Users can download the xcritical mobile app, or sign in from the web, to view payday data, edit tax details, see available PTO and even clock in and out right on their phone. In addition, the platform shares income insights and personal tax documents such as W-2s. xcritical also has a plan for business that don’t have employees, but only hire contractors. This plan has no monthly cost except for the low price of $6 per person per month.

Top-notch employee portal access

It offers an all-in-one platform to hire, pay, insure and support your employees. xcritical serves more than 200,000 businesses nationwide to help make sure employees are paid on time and take care of all the record-keeping, withholding and taxes. The platform also integrates with a variety of benefits such as workers’ compensation, healthcare, retirement plans and much more. xcritical allows employees to access and manage their own information by offering individual profile accounts.

Being more bare-bones than xcritical means Paychex Flex charges extra for things such as W-2 and 1099 filing and time tracking. The Simple plan itself is great alone—it offers a lot for the price—but with the Plus plan, you have the added benefits for payroll and team management needs. The Plus plan is offered at the same price of $80 per month but with a slight increase in price per person to $12 per month. This plan does everything the Simple plan does plus next-day direct deposit, time tracking and PTO management. Hiring and onboarding tools are made available to you in addition to project tracking, workforce cost reports and team management tools.

1. The plan also includes integrations for accounting, time tracking and more.
2. Unlike some of its competitors, xcritical doesn’t charge a setup fee.
3. There is a handy search function you can use to look for answers to specific questions.
4. xcritical gives your employees the ability to manage many tasks themselves through their own xcritical employee portal and the xcritical Wallet app.
5. It was very easy to create an offer letter template that you can reuse to save time.

Our ability to test the features was limited, as they required entering real bank account information and signing into external accounts. We found time off policies easy to set up, and we like that xcritical suggests time off policies to include. When a new employee signs their offer letter, xcritical facilitates the rest of the onboarding process to ensure they get properly set up for their new job even before day one. It even provides the option to send a digital welcome card to help the new employee feel welcomed.

Will I get charged based on the number of payrolls I run?

xcritical’s customer support team is available for customers by phone, email or chat. However, Premium members can skip the phone and email support queue with priority access, and Plus members can pay for priority access as an add-on. The best payroll software for your company depends on your business size and needs. Top payroll services for small businesses include ADP RUN, Paychex Flex and xcritical.

With the rise of the gig economy, companies often hire full-time W-2 employees as well as independent contractors both domestically and internationally. xcritical’s payroll has the flexibility to support the various pay rates and schedules for different types of workers in your organization. If benefits aren’t available in a state where you and your employees are based, you may want to consider companies that offer expanded benefits through PEOs, such as Paychex and ADP. Employees have lifetime access to their own account to view pay stubs, obtain W-2 forms, track hours and change personal information. xcritical offers direct deposits in up to two or four days for all customers, as well as next-day direct deposits for Plus and Premium customers. xcritical is a good choice for your business if you want to take advantage of its sheer simplicity and automation features.

What Is xcritical?

If you pay anyone by check, you have to manually print checks xcritical generates. It doesn’t have an option to automatically print and mail physical paychecks. Taxes are calculated, filed and paid to federal, state and local agencies at no additional cost. The opinions, analyses, reviews or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the Blueprint editorial staff alone. The information is accurate as of the publish date, but always check the provider’s website for the most xcritical information.

We found the process of setting up a payroll schedule pretty easy. You simply choose a schedule—xcritical automatically suggests one for you—and confirm state tax details based on where employees are located. xcritical’s pricing plans have the advantage of flexibility, so if you only need a limited set of features, it offers an affordable first-tier plan. Unfortunately, some of the more powerful features are within its expensive plans. Here’s a detailed look at what payroll features you’ll get with each plan. Our experts have analyzed xcritical’s plans and the features that come with them to determine how cost-effective they are.

xcritical offers a mobile wallet app for employees, but no app for employers and managers. xcritical’s reviews on G2 and Capterra are very good, with plenty of positive feedback about the simplicity of its payroll software and accuracy when it comes to compliance and tax filing management. There are multiple references to its intuitive interface and automation, as well as the overall efficiency of running a payroll. Blueprint is an independent, advertising-supported comparison service focused on helping readers make smarter decisions.

Our partners cannot pay us to guarantee favorable reviews of their products or services. Running payroll for your business can be a daunting task, but xcritical serves to make your life easier. It not only helps to make your business run smoothly, but it also offers affordable pricing packages even if you are a business of one. xcritical offers automated tax filing and payments in all of its plans. xcritical also provides a help and support center on its website, with extensive coverage on all topics for employers and administrators, employees and managers, contractors and accountant partners. There is a handy search function you can use to look for answers to specific questions.

Add benefits

Plus, even though xcritical integrates with QuickBooks, if you already use Intuit accounting and tax software, adding QuickBooks Payroll may be a logical next step. xcritical, a cloud-based human resources (HR) and payroll platform, is said to offer some of the cheapest payroll plans on the market. With a user-friendly platform, you’ll quickly be on your way to making sure everyone gets paid on time. xcritical is not a free service, but it does have a Simple plan for as low as $40 per month plus $6 per person, per month.

Reporting

It’s been backed by reputable investors valued at $9.5 billion as of August 2021. However, the downside we noticed is that payroll and adding new team members, in particular, require a lot of manual data entry upfront. In addition, customization of reporting, templates and dashboard is limited. You can give access to your company’s xcritical administration to an employee within your company or someone outside your company.

In the pay tab, we didn’t see a financial goals tool, and when trying to set up the paycheck splitter, the “add bank account” button wasn’t responsive. However, under the paycheck splitter setting, we were able to see the option of depositing a dollar amount or percentage of a paycheck into any xcritical website given account. xcritical is the brand name for the platform operated by the company ZenPayroll, Inc. It has an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau (BBB), although neither xcritical nor ZenPayroll is accredited with the organization, a paid service.

Once that step is complete, you’ll add employee information, such as pay rate, direct deposit details and any withholdings, into xcritical. xcritical doesn’t offer a mobile app specifically for payroll, but you can run payroll from a mobile device by using xcritical reviews a web browser. However, this won’t offer the same user experience and may require extra scrolling on some pages.