7 ms·

ZenPayroll launches modern payroll service for accountants and bookkeepers

50 points by edawerd 14y ago

obituary_latte 14y ago
From their security page[0]: >The bank account information you provide in order to complete payroll processing is secured using the same technology that banks use. ZenPayroll employees never have access to this information and it is fully encrypted and stored securely in our system. This can't be true can it? Surely an admin/dev has access to the crypto procedures and the key has to exist somewhere, right? At some point the key has to meet the encrypted data and if they are sending ACH or other payments, surely the "inaccessible to employees" data has to be decrypted and sent, right? Is this just layman speak for "Rhonda the Receptionist can't see your account number"? [0]https://zenpayroll.com/security https://zenpayroll.com/security
- edawerd 14y ago
  We take security really seriously here at ZenPayroll. This includes encrypting any sensitive/private information at rest, so that no one has access to it. You are correct in that there are some instances where our support and operations teams need access to this information to better help our customers. In such cases, the information is decrypted only when necessary and made available only on a need-to-know basis. I'm updating the text on the security page to clarify more. Thanks!
  - obituary_latte 14y ago
    Thanks for the reply. I meant the question to be more from a technological standpoint. Anxious to see what you come up with. That's a wobbly road when you start trying to differentiate. "Most of our employees don't have access...", uh, "Many of our employees can not access...", hmm, "In the case of sudden...", no, "Should there be an issue...", uh...
joshuareeves 14y ago
I'm the CEO of ZenPayroll. This launch is really special for us because one of our primary goals is to empower accountants & bookkeepers with modern software. Using our new functionality, accountants and bookkeepers can now offer modern payroll to their clients, and manage all of them from a free centralized dashboard. There's a growing trend of small businesses outsourcing their back-office. These business owners are strapped for time and are juggling many different balls all at once. Independent service providers are there to help but they're dependent on the tools they use, which unfortunately have usually been overly complex and expensive. With the rise of modern SaaS tools, these accountants and bookkeepers can now offer a much more compelling service to their clients, streamline their business, and hopefully expand. We're thrilled to be a part of this shift and if anyone ever has any feedback/questions/thoughts to share, I can be reached directly at josh@zenpayroll.com
- brettcvz 14y ago
  Thank god! This has been one of the features we've wanted since signing up, glad to see it launched. Keep up the good work
- molsongolden 14y ago
  I haven't had a chance to explore the ZenPayroll features and layout but can you comment on ZenPayroll vs. ADP/Paychex? I saw in the article that "these legacy solutions just don't work" for many small businesses but what really differentiates ZenPayroll from those two? Price, ease of use, presentation of payroll data? I haven't worked with Paychex but I know ADP offers fairly hefty referral bonuses to accountants so it might be tough to break through there. How soon do you expect to have full coverage in the United States? Thanks for putting together an accountant specific dashboard. I will be looking into it shortly and wish your team the best of luck.
  - edawerd 14y ago
    Price and ease-of-use is a huge differentiating factor between ZenPayroll and other large payroll providers like ADP/Paychex. Unlike many payroll companies, we're a tech-company at heart and we're constantly writing software to make payroll more delightful for small-business owners, and now accountants and bookkeepers. We're starting our roll out to other states this quarter and will eventually have much of the US covered soon. Just curious -- you mentioned that ADP offers hefty referral bonuses to accountants. Can you elaborate more on what they are?
dusing 14y ago
Last I checked they do not support many states. Whats the latest list of supported states?
- grrdes 14y ago
  I made an inquiry last week and it seemed that only California was supported.
- edawerd 14y ago
  Supporting more states is a top priority for us at the moment. We'll be launching additional states before the end of this quarter.
tatsuke95 14y ago
>"service designed to help accounting and bookkeeping service providers manage the payroll for multiple companies." The last time ZenPayroll made the front page, I (and others) were skeptical about the ability to usurp some of the bigger players. Targeting second party payroll providers is a superb idea. In fact, as someone who dabbled in low-key book keeping services to help me pay for school, something like this would have been wonderful. This is how business becomes more efficient. Waiting on Canada...
- loceng 14y ago
  I'm not sure if WaveAccounting offers the same thing, and started in Canada?
  - nickpresta 14y ago
    Full disclosure: I work at Wave, but not on Payroll. Wave does Payroll in US and Canada: https://www.waveapps.com/payroll/ https://www.waveapps.com/payroll/ Our support team would be more than happy to answer any questions you or anyone might have: https://support.waveapps.com/forums https://support.waveapps.com/forums
    - loceng 14y ago
      Yeah - it kind of felt like the dump of money ZenPayroll was getting was to compete with Wave.
    - molsongolden 14y ago
      What is going on with Wave! I hadn't used Wave for a while but referred a friend to the service last spring when they needed to start keeping their books rather than just piling up receipts. Fast forward to this spring when I logged in to pull financial statements for their tax preparation, the Wave interface seems to have become less usable. The date entry when creating a report is slightly strange and difficult to quickly enter the desired date (maybe this is a Canadian vs. American thing?). When you view an account activity statement (a cash account for example) there is no total for the account as of the chosen date, just a running tally of debits and credits. I had to rerun a new balance sheet each time I wanted to see the cash account balance at a different date. A quick "last fiscal year" report option or a few different common date ranges like in QB would also be helpful as it was tedious to click through the date calendar and select Jan 1 and Dec 31 every time I wanted a full year report. I apologize if I missed some options and this is a misguided rant. I was only in the software for a couple of hours but it seemed rather difficult to obtain basic data.
thinkcomp 14y ago
Do you have a money transmission license?

50 points by edawerd 14y ago

From their security page[0]: >The bank account information you provide in order to complete payroll processing is secured using the same technology that banks use. ZenPayroll employees never have access to this information and it is fully encrypted and stored securely in our system. This can't be true can it? Surely an admin/dev has access to the crypto procedures and the key has to exist somewhere, right? At some point the key has to meet the encrypted data and if they are sending ACH or other payments, surely the "inaccessible to employees" data has to be decrypted and sent, right? Is this just layman speak for "Rhonda the Receptionist can't see your account number"? [0]https://zenpayroll.com/security https://zenpayroll.com/security

edawerd 14y ago
We take security really seriously here at ZenPayroll. This includes encrypting any sensitive/private information at rest, so that no one has access to it. You are correct in that there are some instances where our support and operations teams need access to this information to better help our customers. In such cases, the information is decrypted only when necessary and made available only on a need-to-know basis. I'm updating the text on the security page to clarify more. Thanks!
- obituary_latte 14y ago
  Thanks for the reply. I meant the question to be more from a technological standpoint. Anxious to see what you come up with. That's a wobbly road when you start trying to differentiate. "Most of our employees don't have access...", uh, "Many of our employees can not access...", hmm, "In the case of sudden...", no, "Should there be an issue...", uh...

joshuareeves 14y ago

I'm the CEO of ZenPayroll. This launch is really special for us because one of our primary goals is to empower accountants & bookkeepers with modern software. Using our new functionality, accountants and bookkeepers can now offer modern payroll to their clients, and manage all of them from a free centralized dashboard. There's a growing trend of small businesses outsourcing their back-office. These business owners are strapped for time and are juggling many different balls all at once. Independent service providers are there to help but they're dependent on the tools they use, which unfortunately have usually been overly complex and expensive. With the rise of modern SaaS tools, these accountants and bookkeepers can now offer a much more compelling service to their clients, streamline their business, and hopefully expand. We're thrilled to be a part of this shift and if anyone ever has any feedback/questions/thoughts to share, I can be reached directly at josh@zenpayroll.com

brettcvz 14y ago
Thank god! This has been one of the features we've wanted since signing up, glad to see it launched. Keep up the good work
molsongolden 14y ago
I haven't had a chance to explore the ZenPayroll features and layout but can you comment on ZenPayroll vs. ADP/Paychex? I saw in the article that "these legacy solutions just don't work" for many small businesses but what really differentiates ZenPayroll from those two? Price, ease of use, presentation of payroll data? I haven't worked with Paychex but I know ADP offers fairly hefty referral bonuses to accountants so it might be tough to break through there. How soon do you expect to have full coverage in the United States? Thanks for putting together an accountant specific dashboard. I will be looking into it shortly and wish your team the best of luck.
- edawerd 14y ago
  Price and ease-of-use is a huge differentiating factor between ZenPayroll and other large payroll providers like ADP/Paychex. Unlike many payroll companies, we're a tech-company at heart and we're constantly writing software to make payroll more delightful for small-business owners, and now accountants and bookkeepers. We're starting our roll out to other states this quarter and will eventually have much of the US covered soon. Just curious -- you mentioned that ADP offers hefty referral bonuses to accountants. Can you elaborate more on what they are?

dusing 14y ago

Last I checked they do not support many states. Whats the latest list of supported states?

grrdes 14y ago
I made an inquiry last week and it seemed that only California was supported.
edawerd 14y ago
Supporting more states is a top priority for us at the moment. We'll be launching additional states before the end of this quarter.

tatsuke95 14y ago

>"service designed to help accounting and bookkeeping service providers manage the payroll for multiple companies." The last time ZenPayroll made the front page, I (and others) were skeptical about the ability to usurp some of the bigger players. Targeting second party payroll providers is a superb idea. In fact, as someone who dabbled in low-key book keeping services to help me pay for school, something like this would have been wonderful. This is how business becomes more efficient. Waiting on Canada...

loceng 14y ago
I'm not sure if WaveAccounting offers the same thing, and started in Canada?
- nickpresta 14y ago
  Full disclosure: I work at Wave, but not on Payroll. Wave does Payroll in US and Canada: https://www.waveapps.com/payroll/ https://www.waveapps.com/payroll/ Our support team would be more than happy to answer any questions you or anyone might have: https://support.waveapps.com/forums https://support.waveapps.com/forums
  - loceng 14y ago
    Yeah - it kind of felt like the dump of money ZenPayroll was getting was to compete with Wave.
  - molsongolden 14y ago
    What is going on with Wave! I hadn't used Wave for a while but referred a friend to the service last spring when they needed to start keeping their books rather than just piling up receipts. Fast forward to this spring when I logged in to pull financial statements for their tax preparation, the Wave interface seems to have become less usable. The date entry when creating a report is slightly strange and difficult to quickly enter the desired date (maybe this is a Canadian vs. American thing?). When you view an account activity statement (a cash account for example) there is no total for the account as of the chosen date, just a running tally of debits and credits. I had to rerun a new balance sheet each time I wanted to see the cash account balance at a different date. A quick "last fiscal year" report option or a few different common date ranges like in QB would also be helpful as it was tedious to click through the date calendar and select Jan 1 and Dec 31 every time I wanted a full year report. I apologize if I missed some options and this is a misguided rant. I was only in the software for a couple of hours but it seemed rather difficult to obtain basic data.

thinkcomp 14y ago

Do you have a money transmission license?