Vendor Analysis
published on Jan 08, 2019
Report Overview:
This NelsonHall vendor assessment analyzes AscentHR's offerings and capabilities in Next Generation Payroll Services
Who is this Report for:
NelsonHall’s Payroll Services Vendor Assessment for AscentHR is a comprehensive assessment of AscentHR payroll services offerings and capabilities designed for:
- Sourcing managers monitoring the capabilities of existing suppliers of payroll outsourcing and identifying vendor suitability for payroll services RFPs
- Vendor marketing, sales, and business managers looking to benchmark themselves against their peers
- Financial analysts and investors specializing in the support services sector
- HR and payroll decision makers.
Scope of this Report:
The report provides a comprehensive and objective analysis of AscentHR’s Next Generation Payroll services offering, capabilities, and market and financial strength, including:
- Identification of the company’s strategy, emphasis, and new developments
- Analysis of the company’s strengths, weaknesses, and outlook
- Revenue estimates
- Analysis of the profile of the company’s customer base including the company’s targeting strategy and examples of current contracts
- Analysis of the company’s offerings and key service components
- Analysis of the company’s delivery organization including the location of delivery locations.
Key Findings & Highlights:
AscentHR is a privately held HR software and services company headquartered in Bangalore, India. It was formed in 2002 and launched its PowerPay platform and began providing payroll services in 2003.
Today AscentHR has multiple locations and presence in APAC, EMEA, and the U.S. and provides the following services:
- HR consulting services: HR outsourcing and transformation, recruiting and sourcing strategy, compensation and benefits, training, education, and development, workforce management, performance management, separation management, HR policy, and M&A Advisory on HR
- HR outsourcing services: payroll managed services, benefits administration, HR and payroll compliance, HR policy administration, contact center, and welfare trust services
- HR technology: consulting, implementation, and management for its proprietary, cloud-based, multitenant, fully integrated HCM, and payroll platforms
AscentHR supports 517 clients within its payroll services business and produces ~640k pay-slips monthly.
AscentHR provides payroll services supported by its proprietary cloud platform, PowerPay, which supports the following offerings:
- Fully managed payroll services (representing ~85% of its payroll business): including gross to net payroll processing, flexible benefit processing, multiple pay runs and ad hoc payment processing, compliance with local statutory laws, query resolution/case management, payroll reporting, GL file, full and final settlement processing, preparation of statutory returns, and year-end tax processing:
- Additional add-on payroll services include lodgments support, bank file transmission, and integration to third-party systems (HCM and payroll)
- Compliance services (representing ~15% of its payroll business): including compliance calculation (e.g., payroll taxes such as Provident Fund, ESI, TDS, Tax on Profession, Labor welfare fund), statutory payments to authorities, compliance reporting, new hire registration for benefits, leaver reporting, filing returns, benefits claims management and query resolution, establishment compliance, consulting and advisory on employee relations, and employer representation where necessary before authorities.
AscentHR also offers the following HR services:
- Benefits administration services (currently available in India only): for fringe benefit management (car lease), insurance, employee claims, social security benefits, healthcare benefits, garnishments, and pension scheme support
- HR consulting: for HR outsourcing and transformation, recruiting and sourcing strategy, compensation and benefits, training, education, and development, workforce management, performance management, separation management, HR policy, and M&A
AscentHR offers its payroll and HR services, exclusively on their proprietary platforms, which are 100% cloud-based. ~76% of its clients are subscribers of payroll services only, and it processes over ~617k pay-slips per month, across 517 clients; ~95% of its pay-slips are direct deposit and are delivered electronically by self-service.
AscentHR has 552 employees dedicated to delivering payroll-related services, based across five delivery centers (four in India and one in the Philippines in Manila). It also has offices in Sydney (Australia) (new in 2018), Hongkong (China), Costa Rica, Dubai, and Singapore, Thailand, and the U.S. Philadelphia, PA (new in 2018) primarily for relationship management and sales and in country delivery support. Ascent expects to continue expanding its locations and presence outside of APAC and expects to open a location in Germany by Q2 2019.
AscentHR delivers payroll services to 517 clients and targets organizations with operations in all geographies, with its deepest presence in APAC and EMEA. The majority of its clients are India based, small and middle market clients. However, it is capable of supporting large enterprise clients; while its smallest client has 100 employees, its largest has more than ~58k.