Paying as you go
businesses, typically those with 10 or fewer
employees. It is designed to produce payroll
documents and reports with a minimum of
work. For accountants whose clients fall in
the midrange, it offers an easy migration
path to PowerPayroll from CompuPay, with
similar screens but an expanded feature set.
CompuPay released significant enhance
ments to Xpress Payroll last May, including a
new look and feel, the ability to track accruals
on a monthly basis, additional security fea
tures for multiuser and accountant access
to payroll reports, the ability to pay and print
1099s, the ability to produce a 401(k) file, and
the ability to record hours for salaried em
ployees. XpressPayroll also now supports a
workers’ compensation insurance program
to calculate premiums and make payments.
Cobranding for accounting professionals
is available, as well as the use of a partner
portal to manage multiple accounts. The op
tions are extensive for accountants, including
a referral relationship, hosting or backoffice
solutions, or payroll acquisitions.
CompuPay Xpress Payroll reflects the
company’s quartercentury of experience as
a back office/service bureau for payroll, and
provides substantial benefits — particularly
for smallbusiness clients.
addition to payroll, making it a more flexible
tool for midrange and larger clients of ac
counting firms.
The first revolution was the rise of the ser
vice bureaus, providing companies with alter
natives to payroll done by hand in the back of
fice by the accounting department — which,
in turn, gave rise to major corporations such
as ADP and CompuPay. The second was the
advent of the PC, leading companies to seek
desktop solutions for greater flexibility. The
third was the move to online services, when
companies like Accountants World moved
these services to the Web.
The fourth revolution builds on all of these,
taking payroll mobile. A substantial number
of companies are creating mobile phone and
iPad applications for payroll services, sug
gesting that anytime, anywhere computing
is about to move to a smaller screen.
Don’t believe it? Look at the number of
companies offering mobile payroll in our
roundup of payroll systems for 2011.
payroll itself and for the myriad of state and
federal forms, including the W 2, W2C, 940,
941, 941X, 943, 943X, 944, 944X, 945, 945X,
1099, state payroll tax forms, and certain local
payroll tax forms using a streamlined process,
with either paper or electronic filing.
Accounting CS payroll has undergone
substantial change, but remains a strong and
flexible payroll solution with an uptodate
feature set and the scalability to handle the
needs of virtually any size of client.
Payroll apps are moving to the small screen
BY DAVE MCCLURE
Payroll software has gone through three major evolutions in the
past 20 years, and is about to enter a fourth.
Intuit Online Payroll for
Accounting Professionals
Intuit Inc.
(866) 820-6382
http://payroll.intuit.com
CMS Professional
2011 Payroll
Cougar Mountain Software
(800) 388-3038
www.cougarmtn.com
Accounting CS Payroll
Thomson Reuters
(800) 968-8900
http://cs.thomsonreuters.com
It’s been almost a year since Thomson Reut
ers unveiled its Accounting CS platform,
which unified core accounting functions into
a single online platform. Since that time, the
company has continued to enhance the plat
form and its products, including payroll.
Accounting CS Payroll is designed to en
hance collaboration with staff and clients;
streamline data entry; implement both tra
ditional and paperless payment systems; and
expand reporting and billing features.
Recent enhancements include a payroll
form and filing information portlet within the
home dashboard that provides instant infor
mation on payroll status, including due dates
and tax information. A new Edit Multiple Em
ployees wizard makes it possible to update
multiple records simultaneously. Variable
commission rates, pay schedules and tip
ping structures are supported. For the more
mobile accountant, there is also access to the
portal via an iPad or other mobile device.
Perhaps most critical to accountants is
the batch processing capability for both the
CMS Professional 2011 Payroll is a respected
payroll system from Cougar Mountain Soft
ware. Designed for multiple pay methods,
CMS Payroll automatically calculates taxes,
benefits and deductions. It functions well as
either a module integrated with the Cougar
Mountain pointofsale or accounting pack
age, or as a standalone application. The
standalone application is priced slightly
higher because it includes Report Writer.
Among its key features are the ability to sup
port up to 99 pay rates per employee and mul
tiple userdefined benefits and deductions
per employee; support for overtime, holiday
pay, advances, draws, base pay, and miscella
neous charges; support for electronic payroll;
and support for federal and state forms.
CYMA Payroll
CYMA Systems
(800) 292-2962
www.cyma.com
CYMA Payroll, currently in Version 12, is a
solution scalable to an unlimited number of
clients and employees, geared to the needs of
midsized organizations and payroll services.
It may be used as a standalone service or
integrated with the C YMA Financial Manage
ment System.
It offers the ability to process payroll for all
states, with unlimited earnings, pay times,
pay frequencies, benefits and deductions. In
addition, accountants may attach unlimited
documents and create an unlimited number
of custom fields. The current version, released
in November of 2010, added Webbased em
ployee selfservice, EEOC reporting, benefits
management, enhanced employee demo
graphics (including I 9 information), and HR
functions such as education, military service
and drug test tracking.
The Quick Entry Grid, import capabilities
and employee selfservice provide for faster
data entry, including import from timeclock
and timekeeping software. And there are
multiple options for manual data entry.
CYMA Payroll integrates well with a num
ber of accounting and finance solutions,
including CYMA’s own. It presents a strong
blend of accounting and HR capabilities in
Intuit Online Payroll for Accounting Profes
sionals (formerly PayCycle) is a highly flexible
payroll service designed to allow accountants
to process payroll for up to 50 clients with
a single subscription and process afterthe
fact payroll. It offers federal and state tax pay
ments and filings, unlimited payroll runs, free
direct deposit, and the ability to download
both payroll and tax information to Quick
Books, QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks for
Mac, Quicken, Peachtree, the ATX account
ing suite, or CCH ProSystem fx WriteUp.
Dave McClure is the president of Kent Associates, in Alexandria, Va., an independent
testing laboratory and evaluation service.
CompuPay Xpress Payroll
CompuPay
(877) 729-6299
www.compupay.com
CompuPay Xpress Payroll is a fast and in
tuitive system geared to the needs of small
Patersons Logon2
Patersons
(919) 459-3080
www.patersons.net
Patersons Logon2 integrates the capabilities
of payroll engines, payroll provider partners,
workflow and managed services in a secure
and compliant service that is delivered with
an ondemand, SoftwareasaService busi
ness model.
Patersons services payroll needs with an
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