Rippling Payroll Review

8.2Expert Score

Ripling Payroll Service Review 2023

Rippling is a top payroll service for growing companies needing to move to an integrated payroll system. Its employee platform can help businesses integrate payroll, HR, IT, and LMS. Smaller companies can easily start with payroll and add other services as they grow.

Price

8.2

Customer Service

9

Payroll Standard Features

9.5

Payroll Add on Features

6.5

Reporting

7.5

Time in Business

7.7

Other Expert Ranking

7

PROS

• Low-cost entry level plan
• 100s of integrations
• Local and PEO services available

CONS

• Limited telephone support
• Time consuming implementation
• Add-ons add up quickly

Rippling is a top payroll provider for growing companies

It’s a good option for growing companies working with unconnected systems without a unifying platform.

What is a Payroll Service?

Payroll services like Rippling help businesses with employee-related tasks such as payroll processing and employment tax calculations. Some offer integrated HR and accounting features as well. Many payroll services offer Professional Employer Organization (PEO) services for businesses that employ workers in other locations or countries.

Basic payroll services help you process payroll, calculate taxes, create tax statements, and configure year-end and quarterly taxes. To help ensure payroll is processed accurately, the software helps manage PTO, deductions, timesheets, and holidays.

Payroll SaaS companies usually charge per employee per payroll run. Additionally, they may charge a monthly fee based on the services selected. For example, they may charge additional fees if you add HR, timeclock software, or accounting features to your payroll package.

Core payroll services include,

• Payroll processing and payments
• Employee tax calculations and reporting
• Tax filing support
• Benefit, garnishment, and withholding support
• Mobile employee self-service tools
• Expense management
• Reporting tools
• Time and PTO tracking
• Employment law compliance support

What businesses are best served by Rippling?

Rippling is most suitable for growing companies that are dissatisfied with their current business solutions. Companies experiencing growing pains or frustrations with non-integrated (or poorly integrated) business solutions are a good candidate for Rippling.  For example, if you are still manually entering timesheets and tracking assets using a spreadsheet, and it’s taking up a lot of your time, it may be time to evolve to a payroll solution like Rippling. It will help you manage payroll as well as other processes such as time-tracking and scheduling.

It is ideal for most industries since it processes payrolls for all types of workers, including hourly, salary, and contractors. It even supports multiple job codes per person to help with job costing, budgeting, and configuring billable hours.

Rippling supports US-based clients in all 50 states. If the US-based company needs PEO support, those services are available as well.

What services does Rippling offer?

Rippling offers a wide range of services beyond payroll services. They also offer HR tools such as onboarding and training tools, IT support like app and device management, and time and attendance tools.

Basic Rippling payroll features:

• Automated payroll processing
• I-9 and W-2 forms
• Calculates payroll taxes
• Federal, state, and local tax filing for all 50 states
• W-2, W-4, new hire and 1099 support
• Workers’ compensation
• Manages deductions and garnishments
• PTO tracking
• Customized reporting
• Supports multiple job rates and job costing
• Time tracking
• Check and direct deposit payments
• Mobile app

Additional services offered by Rippling:

• All-in-one employee platform (required for all services)
• PEO services
• Health insurance and 401(k)
• Time tracking and time-off management
• Employee training and LMS
• Recruiting and onboarding

Rippling Features and Benefits

While Rippling offers numerous IT, HR, and LMS tools, to help keep this review focused, we leaned our concentration towards payroll features. Payroll features include payroll processing, compliance and tax support, job costing reports, and time tracking.

Rippling plans start with the platform, which starts at $8 per month per employee. You can add to this platform additional features such as full-service payroll, integrations, automated tools, benefits, training, and recruiting.

Automated payroll processing Rippling connects with popular business solutions such as timesheets to automatically process accurate payroll. It supports all types of workers, including contract, salary, hourly, and multi-pay workers. It configures all deductions, such as garnishments and workers’ compensation.

Payroll payments are administered by check, direct deposit, or international wire.

Rippling payroll processing adheres to your PTO rules and holiday schedules and automatically applies the rules to payroll.

Employment management platform

This platform manages all of Rippling’s services, including payroll. It is required to use the payroll services and other features. Access to the platform starts at $8 per month per employee and increases as you add services to the platform. Services are charged per employee per month except for the help center.

The platform manages employee information, documents, reports, workflows and approvals, and tasks. It is also accessible via mobile device.

Compliance and tax support

This payroll service provides employee tax and compliance support in all 50 US states, and international PEO services are available. It calculates all federal, state, and local taxes. You can DIY or pay a bit more to have Rippling file and pay taxes for your business. Rippling provides W-2, W-4, 1099, and new hiring filing.

Time tracking Rippling’s integrated time and attendance tool provide customized and automated payroll processing. It can manage complex processes such as rules, alerts, triggers, unapproved hours, approvals, and schedules. To help save time, it can notify you when an employee is approaching too much overtime or if a manager has not processed their approvals.

This payroll processor claims that it can process payroll in 90 seconds once it is configured.

Customized reporting. It reports to be able to run any report you can imagine, including job costing reports by location, client, task, rate, and more. It includes an extensive collection of pre-built reports, or you can create custom reports. When sharing reports, it supports circular, line, column, and stacked charts. Reports can easily be sorted by dates and customized data points. The accountant versions also include a large volume of reporting options.

Integrations and developer support

Rippling integrates with hundreds of popular business apps. Many of the integrations are data-sharing abilities, but some are fully integrated. The most popular integrations include Google Workspace, Slack, Zoom, GitHub, Asana, TSheets, Amazon Web Services, Deputy, Zendesk, and QuickBooks. If an integration is not available, it can be created within the Rippling App Shop.

Rippling Pros and Cons

Most customers have few complaints about Rippling. However, a service we noticed missing was a lack of live, direct support. Even via the platform’s support section, a direct phone number is not published. You must request support rather than receiving immediate support. However, you can add to your contract one-on-one HR help desk support for a fee.

What are some of Rippling greatest strengths?

While Rippling’s payroll is customizable and supports growth, many of its strengths are related to its compatible supporting integrations such as IT and HR support. Using multiple Rippling products, businesses can create a cohesive platform that supports employee, app, and device management. Remember that a Rippling plan starts with the employee platform to which you add services as needed.

Local and foreign payment processing

Rippling can help you pay employees no matter where they are located. It calculates compliant federal, state, and local employment taxes. Using its PEO services, it can accurately process payroll in other countries or states. Plus, it supports all types of workers, including hourly, salary, remote, and contractors.

Time and attendance

Tracking time is absolutely critical when tracking hourly workers or billable hours. Its time tracking tools include employee clock-ins, reviews and approvals, notifications, rule support, PTO tracking, and automated workflows.  It even tracks breaks and unapproved hours. These features help produce accurate payroll runs.

Device management

Part of managing employees is device management. Rippling’s device management software is simple to use, even for non-IT employees. For example, an HR person can easily use the system during onboarding to track the devices the new employee receives. For added convenience, it can manage devices remotely as well.

Talent management

Managing talent is much more than simply payroll. Rippling’s platform supports HR tools for recruiting, onboarding, training, and engagement. It includes an applicant tracking system, job board publishing tools, calendaring, and reporting for recruiting.  Onboarding tools include new hire paperwork, background checks, device and app tracking, and automatic app setups.

What makes Rippling a top payroll service provider?

Rippling is a top payroll service because it offers a complete integrated package. It’s a good option for growing companies working with unconnected systems without a unifying platform. Small companies can get along fine with QuickBooks and an Excel sheet, but growing companies will save time and gather better insight by adding digital time tracking, recruiting and hiring tools, and asset management.

Integrated platform

If your company has managed thus far with a simple accounting tool for managing payroll and employee information, but you are growing, you’ll benefit from using an integrated system like the Rippling employee platform. Using this platform, you can easily add payroll processing and more services as you grow. For example, if you’ve been using a spreadsheet to track assets, you can add Rippling’s app and device management tools to connect employee profiles to their assigned assets.

Time tracking

Rippling integrates with popular time tracking tools like TSheets, Deputy, Harvest, and Toggl. And it provides its own time tracking module as well. Employees can use the mobile app to clock in and out.  Managers can also process approvals using a mobile app. Alerts and notifications can be configured to keep managers alert to issues that may require their action.

Integrations

While it provides an employee platform, you will still need to connect to other accounting, collaboration, or productivity systems. Rippling can exchange data with hundreds of business systems. New integrations are welcome, and Rippling provides the tools to help you build integrations. Popular integrations include Slack, Zoom, QuickBooks, Asana, and Xero.

Recruiting

Growing companies or those who have received a rush of investment funds may need to amp up hiring quickly. Rippling HR tools help you find and track the best candidates. Many onboarding processes can be automatically configured to save time and improve accuracy significantly. Once hired, training tools help with new-hire and ongoing training efforts.

What integrations does Rippling offer?

Rippling integrates with hundreds of other apps, and new integrations are continually created. Rippling provides integrations for accounting, finance, HR, CRM, and more. Keep in mind that some integrations are full integrations and others are partial. If you are looking for specific integrations, investigate how the app integrates before making a purchasing decision.

Accounting and finance integrations:

• Sage
• QuickBooks
• Xero
• Concentric
• Stripe
• PayPal
• Chase
• Branch
• Expensify
• com
• SAP Concur
• Vanguard
• John Hancock

Human resource and timeclock integrations:

• Human Interest
• Betterment
• Checkr
• GoodHire
• Tsheets
• Lattice
• Bonusly
• Greenhouse
• Level
• LinkedIn
• Upwork
• Glassdoor
• Edputy
• Homebase
• Harvest
• When I Work
• Toggl
• Pingboard
• Guru

Productivity and project management:

• Google Workspace
• Slack
• Zoom
• GitHub
• Asana
• Dropbox
• Skype
• Microsoft Office
• Egnyte
• DocuSign
• Adobe Sign
• Atlassian
• Jira
• Trello
• Monday
• Calendly

Does Rippling offer data migration from other providers?

This payroll service provider offers what it calls “white glove migrations” from other clients. To help facilitate implementation, new customers are set up with a dedicated representative and implementation specialist.

To help with data migration, Rippling offers data transfer integrations with popular HR, time clock, accounting, and finance solutions. It syncs with over 500 apps. If an integration is not already developed, APIs and integrations support are available.

What is Rippling’s security and reliability?

Rippling does an exceptional job of publishing its security information. It secures data using encryption, physical security, data backup, and access control. Continuity is protected by georedundant replication using secure Amazon S3 cloud storage. Data is secure regardless to the physical location of the servers. Employees are trained on how best to protect data, and access is restricted to need-to-know personnel.

Security protocols include,

• ISO 27001 and NIST 800-53 information security standards
• Access and change management
• Cryptography
• Secure server configuration
• Physical security
• Continues monitoring and incident response
• Vendor assurance
• Vulnerability testing and management
• Onboard and offboarding best practices
• Encryption in transit and at rest plus extra encryption for sensitive data
• Supports multi-factor authentications
• Asset management
• Amazon S3 cloud storage georedunant replication
• SOC 2 Type I and II

Rippling’s financial position

People Center, Inc, doing business as Rippling, is a privately held company. It provides payroll, HR, and IT services such as payroll, onboarding and training, recruiting, PEO, time and attendance tracking, health insurance, reporting, IT, and endpoint security services.

To date, it has raised $190M from investors such as Kleiner Perkins, Initialized, and Threshold Ventures. Rippling was founded in 2016, and in 2020 it was reportedly valued at $1.35 billion. Revenue was estimated to have been $10 million in 2019. It made the Forbes Next Billion-Dollar Startup list of 25 companies. The founder, Parker Conrad, also led Zenefits.

It is headquartered in San Francisco and has an office in Bengaluru, India.

Resources about Rippling

If you would like to learn more about Rippling payroll, you can contact sales to request a demo via a web form.  Existing customers can request support through the support center using their login.

• Full list of integrations: Access hundreds of app integrations in the app store
• Rippling’s security protocols: Review its security and data protection practices
• Rippling blog: Blog covers product news, privacy topics, HR news, and more
• Company news: See latest press releases and company news
• Product news: Covers new releases, features, and partnerships
• Developer documentation and APIs: The Rippling documentation portal for developers
• Information for accountants: Form for accountants to request additional information

 For more information about Rippling

If you’d like to learn more about Rippling, you can contact sales and set up a demo via a web form. When we contacted them, they responded quickly by email and provided a direct phone number to a sales development representative.

Press kit https://www.rippling.com/press