Perfecting Payroll in 2025: isolved on the ShortList

isolved has been recognized in Constellation Research’s 2025 Payroll ShortList™ for North American SMBs. The recognition highlights isolved’s strengths in employee self-service, payroll manager efficiency and modern cloud delivery that help SMBs run accurate, on time payroll.

Why it Matters

In the year 2025, payroll mistakes remain common. Nearly 60% of employees have experienced them in the last year. Mistakes in previous decades could be attributed to human error and mounds of paperwork. In an era increasingly moving away from spreadsheets and toward artificial intelligence (AI)-powered technology, payroll errors should be a thing of the past.

The Stakes

The costs are high for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) when it comes to payroll. It’s the core function that matters to employees the most. Trust, productivity and compliance are all on the line. Yet, many organizations struggle with bandwidth. Their teams are struggling to keep up when scaling is the goal, and they need a reliable partner to process payroll.

To guide organizations looking for a solution, Constellation Research compiles a ShortList for North American SMBs.

The ShortList

Constellation Research is an award-winning strategic and futurist advisory firm. The firm’s ShortList finds vendors that provide capabilities for organizations and employees to manage their pay. Vendors also need to allow customers to manage the payroll cycle and instantly ensure that all payroll events are automatically calculated and most of all—processed on time and correctly.

The Impact

SMBs need to perfect payroll, but the function goes far beyond connecting two bank accounts. To truly ensure payroll is done correctly, SMBs need to offer more than a standard payroll solution.

They need to:

• Enable employee self-service: By making it easy to access personal information, tax forms and pay stubs

• Reduce manual processes: Through automated features like tax calculations, intuitive adjustments and garnishments

• Gain real-time visibility: With real-time payroll previews to eliminate guesswork after processing

• Stay compliant and secure: With multi-layer security strategies, like multi-factor authentication (MFA) and SSAE-16-certified datacenters

The Criteria

To be considered for the ShortList, every organization needs to:

• Feature a mobile app for employees

• Provide efficient tools for pre-and post-payroll processing

• Offer regular compliance updates

• Use tools to answer payroll questions for employees

• Reduce errors through technology

• Plan on making “always-on” payroll capabilities available

The Results

Out of the 20 solutions that Constellation Research evaluated, isolved is a solution to know based on client inquiries, partner conversations and internal research. From enabled employee self-service to Payroll Fraud Protection, isolved continues to enhance its solution to help SMBs perfect payroll.

According to Dana Von Ruden, HR Director at Childea, “isolved has eliminated frustrating processes with a system that can be used by anyone. Supervisors tell us they are spending far less time on payroll and that the time they spend on timecards has been cut in half."

Explore Constellation Research’s Payroll for North American SMBs here!