Alto company offers four online payroll services for the 5.8 million small-business employers in America -- roughly 90 percent of all U.S. employers -- as well as the home employer and independent accountant. If you are a small business with 1-25 employees, this online accounting software is for you.

In the past two years, PayCycle has gone from 1,000 customers to more than 13,000, while growing its own staff to 60 people. It has partnered with the IRS and states on e-filing, as well as with Microsoft and Intuit to coordinate with Money and QuickBooks, and has won several business-technology awards

The drawbacks with PayCycle

The great thing about online payroll services such as PayCycle is that you don't have to fuss with downloads or installs; simply sign up at the company Web site and enter your employee and company data. You'll have to manually key in employee names, hire dates, addresses, and social security numbers--tedious work--but with only 1-25 employees, you aren't talking about a lot of manual entry, and PayCycle's Add Employee guide makes it fairly straight forward. Unfortunately, like competitor SurePayroll, PayCycle still can't input employee data directly from QuickBooks or other third-party accounting programs yet. 

Security and Safety of PayCycle

PayCycle uses 128-bit encryption, and this summer it improved its log out procedure to prevent people from viewing private information by clicking the browser's Back button. Another new addition to PayCycle is its individual employee login feature, which SurePayroll also offers.

PayCycle Customer Service

We found PayCycle's customer service to be excellent. They answered our questions by e-mail within 48 hours, and their courteous and helpful staff was available by phone Monday-Friday between the hours of 6:30am and 6:30pm (PT). However, the phones aren't manned on the weekends.

The cost of PayCycle

For small businesses, PayCycle costs less than SurePayroll. PayCycle's Wholesale Service is designed to make payroll profitable for your firm. PayCycle automatically calculates, files and pays payroll taxes for as little as $14.99 per client per month for the first five employees. Each additional employee over five costs $0.25 per month extra. As you add more wholesale clients, you get an additional discount.There are no setup fees or minimum contracts.

PayCycle bills your retail clients directly at their regular small business prices which range from $24.99-$42.99 per month for the first five employees. Each additional employee is $1.50 per month. SurePayroll's Account Center charges about $70 a month, for comparable services.

Right now PayCycle is running a special promotion. You can get a FREE 30 Day Trial + 10% Off! Learn More