Namely Review

Pros

• Numerous integrations
• Easy for employees
• Advanced employee management

Cons

• Not suited for small businesses
• Non-transparent pricing

Namely Overview

For mid-sized and larger companies with over 50 employees, Namely is a solid program that offers an evolving user experience based on its top-of-the-line human capital management programs and an easy interface with modern functionality. It’s a fairly new company to the HR/payroll software scene, but its youthfulness has served the company well. The entire platform functions as a social media site for your company, encouraging employees to engage with each other and putting important job resources available in an easily-seen format.

Namely is designed for mid-market businesses that have 50 or more employees. Smaller businesses are not on the company’s radar or the focus of Namely’s software. So if you have fewer than 50 people employed in your business, you will have to head elsewhere for your HR and payroll needs. And that’s okay. For the price and the type of services offered, small businesses can find an experience catered to them through other payroll providers, such as Gusto, SurePayroll, or Intuit Online Payroll, all of which are designed with small businesses in mind.

In many ways, it’s sad that Namely doesn’t have a program specifically for small businesses because, while costly, it receives high praise, is easy to use, and has its finger on the pulse of this rapidly expanding market.

However, Namely is not specifically a payroll program — its platform foundation focuses on “People Operations,” which includes onboarding, talent engagement, and compliance databases. Components such as payroll, time and attendance, and benefits administration are all an extra price. So, if your business fits the criteria, it’s a great choice for functionality, but the drawbacks are simple: it is spendy, non-transparent about pricing, and not a good fit for small businesses.

Pricing

Like several other big contenders in the human capital management business, Namely doesn’t publish prices online. Chances to work with the program through a demo and receive a quote must be scheduled in advance with a salesperson. Quotes are customized based on company size and need. Our company was quoted a base annual price of approximately $15,000, which averages out as $30 per employee per month. To add Managed Payroll, our quote jumped to $60 per employee per month. There is also a one-time per employee implementation fee.

Contact Namely directly for pricing.

Namely’s Platform & Services

Namely’s cost varies by customer, and its service includes:

• Complete Core HR suite
• Onboarding assistance with eSignature
• Employee performance management
• Company news feed with social engagement
• HR compliance database
• HR analytics dashboard with HR reporting

Extra Costs

Everything beyond the basic Core HR platform with Namely is an additional cost. To add payroll to your platform costs a bit extra, along with other staples, such as time and attendance apps and benefits administration.

• Payroll/Managed Payroll: There are two options to add payroll to your HR suite. The payroll system has everything the basic online payroll providers offer: payroll tax filing, W-2 management, automated benefits deductions, ACA reporting, unified HR, and payroll data. The Managed Payroll option takes the burden of managing any aspect of that payroll process and provides you with a payroll expert who will take over all data entry, banking, or tax tasks.
• Benefits Administration/Managed Benefits Administration: Similar to the payroll/Managed Payroll options, benefits administration works in the same fashion. There is a basic benefits administration add-on available. Benefits administration comes with online enrollment, simple plan configurations, and adding carrier feeds with easy mobile access. Managed Benefits turns all of the data entry, updating, and reporting over to an HR professional.
• Implementation Fees: There is a one-time implementation fee per employee.

Cloud-Based Or Locally-Installed

Namely is entirely cloud-based, so no downloads or installation are required.

Hardware & Software Requirements

As a cloud-based payroll solution, Namely is compatible with any device as long as you have an internet connection. Namely also offers a mobile app for both Apple and Android phones so that you can run HR on the go, or your employees can access onboarding or benefits administration in one easy place. Its mobile app has constant updates and is easy to use for employees and is a nice selling point for this system.

Specific Size Of Business

Namely is best for mid-sized to enterprise businesses. It’s not even available for businesses with fewer than 50 employees, so by the time Namely is available as an option, you probably are looking for quite a bit of HR and payroll support.

The system is expensive unless a company needs a boost to its onboarding and employee management or if the automation saves the cost of salaries for a full HR team. Since payroll is a secondary option with the Core HR platform, the decision to use Namely should be driven by a company’s HR and talent management needs.

Ease Of Use

Namely’s features were designed with HR directors and a modern workforce in mind. In this new age of automated HR, onboarding, and payroll, Namely is working to place itself a cut above its competitors in terms of functionality and features. The interface is modern, engaging, and functions like a company social media site. Employers can easily navigate between the different HR modules, and there is help embedded in the program to navigate users if they get stuck. With the added extras of Managed Benefits or Managed Payroll, the Namely team handles all data entry and reporting, which moves the bulk of the responsibility off your shoulders.

Features

Namely truly has an incredible feature set, especially for businesses looking first for a comprehensive HR platform. In addition to its wide options, the company is also ever-evolving and changing based on client feedback. Updates and rollouts are immediate. Here’s an overview of what you can expect with Namely:

• Dashboard: The home page from the dashboard is customizable and designed to function with a clear and manageable interface. Through Namely’s dash, you can manage time off and benefits, post payments, push announcement notifications to employees, manage your teams, and ensure your company is compliant with HR. You can post a video for employees to watch or require them to complete a daily task. With the added payroll system, employees can also clock-in/out, manage their reviews, or request time off.

• Employee Portal: Employees can access their information online, through the Namely mobile app, or on a desktop computer. There is great functionality on all fronts with regard to employee satisfaction. Namely wants to lead the competition with how often and how much an employee engages with the HR platform. By functioning as a social media site for your company, employees will feel at ease navigating the branches of their employment at your company, and managers will have easy access to their tasks. Also, employees are easily onboarded through a simple welcome email.

• Employee Management: Namely has many features to help you manage your employees and contractors from a single interface. You can add extensive information, including job title, payment information, time off, tax documents, and benefits. You can also create employee reviews directly in the program and have employees collaborate with those reviews. You can keep all your employee compliance records in a single spot as well, and the homepage for managers shows up-to-date HR tasks.

• Payroll: Namely’s payroll system makes running payroll as easy as a click of a button. Once your employees are enrolled, their hours and pay scales set, and your pay date set, running payroll is simple. You can run payroll an unlimited number of times a month for no extra charge. Managed Payroll is an additional cost, but it takes the responsibility of payroll off your hands entirely and gives you a Namely team member at your service.

• Payment Methods: Direct deposit is the primary source of payment. Contact Namely for more information about payment options.
• Pay Stubs & Checks: Employees can download a PDF of their pay stubs directly from their employee portal.
• Paid Time Off (PTO): You can set paid time off policies for any plan, including vacation and sick days. Set sick/vacation days or accrued sick/vacation days are both possibilities under Namely’s time management options. Some users say the PTO portion of the interface is a bit clunky and doesn’t always allow for full customization of leave. (Recently, clients had issues with calculating bereavement and jury duty in paid-time-off categories.)
• Time Tracking: Time tracking is an added component that comes with adding payroll to your software. The system is robust and offers online time tracking and geo-fencing. There are also online scheduling and full reporting features.
• Reports: Namely offers roughly 20 types of payroll reports. Under its HR analytics platform, Namely has an abundance of reporting options for employees, so you can better manage everything from diversity in your workplace to job costing. The nature of Namely is that if a company finds a report missing or lacking, a Namely representative will assist with getting the report available. While Namely isn’t wholly customizable, it is rapidly changing to accommodate client needs.
• Benefits Administration: Benefits administration is only available with Namely’s higher-priced tiers. However, if you add the benefits administration modules, you gain access to full ACA assistance and reporting, and carrier and broker assistance. Namely partners with at least 10 top providers in the country, such as Aetna Health Care and Cigna Health, but brokers can be found in your area to assist with available health options.

• Payroll Garnishment: Namely can handle pay garnishment for you.
• Tax Support: Namely will help file and pay your quarterly and yearly payroll tax requirements from the federal down to the local level. With Managed Payroll, your only requirement is to provide Namely with names and numbers, and the company does the rest.

Customer Service & Support

Reviews on customer support have been trending negatively since the company abandoned its one-on-one service representative model. It seems that while being a new company is an advantage, its youthfulness has some hiccups when it comes to supporting its clients. The consensus is that Namely is excellent for HR support, but payroll and benefits support outside of the Managed Payroll and Managed Benefits options is frustrating and slow.

Here are all of the available Namely support options:

• Phone: Support for current Namely customers is available via the phone. The company is bi-coastal and offers support through all branches.
• Email: You can send an email to a member of customer service.
• In-Software Support: Within the software, there are webinars and training courses to watch to educate yourself on the various aspects of the software.
• Help Center: There is a page for FAQs and a list of links to past articles. There is a library of blog posts and other resources, including webinars and courses.
• Social Media: Namely maintains Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn accounts.

User Reviews

Negative Reviews & Complaints

The majority of Namely’s users give the company a good review when it comes down to the user interface and functionality of the program. Namely’s HR suite is top-of-the-line, and the company caters to the HR component over the payroll component. However, the review sites seem to demonstrate a “love it” or “hate it” mentality concerning Namely’s payroll systems, with some major complaints driving down the overall rating. Trust Radius gives Namely only a 5.5/10 with 75 reviews, but it fares better at Capterra with 4.1/5 with 351 reviews. Most of the complaints surround the difficulty of using promised integrations, issues with payroll services, and general dissatisfaction with the pricing and extra fees.

• Not Suited For Smaller Businesses: By the time you get to 50 employees, you’re not a super-small business anymore. Namely isn’t targeting smaller businesses, and the company isn’t even considering offering a small business version (like Dayforce, which provides a small business version of its software called Ceridian).
• Lack Of Customization For Reports/Features: Namely is pretty, and it’s easy to use, but with all that functionality comes a bit of a cost: the lack of ample customization.
• Hard To Find A Payroll Expert: This is a ubiquitous complaint among all payroll software companies — the customer service is great, but no one is a payroll or tax expert. (As the reviews note: The change from having a dedicated service rep slowed down the response time to complaints and put a stumbling block between managers and their problems with the software.)

Positive Reviews & Testimonials

Reviewers’ highest praise for Namely focuses on the functionality of the HR suite, the ease of running payroll and paying payroll taxes, and the seamlessness between modules. Compared to the competition, Namely is operating with client wishes at its forefront and is continually rolling out updates to its platform as a response to client needs. A collection of the best reviews boil down to the following features:

• Easy To Use: Payroll functions are seamless, and tax support is solid. It’s a beautiful program, designed well, and it begs for interaction.
• Dashboard Engages Employees: The system looks modern and is intuitive. The dashboard feels like a social media app, and the easy-to-navigate homepage is perfect for employees and managers alike to engage with each other and enjoy using the platform.
• One-Stop-Shop: If a company wants to combine payroll and HR, Namely is the source. With its attention to detail, it will only keep growing and getting more robust.
• Employee Friendly: The mobile app and the easiness of access for employees are pluses for both the employees and the employer. Employees have more agency with their information through the mobile app and with all of their paperwork, onboarding, and management in one spot.

Integrations

Namely integrates at the moment with 63 different applications. It also has an API that is intended to support integrations for more payroll and benefits-related programs in the future. User reviews state that some of these integrations are clunky and prone to slowness and bugginess or that fixes on integrations are difficult to receive help for. However, this is an area that Namely is working to improve.

Security

Namely prides itself on maintaining security on its platform. Namely uses AES 256bit encryption, and all data is protected behind two-factor authentication. Namely is also certified in privacy standards for both the EU-US and US-Swiss Privacy Shield frameworks. Employees regularly train on the best practices for security, and the company is routinely audited. Namely is hosted by Amazon Web Services.

Final Verdict

It is probably cost-prohibitive for Namely to offer its platform to smaller businesses, but it’s sad that it doesn’t have an option for the little guys. Namely’s functionality and interface are on par with our recommended option Gusto, so for larger companies looking for a broader HR platform with easy payroll, Namely is a great option. However, it is expensive at $30 per employee per month, at a minimum, not including a steep implementation fee and those pesky hidden fees. For that price, without Managed Payroll or Managed Benefits, this is not the platform to look at for payroll specifically, although it could be in the future.

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Try A Top Pick For Payroll

ADP Payroll	Get A Quote Read our Review

We like ADP Payroll for its advanced employee management, strong payroll features, and great customer support. Get three months free when you sign up through our links! Get Started.