If you’re looking for an all-in-one payroll and HR platform, then isolved might fit the bill. But with so many other similar options on the market, how can you know that isolved is the right choice for your needs and budget?

In this in-depth review, we investigate isolved’s most important features and break down its pros and cons to help you decide if isolved is the best payroll software for your business.

isolved’s pricing

isolved does not publicly disclose its pricing information — instead, you must contact the company for a customized pricing quote. The pricing is based on the specific features your business needs and is typically charged on a per-employee per-month basis.

A free trial is not available, though you can schedule a free demo call to see if the platform might be a good fit for your needs.

isolved’s key features

Payroll

isolved offers numerous methods for paying employees, including automated direct deposit, on-demand earned wage access and pay cards. Payroll can be processed with just a few clicks, but isolved does not offer fully automatic payroll software like some other competitors, such as Rippling. isolved also does not offer free unlimited payroll runs, another feature that some other payroll alternatives do offer.

isolved will take care of tax calculations, filing and payments for you automatically, ensuring you never forget a payment and are able to take advantage of all eligible tax credits. isolved will also automatically adjust payroll to account for benefit elections, wage garnishment, workers’ compensation insurance, bonuses, 401(k), savings, plans and corporate giving programs. If you use the time card module, isolved will also import that data so hourly wages are properly accounted for and paid for.

Employees have self-service access to all of their personal payroll data, including paystubs, W-2 forms and paid time off balances. Employees can also change their preferred payment option in the resolved platform so HR doesn’t have to do it for them.

HR and benefits

isolved’s benefits and administration and enrollment features help to automate open enrollment. With isolved, HR administrators can define plans, set eligibility rules and enable notifications for employees. The system offered real-time visibility to both HR admins and insurance brokers so you can see who has made a plan selection and what plans they have chosen so far. The benefits administration tool also includes built-in tools for both ACA and COBRA compliance.

With isolved, employees can make their own benefit selections using the web, tablet or mobile apps. The system keeps a running tally of their choices and shows how much each choice costs and the total deduction that will be taken from their paycheck. Once employees have finalized their selection, the data will flow over to the payroll software so the appropriate benefits deductions can be made accurately.

Talent acquisition

isolved offers an applicant tracking system to help your organization attract top candidates. The system connects to over 5,000 free job boards as well as social media platforms to help you widely publicize job openings. If you want to, you can also create a branded career site as well. Applicants can apply by either uploading their résumé or connecting their LinkedIn profile.

You can schedule interviews directly within the tool, and each candidate profile comes with a feedback scoring rubric, which makes it easy to rank candidates and make hiring decisions faster. The system also comes preloaded with assessments and email templates, so you don’t have to generate everything from scratch. isolved also provides multiple hiring reports, including candidate sources and applicant conversion rates, to help you understand your hiring needs and optimize your hiring processes.

Performance management

With isolved performance management features, you can establish goal setting and institute 360° reviews, which allows both employees and managers to work together to track each employee’s progress and turn their performance feedback into actionable insights. You can also use isolved to create interactive org charts and visualize team affiliations, which will help employees get to know your company’s management structure and see what advancement opportunities are available.

Employee engagement

isolved offers employee recognition and engagement tools to help employees feel rewarded and to boost their motivation. Gamification features allow employees to score points and rise up the public leaderboard as they collaborate and share with teammates. They can also compete to win prizes or nominate colleagues for awards. isolved also comes with posting walls as well as feedback surveys so you can gather employee comments about what’s working and what changes they would like to see in the future.

Learning management

isolved offers numerous learning modules that you can choose from to fit your company’s needs. One of the modules is a learning management system that allows you to create your own personalized training courses for your employees. There’s also the SCORM content viewer, which comes preloaded with 150 starter courses and also allows you to import standard format courses from any third-party provider.

If you don’t already have such a provider but also don’t want to create your own courses from scratch, then you can opt for the content marketplace. This comes with a library of more than 50,000 ready-made courses that you can instantly import into your virtual classroom so your employees can start completing them right away.

Time tracking and scheduling

isolved also offers multiple tools to support time management and scheduling. Time tracking can be done through either physical or virtual time clocks, so employees can clock in from the office, home, worksites and more. Geofencing can also be enabled for specific locations to ensure punch accuracy.

Custom notifications can be set up for various triggers, such as missed time punches or approaching overtime pay. The system will also flag any time card discrepancies or objections so you can quickly address them to keep approvals moving. You can also approve time off requests and track paid time off within the same system.

isolved also offers solutions for both individual and team scheduling. The platform will show shift eligibility and availability, shift request statuses and potential coverage gaps at both individual and team levels. This predictive scheduling option makes it easy to generate new schedules that fit your permission rules. You can also enable employee self-service features that allow them to request shifts or ask for shift coverage from their coworkers.

isolved pros

• A la carte pricing means you don’t pay for features you don’t need.
• Centralized platform for all HR features.
• Option to pay for HR services if you need professional assistance.
• Many employee self-service opportunities.
• More than 3,000 HR reports to choose from.

isolved cons

• Customer service could be improved.
• Interface can seem outdated compared to alternatives.
• Pricing is not transparent.
• May be too complex for small businesses.
• Mobile apps are poorly reviewed.

Alternatives to isolved

Gusto

If you’re a small business looking for an intuitive payroll platform as well as some simple HR tools, then Gusto is a great alternative to isolved. Gusto is known for its incredibly easy-to-use payroll system, which allows for both totally automatic payroll and unlimited payroll runs.

It also offers some other HR features, including benefits administration, time and attendance, an applicant tracking system and performance reviews. Gusto isn’t as fully featured as isolved, but many small businesses will find it more than suffices for their needs.

Read the full Gusto review for more information.

ADP

ADP is one of the most well-known names and global payroll platforms, and with good reason. It offers two different levels of service: one for small businesses with less than 50 employees and one for medium and large businesses with more than 50 employees.

In addition to its payroll features, ADP also offers many additional tools for talent management, benefits, insurance and time and attendance. It also offers PEO services if you want to outsource some of your HR tasks to experts. The software has also added an ADP assist feature that harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to identify possible issues with your payroll and automatically send out reminders for critical tasks.

Read the full ADP review for more information.

Rippling

Rippling is often compared to Gusto because it also offers a highly intuitive payroll platform. But Rippling offers even more HR features than Gusto does, making it great for growing businesses that are looking for a scalable solution.

Rippling offers global full-service payroll in addition to employer of record (EOR) services for international businesses. It also offers tools for IT and finance management so you can centralize all these functions under one platform instead of having to get other software separate from your HR tools.

Read the full Rippling review for more information.

Review methodology

To review isolved, we consulted demo videos and product documentation, as well as user reviews and feedback. We investigated features such as payroll, benefits administration, talent acquisition, performance management, employee engagement, learning management, time tracking and scheduling. We also weighed factors such as pricing transparency, free trials, customer service responsiveness, user interface design and ease of use.