Home health care providers face several challenges as a business. High turnover, poor documentation, and limited technology result in an overall loss of revenue and disorganized processes.
Finding the proper payroll and HCM provider can take a huge burden off of you as a business owner. Paying your employees accurately, keeping track of complicated shift differentials, and recruiting the best candidates will save you time and money.
As you begin your search for a new provider, you need to ask yourself the following questions:
- What services does my agency need?
- What services should I be using that I'm not using now?
- What payroll & HR providers understand my industry?
Vivientium and Whirks both service several clients in the home healthcare field. So in this article, we will compare what each provider offers, as well as its pros and cons. You'll also learn the differences between working with a national or an independent provider.
Who is Vivientium?
Vivientium is a privately-held SaaS-based human capital management provider founded in 1992 by Herb Kohn from Brooklyn, NY.
According to their website, they pay over 235,000 employees.
Vivientium markets its services to home care, skilled nursing, and the senior care industries. They are not an exclusive provider to the health care agencies, so they work with other businesses as well.
What services does Vivientium offer?
Vivientium offers a plethora of cloud-based services for agencies, including:
- Applicant Tracking Software (ATS)
- Payroll processing
- Benefits administration
- ACA compliance
- Time & attendance software
- Learning Management Systems (LMS)
- Performance Management tools
- Employee self-service options
- HR advisory services
Their support services include email & phone support, a knowledge base, live chat, and webinars. They do not offer in-person training or implementations.
Even though pricing isn't available on their website, most payroll companies will charge per employee per month (PEPM) based on their number. Or they will charge per payroll process (monthly, biweekly, or weekly basis).
What are the pros of working with Viventium?
Vivientium specializes in home health care, so they have integrations for electronic visit verification, multiple timekeeping solutions, and ERP systems, like Clear Care.
Many Vivientium clients have praised their ease of use for importing payroll data from Clear Care and adding custom pay stub descriptions.
The clients also reported that it is user-friendly with custom search functionality, and the customer service reps are attentive and responsive when they have questions.
What are the cons of working with Viventium?
Some of the cons to working with Viventium include the benefits administration software & ACA compliance. These features were rolled out in 2018, so there is still room for several improvements.
Other areas of concern include issues with enrollment, incompatibility with Google Chrome, and the limited ability to restrict supervisor views from seeing all of an employee's personal information.
Clients have also reported that payroll tax filings in multiple states have been filed incorrectly or were underpaid.
Who is Whirks?
Whirks is a privately held HCM, payroll, and HR provider founded in 2003 by Matthew Patrick in Memphis, TN.
Whirks began as Patrick Payroll and became a certified isolved Network Partner in 2017. They rebranded to Whirks fairly recently and offer payroll, HCM, and HRO services to small and midsize businesses, along with accounting services.
Over the years, they've developed a niche in the home health care space, but we do not service them exclusively.
What services does Whirks offer?
Whirks offers a full suite of human capital management solutions from pre-hire to retire, including:
- Applicant tracking
- Scheduling
- Time & attendance
- Benefits administration
- Payroll
- Learning management
- Performance management
In addition to HCM tech solutions, we offer an in-house human resource consulting service. This includes employee handbook creation, labor compliance, and an HR hotline.
We base our pricing on the size of your company (small or midsize) and charge per employee per month. The cost of our services goes up depending on which additional features you want.
What are the pros of working with Whirks?
Whirks started as an accounting practice, so they are etrade experts in multi-state payroll tax compliance, nexus, and tax credit consulting.
As the reseller of a larger tech platform, new product releases and technology updates are consistently rolled out.
They are a small company, so they pride themselves on white glove customer service and personal relationships with clients. A dedicated support specialist acts as your one point of contact, and many of their clients develop lasting connections with their reps.
What are the cons of working with Whirks?
One of the cons of working with Whirks is that they only process payroll in 42 states to date, so sometimes, they may not be familiar with your specific state needs.
Another con is that they do not own their HCM technology, so they are dependent on isolved software for product evolutions & technology updates.
Some of their former clients have reported disappointment in the lack of timekeeping integrations and unfamiliarity with all the features and functionality they could have utilized.
Care about your patients; leave your back-office to the pros.
The goal of paying for a payroll and HCM service is to allow you the time to focus on what you love. Whether managing your employees or caring for your patients, leaving the things you aren't passionate about to experts will help you grow and become more successful.
To decide which provider is best for you and your business, figure out if you want to go with a national provider like Viventium or an independent one like Whirks. Each has its pros and cons, but one of them will be the best fit for you and your team.
Are you having a difficult time hiring and retaining your employees? Read this article on our best practices for finding the perfect candidate.
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