Rippling is a sophisticated benefits administration (BA) service that also offers excellent payroll-processing tools.
Its advanced features and exceptional customizability make it suitable for a company with upwards of 500 employees—and indeed it can be integrated with midrange accounting applications Intacct and NetSuite.
But it's priced at the small business level, and its usability and support make it a service you should consider, especially if significant growth is in your future.
Rippling wins an Editors' Choice for BA along with Zenefits.
Gusto is the better choice for small business payroll, thus winning an EC for that type of application.
In the category of general-purpose HR software, the sole Editors' Choice winner is BambooHR.
Rippling's core platform has a base cost of $35 plus $5 per month per employee (paid annually) or $7 per month (monthly).
You can add payroll services for $5 per month per employee.
This puts it on a par with Gusto—or right about in the middle of the pack for payroll, price-wise.
Patriot Software is the least expensive payroll service we've tested recently.
Its base price is $10 per month plus $4 per month per employee, but at that price, you have to submit your own payroll taxes and filings (base goes up to $35 per month if you want the company to do this automatically).
QuickBooks Full Service Payroll comes in at the top.
It's $80 per month (currently $40 for three months) plus $4 per month per employee.
Benefits Brokers
Rippling lets you work with other benefits brokers or with Rippling as your broker, and this affects the pricing structure.
The site partners with NFP Corporation to handle insurance registration and renewals.
When you use Rippling as your broker in partnership with NFP, Rippling is technically your broker, and in this case, as with BerniePortal, it offers BA for free.
You can work with Rippling as your broker in 25 states and use other brokers with Rippling in all 50 states.
When you use other brokers, you have to pay the full site fees listed above.
Whether you use Rippling as your broker or not, you still must purchase the Core platform, which gets you features such as applicant tracking, employee management, onboarding, time tracking, and HR integrations.
In addition to HR functionality, Rippling also specializes in IT services.
The company offers access management IT and security for $5 per user per month on an annual basis and for $5 per user per month on a monthly basis as well.
A Different Dashboard
Rippling's Dashboard (home page) contains some of the content types found on competitors' sites but is missing others.
There's a navigation tool in the left vertical pane, but it displays a choice of links that's unlike those offered by payroll sites.
SurePayroll, for example, divides the site into Payroll, Reports, Employees, Company, and Resources; you can drill down on these to get to related tasks.
Rippling's Main Menu instead contains links to hiring and offboarding employees, and a company directory (where you can open employee records).
Tasks, Reports, Documents, and Settings are also accessible from here.
A to-do list outlines work that needs attention, but you'll do a lot of your navigating from the icons representing installed apps at the bottom of the page.
The link to Payroll is here, as are other links to tools that aren't accessed separately by competitors, including PTO, Custom Fields, Medical, and Dental, as well as links to other integrated apps.
This overall navigation scheme appears because Rippling is a full-service Payroll/HR/IT system, rather than a payroll-centric app with some added HR functions.
We don't consider it a deficit once you get used to it; it's just different.
Complex Setup
Setting up Rippling for payroll only is something like getting used to the dashboard of a brand-new, expensive car.
You should be able to recognize the controls and displays you'll use often but will have to ignore the ones you won't.
Setup takes you through every step, and since the site has the features and capacity to support a business with hundreds of employees, you'll probably be able to skip many steps if you only have a handful.
That said, the company has done a beautiful job of building a step-by-step guide to preparing for employee and contractor compensation.
It uses an automated wizard to walk you through the process.
It's a smart tool: Depending on your responses (which you'll provide by clicking buttons, entering data in blank fields, and selecting options from drop-down lists), it will either request additional information or move you on to the next step.
It does this prep work within an elegant, intuitive user interface whose navigation tools rarely leave you wondering how to proceed.
Only Gusto ($25 Per Month at Gusto) rivals it.
Once you've set up an account, you'll be asked whether you'll be using payroll.
If you are already using another payroll website, you can select it from the drop-down list that's displayed next; this includes industry leaders in payroll (such as ADP Workforce and Run, SurePayroll, Patriot Software) as well as financial applications like QuickBooks Online and Sage.
Rippling will automatically import tax information from all of them, and it can bring in virtually all payroll data from Gusto and Zenefits (Visit Site at Zenefits) (employee details, pay schedules, benefits data) very quickly.
You'll supply the last paycheck date from your existing service and your first through Rippling.
No competitor offers this kind of generous direct connection.
Countless Questions
To help you keep all of your setup tasks straight, Rippling provides an extensive to-do list, a guide to additional setup steps based on the answers you've already provided.
This might be a long list, but setup is always the most time-consuming part of using a payroll website.
It will include directives like "Tell us more about your company," with links to the screens where you can do so (specify tax entity type, provide contact details, create departments, add email domain).
It might also say "Add your employees to Rippling" and "Install Payroll App."
Will you be bringing in your own insurance broker or do you want to use Rippling in that capacity? Offering a 401(k) retirement plan? Supporting Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), commuter benefits, PTO, workers' compensation, etc.? Using time-tracking (Rippling doesn't have built-in capabilities like Workful does, but it integrates with 10 apps)? When your response is Yes, Rippling will automatically generate tasks and set up deadlines for you.
You'll also have to indicate whether you want to use the task and custom field options.
If you subscribe or plan to subscribe to any of hundreds of third-party apps (like Microsoft Office 365, Slack, Salesforce, and TSheets), the site automatically installs them and sets up user accounts.
Additional company information is required, as it is on every payroll website.
You establish pay schedules (pay periods and paydays) and provide your federal and state tax details.
Set up a connection to your payroll bank account.
You define the contribution scheme (employer/employee split) for supported benefits like health insurance and 401(k)s and designate a signatory.
Another administration feature Rippling offers will make IT professionals concerned with security happy.
It enables multifactor authentication (MFA), which forces anyone attempting to log onto the system to provide an additional identification method aside from username and password, typically a physical token like a USB fob or another pin code that's generated dynamically and sent to the user's cell phone.
This added layer of security can be critical when protecting the personal information that's usually stored in HR systems.
And while it's something you can implement in other ways, such as through a third-party identity management system, small businesses will find it helpful to have the option embedded.
Adding Employees
You need to create very detailed employee records as a part of setup, which is at least as easy to do in Rippling as on other services.
The records must all be completed for existing staff before you run the first payroll, of course.
After that, you can only add a worker by onboarding a new one.
You can enter the details manually or download a template for importing a list of employees in CSV format and map the matching fields.
The site offers two views of this data: a simple employee list and an organization chart that it builds from the information you've entered.
Whether you're adding an employee as a step in setup or clicking the Onboarding link to create a new one, you'll go through a similar process and supply a similar set of details.
You'll choose an employment type (hourly, salaried, contractor, and so on) and a payroll entity (group), then supply the worker's name and email.
You can also edit and use the templates provided for offer letters and contractor agreements.
Other screens collect contact details, like department, job title, compensation amount (and number of shares, if applicable), and manager.
You'll also be asked to provide a job description.
Rippling leases Apple laptops to customers, so you can order one for the employee or pass on that option.
You'll see a summary of the documents the employee will be able to sign electronically (like W-4); the information that must be collected by the new worker, and the things that Rippling will do (like set up the employee in payroll and pro-rate the first paycheck).
It also lists the user accounts that will be established for the incoming hire.
Once you've entered employee data in Rippling, it automatically transfers that information to the apps themselves.
Finally, you can set up a work email address and review any offer letter you created.
Once you've completed a record for one or more employees, you can send an email inviting them to set up their own Rippling account to add anything that hasn't been imported (tax information, emergency contact, picture, and so on).
When the profile is complete, each employee gets a page accessible through the company directory that contains everything.
These screens are divided into various individual elements of personnel issues, like Personal information, Documents, and Payroll; the Payroll section is further divided into Paystubs, Withholding, and Settings.
Benefits Administration
Setting up payroll requires a lot of detail work, but not as much as you'll encounter when you start working with benefits.
Rippling excels at administering them.
The main dashboard displays a four-line menu at top left for Quick Links, My Profile, My Account Settings, Company Settings, and Org Chart.
When we logged in to the admin side, we clicked Insurance on the Dashboard.
We then proceeded to Open Enrollment and saw a helpful view of who had signed up for various benefits like (medical, dental, vision, short term disability, and life).
However, the employees that we had onboarded on our own were not listed in this admin view of Open Enrollment, perhaps because they hadn't gone through the open enrollment process yet.
If you click on each circle, then you can see a pop-up message of which plan they have signed up for.
This is helpful information.
If you click the employee's name, then you can see their employee profile.
One area in which Rippling stands out is that it manages COBRA directly from within the application rather than going through a third-party administrator.
This feature comes in handy when handling the termination process, whether that's voluntary or involuntary.
In addition, like Zenefits, Rippling will handle the 1095-C tax filings.
Rippling also handles the W2s on the payroll side.
Insurance Options
When we went through the enrollment process, we added a dependent.
You just click the plus sign and "Add New Dependent." Then you'll see the name and dates of birth under "Self" and "Child." we were then able to select between two health plans.
In this case they were Blue Shield Bronze and Blue Shield Platinum.
Rippling helps simplify a difficult process by offering helpful tool tips like Zenefits does.
For example, "Copay" had a question mark in a circle next to it.
"Generic" was explained as "Also referred to as tier 2 drugs" and "Specialty" was also explained as "Also referred to as tier 4 drugs."
You're then given the option to edit personal details for both "Self" and "Child." There's a little pencil mark at the bottom of the page that brings up an edit screen to make changes.
The tool tips were very helpful in the Dental section as well.
Major Surgery means "A category of dental services in an open network dental benefits contract that usually includes crowns, dentures, implants, and oral surgery."
We found the interface easier than BerniePortal ($0.00 at BerniePortal) , which has a system of subgroups to navigate through, and Criterion, which has complicated formulas.
Just like when selecting a medical or dental plan, when you select a vision plan, you can check or uncheck the boxes for the plan member and dependents.
The prices for the plan change accordingly, and you can see a Summary document via PDF.
The vision plan gives info like Exam Copay, Materials Copay, Frame Freq.
and Lens.
Freq.
The tooltip told us that Lens Freq.
means how often you can get new lenses during this coverage (usually this is once per 12 or 24 months).
Life Insurance, Too
During open enrollment, you have a chance to waive the various health plans, but for life insurance, this wasn't waivable as many employers offer this automatically.
For Life Insurance, the clear tooltips also came in handy here.
We learned that "Voluntary Salary Multiplier" means "The multiple of the employee's base salary paid out in the event of death.
It does not include commissions, bonuses, or other variable compensation."
Then we were given the option to purchase additional life insurance.
You select this with a well-designed scale.
You move the tab to x1, x2, or x3, depending on how much additional coverage you need.
The next step led us to a neatly outlined Summary page of our benefits elections.
The system lets you Review Documents and add your signature.
Then you're done.
You get only a minute to cancel, which may be a bit short.
After the benefits enrollment is official, the employee receives a clean view of coverage details and when they will begin.
There's a pencil mark to enter your member ID.
When you click the tabs in the...
