GoCo Review

Thanks to its flexibility, process automation, and streamlined onboarding functions, GoCo is our choice as the best HR software for custom workflows. GoCo can automate virtually any HR process, including your hiring and onboarding, performance reviews, and promotion process. This can simplify your HR staff's responsibilities and help your company comply with federal and state employment laws and regulations. GoCo is great for companies that need flexibility with their payroll, as you can use its embedded payroll software or integrate your own third-party payroll solution.

Goco HR software summary

GoCo Pricing and Terms

GoCo is priced on a monthly, per-employee basis. Plans start at $5 per employee per month and include hiring and onboarding features, employee self-service capabilities, and Magic Docs (the ability to convert documents into forms that can be electronically signed). This base fee is one of the least expensive rates we found in our research of HR software.

You can customize the software to include additional features like payroll processing, employee benefits administration, paid time off (PTO) management, time tracking and HR workflows. These features cost extra, but a GoCo representative will work with you to assess your needs and generate a custom quote. Choosing an annual or multiyear contract can save you up to 20%.

FYI: GoCo does not offer a free trial, but you can take a free product tour with preloaded data that demonstrates the software's features.

GoCo Features

One of the great things about GoCo is that its plans are customizable. Each plan includes the essential hiring and onboarding features, but you can add on other HR functions, like payroll processing, time tracking and automated workflows.

Here is an overview of some key features and tools that GoCo offers:

Recruiting and Onboarding

GoCo has several features to help you hire and onboard your employees. The software integrates with JazzHR, a comprehensive applicant tracking system. It provides essential recruiting and onboarding tools like customizable offer letters, new-hire packets, checklists, e-signature capabilities, self-service onboarding, benefits previews and onboarding task assignment.

What impressed us about GoCo in this area, though, is how many aspects of a company's hiring and onboarding workflows that it can automate and streamline, saving staff-strapped small businesses countless hours. You and your team can build HR workflows simply by creating templates and assigning tasks. You can automate functions like onboarding and offboarding checklists as well as new-hire orientation.

Source: GoCo

Payroll

Many HR software companies offer only one of two solutions for payroll: Either you can use their proprietary payroll software, or the HR software integrates with third-party payroll software you may already use (such as QuickBooks). GoCo, however, gives you both options. You can sync GoCo with your current cloud-based payroll software (e.g., ADP, Paychex, Paylocity or QuickBooks Payroll), or you can use GoCo's embedded payroll option, Execupay. Looking for HR software that has more in-house payroll plans? Check out our review of Gusto.

Both options provide access to automated features like new-hire setup, benefit deductions, paycheck calculations, time tracking and PTO management. If you use Execupay, the embedded option, you have automatic access to payroll data within GoCo. There is also unified HR and payroll support, and you'll be assigned a single payroll login for your company.

Source: GoCo

Setting up new employees within the payroll system is a breeze. GoCo offers an onboarding wizard that collects employee information like direct deposit details, W-4 withholdings and benefits enrollment deductions.

FYI: An automatically synchronized HR system is important because it cuts down on the human error you are likely to get from manual data entry.

Time and Attendance

To further streamline your HR processes, you can add on time and attendance features that allow you to track employee hours and time-off accruals, requests, approvals, and balances. You can create company holiday schedules and custom PTO policies that automatically sync with your calendars. Employees can clock in and out and submit timesheets, giving managers the option to approve those hours.

Another great automation feature that GoCo offers is the automatic overtime calculation. This feature can help you pay your employees accurately and fairly for their hours, which is essential to your business's legal compliance.

Benefits Administration

Although GoCo is not a benefits broker, it can connect you with experienced benefits professionals who can help you create a benefits package that fits your company's needs. You can connect to any carrier, with GoCo able to help you integrate your benefits and facilitate self-service benefits enrollment for your employees.

Source: GoCo

Performance Management

You and your team leaders can manage employee performance with GoCo's automated performance review workflows. This ensures reviews are automatically conducted at a regular cadence, your teams are always in sync, and you can track and report your team's progress. You can even set triggers to send automatic follow-ups when needed. If performance management is your top HR priority check out BambooHR, check out our review of BambooHR

Legal Compliance

GoCo's automated workflows help you comply with federal and state employment laws. For example, it can automatically detect and apply federal and state laws to your tax withholdings, send I-9 and W-4 forms to your new hires, and digitally store and organize your essential documents. GoCo also helps your company comply with regulations like the Affordable Care Act, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, and the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA).

Reporting and Analytics

You can generate custom reports in GoCo to gain insight into benefit changes, compensation, time-off requests and employee turnover. Instead of viewing standardized reports only, you'll have access to whatever HR data is meaningful to your organization.

Source: GoCo

Ease of Use

GoCo is a web-based platform, so it's easily accessible from any computer or smart device. It also has a mobile app for iOS and Android, which is ideal for on-the-go team members. The software offers several self-service functions that give employees more control over their HR information. For example, employees can sign digital HR documents, download their paystubs, view company directories and organization charts, and request PTO. Managers have all of that same functionality, as well as the ability to approve timesheets and time-off requests and give team feedback.

One thing that makes GoCo so easy to use is its HR workflow automation. You can automate virtually any HR process, which can save your business significant time and money in the long run. For example, you can quickly onboard new hires with onboarding checklist workflows. With these checklists, onboarding tasks and their deadlines are automatically assigned, automated reminders are sent, and teams have a clear view of what is coming next. Onboarding can also be streamlined with new-hire orientation workflows – in addition to automatically pushing new hires through the orientation process, the software lets you track the status and assignment of each orientation task.

You can automate HR processes for your current employees as well. For example, you can create workflows for travel, promotion and equipment requests. If you want to track employee performance and productivity, you can create workflows for performance reviews and employee surveys.  

Although it can be tough to say goodbye to an employee, some terminations are inevitable, and GoCo simplifies the offboarding process with workflows for this as well. You can automate administrative offboarding tasks, ensure the parting employee gets all the necessary documents, organize all the relevant documents in one location, and track offboarding progress.

Streamlining HR processes like this not only frees up your staff to focus on other tasks, but can also help you maintain accuracy and legal compliance.  

Limitations

One potential limitation is that GoCo doesn't support the number of third-party integrations that many of its competitors do. However, the platform is comprehensive enough that the lack of integrations does not typically present a barrier. GoCo does integrate with many cloud-based payroll systems as well as other platforms and solutions, including Google, LinkedIn, JazzHR, Slack and GoodHire.

Customer Support

GoCo representatives are available by phone or email. You can also add on-demand HR support to your plan. This feature establishes a live chat with HR professionals who can give you valuable advice on various subjects, such as how to customize your policies and employee handbook or create accurate job descriptions. You also get access to quarterly harassment training, best-practice guides, policy library templates, HR forms and training videos. GoCo's website features a blog, webinars, e-books and a searchable knowledgebase to answer further questions.