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Our verdict
AlphaStaff is a popular US Professional Employer Organization (PEO) providing cost-effective co-employment solutions for startups and small to medium-sized businesses. Customized HR solutions and competitive pricing make it the ideal PEO for a budget-conscious company.
Pros
- Customized HR solutions for your specific needs
- Allows employees to keep existing health plans
Cons
- Limited integrations
- Lacks some of the add-on services of larger HR companies
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How is this calculated?
We calculate the Overall Rating by combining the ratings of several testing categories.
Learn more by reading our testing and review methodology.
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AlphaStaff is a fully customizable PEO, payroll, and HR consulting partner. All packages are designed for the unique needs of clients. The company works with many franchise owners and startups, and has extensive experience in crafting packages to the needs of these businesses, though all packages are custom designed for the unique needs of each client.
Overview
As a company expands from its primary location to establish subsidiary offices or take on new projects, it can come across new state tax codes, reporting requirements, and other compliance issues. The expanding workforces required by expansion also necessitate larger HR departments and other non-revenue generating staff. Tracking work hours, time off, and payroll also becomes more complicated. Investors in franchised businesses may face these challenges quickly, as their business model requires moving out into new territory. In the face of these challenges, many businesses hire consultants to help plan their growth and strengthen their internal capabilities. Full-service Professional Employer Organizations (PEOs), such as AlphaStaff, provide a solution to workforce growth management with a customizable combination of co-employment, consulting, and services (read more in How do PEOs work?).
As co-employers, PEOs have the ability (and obligation) to help administer payroll, benefits, and tax filing. They are also able to offer competitive insurance and benefits packages due to their buying power as large employers.
AlphaStaff is a well-established PEO, in operation since 1997. Since 2000 it has been accredited by the Employer Services Assurance Corporation (ESAC), an agency that rates PEO business practices and financial dependability. In 2019 and 2020, AlphaStaff was the only PEO recognized by the National Association of State Workforce Agencies (NASWA) for its Dedication to Eliminating Unemployment Waste and Abuses.
How AlphaStaff simplifies HR and payroll
Key features
Professional Employer Organization services
AlphaStaff becomes a co-employer for its clients’ workforce; it is responsible and liable for compliantly processing payroll, and for providing legally required benefits.
In contrast to many other PEOs, employees who move to the AlphaStaff service are able to continue with their pre-existing health plans. This ability may make the switch to a PEO model simpler and more attractive for many organizations.
Many other businesses, however, choose to switch to PEO co-employment specifically for the higher quality, lower priced healthcare and benefits plans that PEOs can offer. AlphaStaff offers a number of flexible health plans from national carriers that offer minimum essential coverage, Qualified High Deductible Health Plans, Flexible Spending Accounts, open access HMO, Hospital Indemnity Insurance, full dental and vision coverage, Health Reimbursement Arrangements, flexible spending accounts, and health savings accounts.
Other benefits provided and fully administered by AlphaStaff include short or long-term disability coverage and group life insurance (either employee or employer-paid), and critical illness, accidental, specified disease insurance.
AlphaStaff also administers its own 401(K) plan, which employees can choose to pay into.
Payroll processing
All payroll payments and tax filing is handled automatically by the AlphaStaff team and can be managed and viewed from the online platform. Payroll tax filing services include W2, W3, 940s, 941s, Form 5500 preparation, and filing of 1095c and 1094c ACA compliance forms. It can administer wage garnishment child support, levies, and other purposes.
Workers can clock hours worked through the portal, or management can load the data themselves. AlphaStaff then processes the report for a final client audit before authorization and payment. Deductions are processed by AlphaStaff, and employees are paid by direct deposit, check, or pay card.
Payroll data can be integrated with a General Ledger and POS units. Tip allocation reporting, Union reporting, job costing reports, payroll check verifications, deduction reports, and benefits reports are also available.
HR
Each client is assigned a dedicated team, including a Human Resource Account Manager who provides assistance matching the customized services each business has signed up for. The AlphaStaff HR team can help with management leadership training as well as employee compliance training.
Setting it apart from much of the competition, AlphaStaff offers professional recruitment services. Recruitment teams are matched to businesses by industry of expertise. They can create job descriptions, post job listings, and tap their own industry connections. They also handle applicant screening, pre-employment assessments, and will field replacements if a candidate is terminated within their first 90 days of employment. The onboarding process is fully electronic, filing all forms such as W4 and state withholding online.
HR services include Human Capital Management consultations, followed up by execution and administration to support the HR strategy. The Human Capital Management team provide support for the management, consults on compliance issue, supports investigations, prepares and files EEO-1 documentation, administers FMLA and FLSA, and can perform salary surveys and develop employee handbooks.
Compliance
AlphaStaff provides a number of compliance services beyond payroll processing, tax filing, and benefits administration.
AlphaStaff works with ProWriters to provide cyber liability insurance that includes credit protection, IT forensic costs, crisis management, breach of contract costs, network security breaches, denial of service attacks, defense costs, fines and penalties, breaches of personal information, extortion, damages from software viruses, and digital asset damages.
The service also offers Workers’ Compensation Insurance from an A-rated carrier, with no deposits and pay-as-you-go coverage. It also provides licensed claims managers, files notice of injury reports, performs risk analysis, and assists with OSHA compliance. Unemployment claims are administered internally by AlphaStaff.
Additionally, the service offers Affordable Care Act compliance consultation, HRA and HSA administration, and COBRA administration
Platform
AlphaStaff provides an online portal where managers can view up-to-date labor data, review and approve payroll, authorize overtime, and track bonuses and incentives. The platform allows up to 5 security levels of approval for employee timesheets, and sets up reminder notifications for both employees and managers. It also provides detailed and customizable reports on work hours and overtime, predefined work schedules, individualized employee holiday schedules, and allows custom payroll rules for employees of different classifications.
AlphaStaff works with owners and management to create a library of custom reports based on those previously used, and projected future needs. These reports graphically illustrate analytic data and can be downloaded in XLS and PDF formats.
The employee self-service portal allows employees to request time off, change their tax withholdings, view pay and tax statements, activate payroll cards, request Paid Time Off, and change their personal data.
Pricing
Pricing information is only available via direct request.
Pros and cons
Alphastaff pros
Benefits of choosing AlphaStaff as your PEO include:
- The flexibility of AlphaStaff services, which allows clients to create a custom package based on their own needs. This will be useful for growing companies with changing needs as well as those that only need a few services offered. The company is also experienced in working with franchise owners and labor-intensive startup businesses, suggesting that its teams already have processes and offerings in place to best serve these companies.
- Converted employees may keep their pre-existing healthcare plans if they wish. This, and the many consulting services available, will make the conversion to a co-employment model much simpler for many clients.
- Optional recruitment services can be combined with onboarding, administration, payroll and compliance services to provide a complete staffing solution.
AlphaStaff cons
AlphaStaff takes on many administration tasks and provides training for internal teams but it does not provide full HR outsourcing. Though some will find this more attractive than handing over all HR duties to a third-party, companies trying to keep their internal teams as lean as possible may not.
The service is not specifically geared toward knowledge workers, remote teams, or international hiring. Companies hiring remote knowledge workers may still choose AlphaStaff for the benefits packages and insurance options, however, it does not provide international co-employment services.
Unique Selling Point
A flexible solution covering recruitment, PEO services, statutory and optional insurance, business insurance, HR consulting, payroll processing, and administration. AlphaStaff provides the tools a growing business needs to compliantly increase its workforce in various jurisdictions, stay on top of insurance and benefits requirements, and learn the best practices and strategies to grow its internal capabilities.
Customer reviews
RemotePad Score for AlphaStaff
8.6/10 Our expert score for AlphaStaff
Our team came to this score by considering the following components in the following weightings:
| PEO features | 25% |
| Payroll features | 10% |
| HR features | 10% |
| Compliance features | 10% |
| Platform features | 10% |
| Pricing | 20% |
| User reviews | 15% |
For each component, AlphaStaff received the following score:
| PEO features | 22/25 |
| Payroll features | 9/10 |
| HR features | 9/10 |
| Compliance features | 9/10 |
| Platform features | 9/10 |
| Pricing | 18/20 |
| User reviews | 10/15 |
Our verdict
AlphaStaff is best suited for small and medium-sized employers who own franchised businesses or operate in labor-intensive industries. They will appreciate the custom reporting tools that allow them to track a large geographically distributed workforce using metrics of their own choosing, the flexible benefits options that can accommodate the needs of varied industries, the ability to keep their pre-existing benefits packages if desired, the recruitment services that allow them to build a workforce quickly, and the HR consulting services that help them build their own capabilities. Companies looking to convert a large workforce to PEO co-employment, or quickly add many new PEO co-employees, will appreciate the many add-on consulting and other services available. The breadth of services offered by AlphaStaff will help many clients expand quickly without overloading or expanding their existing HR departments.
FAQ
AlphaStaff was founded in 1997.
In 2009, AlphaStaff acquired Selective HR Solutions.
As a privately held PEO, AlphaStaff does not publicly reveal its revenue or turnover.
AlphaStaff is privately funded and has not gone through any formal fundraising rounds.
AlphaStaff is headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
