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by mikemac 3874 days ago
> a free product that performs the most important function of their very expensive product line

There is zero chance I'd subject employees to a hacked together payroll system. Building one is far from trivial, considering the complexities of tax and employment law in 50 different states.
2 comments
SwellJoe 3874 days ago
I've not seen any indication that Zenefits is offering a shoddy product. Their other products seem to be well-regarded, do they not? And, their other products are in the same general area (most benefits programs have some tax and accounting repercussions that they'd need to understand, as well as integration with banks and payroll systems), so they already have some domain expertise in-house.

So, yes, it's hard to build. That doesn't mean that no one can do it. Many companies have done so, including several startups. And, given how poorly one of the market leaders (Intuit) has implemented it, I'm willing to give a startup a try.

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mintplant 3874 days ago
>Their other products seem to be well-regarded, do they not?

Not entirely, no. There's a history of Zenefits customers and their employees suffering from serious technical and support failures.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/williamalden/zenefits-hr-rocket-ship...

>in late February this year, with coverage supposed to start days later, Zenefits informed Hawkins that it had made a significant mistake, attempting to enroll his employees with an insurance provider that didn’t cover the company’s region. The insurance wouldn’t come through as planned. [...] In several cases employees like Harris, who had put their trust in Zenefits, were left without health insurance for a month or more after they had expected it.

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x0x0 3874 days ago
My 15-person company uses zenefits. When our HR person was sold on zenefits she was promised some features that, bluntly, didn't and don't exist. They also, as a user, required some emailing to get stuff set up. It seems to be ok now that it's all set up, but it definitely wasn't 0 friction initially.
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kevin_thibedeau 3874 days ago
> There is zero chance I'd subject employees to a hacked together payroll system.

Not an ADP user I presume.

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mikemac 3873 days ago
I actually am an ADP user/administrator. As crappy as their system is (I could go on for days), their domain expertise is unmatched.

I wish a payroll startup would put resources into a nice UI and having some really season support too. Just doesn't seem to be there yet, unfortunately.

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