Payroll Integration 101

Everything you need to know about payroll integrations.

Every single employer with one or more employees must conduct payroll, regardless of size, location, or cause.

Payroll carries the largest cost for many small businesses, as well as a high margin of error. In fact, 40% of small businesses get fined an average of $850 per year for improperly paying their payroll-related taxes.

This 101 lesson is designed to help you understand how payroll integrations work, the associated benefits, and how employers can get started with Ease.


What is an integrated payroll system?

Most of us know what payroll is: the process of paying employees and withholding employment-related taxes.

For years, small businesses have handled payroll and HR administration separately, perhaps using accounting for payroll, and an HR administrator for benefits. With the expansion of HR and benefits technology, employers are increasingly merging these tasks with payroll integrations.

At a technology level, a payroll integration uses API web services to securely match demographic and deduction data to guarantee accurate data between the a payroll provider and benefits administration platform (or vice versa). These types of payroll integrations offer real-time comparison capabilities to both update employee records that have a difference, or identify new employee records and sync them across systems.

For example, if there is new deduction data for an employee in a benefits administration system, a payroll integration will automatically transfer that data to the payroll provider, eliminating the need for duplicate data entry and resulting in an up-to-date paycheck.

For example, if there is new deduction data for an employee in a benefits administration system, a payroll integration will automatically transfer that data to the payroll provider, eliminating the need for duplicate data entry and resulting in an up-to-date paycheck.

The Ease Way

A payroll integration with Ease provides an employer with one integrated system of record, which syncs benefits, online enrollment, and onboarding. These integrations can help you win new business and save time for your groups.

Ease currently has payroll integrations with ADP Workforce Now, TRAXPayroll, and Paylocity. If your groups don’t work with any of these providers, we are happy to work with their payroll provider on a custom integration that will sync their payroll data with Ease. Please note that this process can take longer than using one of our existing payroll integrations.


What are the benefits?

The technology behind a payroll integration includes benefits for all major players in a business.

Save time, reduces errors, and increase HR productivity.  
A payroll integration can maximize HR staff productivity and value by allotting time for high-value activities rather than administrative tasks. This can also help increase the accuracy of payroll and HR information across platforms for employers because fewer people are entering information, preventing costly errors. Here are some examples:

  1. With a payroll integration, HR admins do not have to make benefit changes in two places, which can reduce the margin of error. For example, if an employee adds a dependent to their health plan, an integration will push those same exact changes automatically to the payroll provider (or from the payroll provider to Ease, depending on the system) in the appropriate pay period.
  2. A payroll integration eliminates the need for duplicate data entry. In Ease’s case, new employees set up with payroll providers will automatically flow to Ease, or new employees set up in Ease will automatically flow to the payroll provider (depending on the integration).
  3. One integrated system makes it easier for HR staff and managers to access employee information on demand. This saves time and enables management to make more informed decisions.

Increase employee engagement and happiness.
A payroll integration increases employee engagement with a business’ HR program because of the tools it provides for easier access to benefits and payroll information.

  1. Employees have fewer logins, making it simpler for them to access their information regarding payroll, available PTO (if using Ease and EaseHR), current tax deductions, and benefits.
  2. Additionally, fewer logins reduces the chance of data breaches, helping employers keep their business and employees safe.

Presenting Payroll Integrations to Your Groups

Now it’s time to discuss best practices for implementing a payroll integration for your groups!

Step 1: Ask your groups if they are interested.

First, ask your groups whether or not they are interested in a payroll integration. To guide the process, ask them if they would like to manage payroll and benefit changes in one place.

If they are interested, the next step would be to ask them if they are happy with their current payroll provider, or if they are interested in working with a new payroll provider.

Step 2: Review the Benefits

Next, review the benefits of a payroll integration. Keep it simple and straight to the point, and cover both benefits and features. We know we covered a lot of this above, but the following talking points are abbreviated and written for employers:

Benefits

  • Use one integrated system of record for payroll, benefits, online enrollment, and onboarding (when integrated with Ease).
  • Save time
  • Reduce errors
  • Increase HR productivity
  • Increase employee engagement and happiness
  • Automate the benefit change process

Features

  • HR admins can automatically communicate benefit changes to their payroll provider in the appropriate pay period.
  • No more duplicate data entry. New employees set up with payroll providers will automatically flow to Ease or new employees set up in Ease will automatically flow to the payroll provider, depending on the partner.
  • Employees can log in any time of year and make benefit changes themselves such as adding a dependent or changing an address (which would impact healthcare service area under certain plans). The ability for employees to review pay stubs, current tax deductions, and benefits all in one place.
  • Fewer logins for employees and HR admins decreases the chance of data breaches.

You can also send your groups the Payroll Integrations Fact Sheet which covers all the benefits and features of a payroll integration with Ease.


Integrating Payroll

Once you present payroll integrations to your groups and get a sense of whether or not they are interested, it’s time to begin setup.

For the purpose of this section, we’ll focus on helping one group integrate their payroll. There are three applicable paths to take (depending on the group’s preferences):

  • Path 1: Looking for a new payroll provider
  • Path 2: Happy with current payroll provider, which Ease has an existing integration with
  • Path 3: Happy with current payroll provider, which does not have an existing integration with Ease

Path 1: Looking for a new payroll provider
If your group is unhappy with their current payroll provider, tell them about Ease’s Simple Setup: Payroll that features preferred connections with ADP Workforce Now, BambooHR, Heartland, Paycor, Paylocity, or RUN Powered by ADP. Groups can integrate with these payroll partners in as quick as a day thanks to an intuitive 6-step process.

Path 2: Happy with current payroll provider, that Ease has an existing integration with:
If your group is using ADP Workforce Now, BambooHR, Heartland, Paycor, Paylocity, or RUN Powered by ADP for their payroll, show them the available integrations and the necessary steps to get started!

Feel free to share these overview PDFs with your groups to help them better visualize the payroll integration and simplicity of the process.

  1. ADP Workforce Now
  2. BambooHR
  3. Paycor
  4. Paylocity
  5. RUN Powered by ADP

Next, discuss the additional fees associated. Depending on the integration, there may be a fee from Ease, the payroll provider, or both.

Cost:

Ease Simple Setup: Payroll Partner Pricing

*Once they decide which payroll integration to use, you or the group must enable the payroll integration in the Marketplace.

After you enable the payroll integration, your group admin can follow this 6-step process to integrate with Ease’s Simple Setup: Payroll partners in as fast as one day!

We highly recommend you and your groups review the support pages and product documents (listed above) associated with the payroll integration.

These support pages will provide you with instructions to complete mandatory steps for your integration, as well as in-depth integration guides for you to refer to during the process.

Path 3: Happy with current payroll provider, which does not have an existing integration with Ease
If your group indicated that they are happy with their current payroll provider, they may be a candidate for our Payroll API integration. Depending on the payroll provider and business demand, an API integration may be made available.


Payroll Integration Success!  

That’s a wrap to payroll integration success with Ease! We hope you found this 101 course helpful in your quest to help your groups integrate their payroll with benefits.