If you’re reading this article, you likely own a Hotworx studio or two and are wondering who is Whirks? What’s the cost of their services? Why Whirks instead of Paychex? What does a transition look like if I’m an existing owner?
This article is designed to answer all the frequently asked questions we get from Hotworx owners. Before diving in, allow me to give a quick overview of who we are and why your franchisor chose us as your 2nd payroll option.
Who is Whirks? Whirks is a small business.
It’s hard to understand the challenges of a small business unless you’re one yourself. At Whirks, we are an independently owned payroll, HR, and insurance company in Memphis, TN. Today, we have 35 employees, and most of our team is based in our Memphis office. We do have a few hybrid and remote employees, but overall, 90% of our office staff is here. We started our business in 2006 and today we process paychecks for 13,000 employees nationwide. At the time of this article, we work with about 350 business owners. One of the pros of working with our team is that we are a growing small business ourselves, so we value personal customer service and relationships with our clients. We pride ourselves on being able to handle payroll accurately on time, every time AND make sure you actually know the name of the people who help you file your payroll taxes. We also have an extremely low turnover rate in our employee department, so you could be working with a customer support person who has been working at Whirks since we began!
As our company has grown and as our clients have leaned on us for technical support and expertise, we have expanded our payroll services to include outsourced human resources and insurance services. For most Hotworx owners, we do pay-as-you-go Workers’ Compensation insurance which means we take care of your workers’ comp audits for you and make sure you don’t overpay your insurance premiums. This is a complimentary service we offer at no additional fee to you. You can learn more about pay-as-you-go worker’s comp here. We can also help you craft an employee handbook, answer HR questions, and provide labor law posters to your studio. This HR service, called Whirks PEOPLE, is ideal if you have multiple locations and have more than 10 employees. As you scale and add studios, it’s ideal to have some legal HR protection around you, and this service is economical when compared to keeping an HR lawyer on retainer. If you have less than 10 employees and one location, we suggest the Whirks CORE package for you.
One of the cons of working with us for services is that we operate on central time, Monday-Friday from 8:30am-5:30pm. If you call our office outside of those windows, we do not offer 24/7 support. If that’s important to you, then you are better off choosing Paychex as your provider. Our goal is to make sure you have what you need taken care of between those hours, but some employers do consider this a con, so we want to be transparent about our customer service.
What’s the cost of service?
At Whirks, we offer 3 custom service package with 9 add-ons, but for Hotworx owners specifically, there are two service packages that you need. Many of our add-ons aren’t needed for owners with one location, but if you have plans to have many locations, some of our add-ons could be useful.
The best service package for most Hotworx studio owners is the Whirks CORE package. There are 3 different fees to be aware of in this package: a one-time implementation fee, a monthly processing fee, and year-end administration fee.
One Location Studio Cost
This service package’s monthly processing fee costs $125/month per legal entity until you have more than 13 employees (YES THAT’S PER MONTH, NOT PER PAYROLL PROCESS). When you have more than 13 employees, that flat rate changes to a $10.25/per employee per month rate. The one-time implementation fee is a flat fee of $225 per legal entity.
The year-end costs include a $140/annual tax filing fee and $7/per W2 issued. For the normal one-location, one-legal entity Hotworx owner, your total cost for your first year of service with 5 employees is $1,950. Your second year of service should only cost $1,750.
We do suggest the complimentary add-on of pay-as-you-go Workers’ Compensation Insurance. If you’re an existing franchisee owner, we can convert your current policy to Whirks and set it up on the pay-go model or we can quote out a new insurance policy for you to review. We are very competitive on workers’ compensation insurance rates and would be happy to review it for you to select the most economical option for you.
The Whirks Core Package includes:
- Electronic Onboarding of New Hires
- Payroll Processing (Direct Deposit, Paycard, and Paycheck options)
- Payroll Tax Filing
- Employee Self-Service Apps
- Workers’ compensation insurance
Multi-Location Studio Cost
If you have more than one location and have some concerns about your employees and legal compliance, we suggest the Whirks PEOPLE package. Similar to the CORE package, there are 3 fees to be aware of: a one-time implementation fee, a monthly processing fee, and a year-end administration fee.
This service package’s monthly processing fee costs $250/month per legal entity until you have more than 16 employees (yes—that’s PER MONTH, not PER PAYROLL PROCESSED). When you have more than 16 + employees, that flat rate changes to a $15.25/per employee per month rate. The one-time implementation fee is a flat fee of $1,500 per legal entity. The yearend costs include a $140/annual tax filing fee and $7/per W2 issued. For the normal two-location, two-legal entity Hotworx owner, your total cost for your first year of service with 15 employees is $4,820. Your second year of service should only cost $3,320.
We do suggest the complimentary add-on of pay-as-you-go Workers’ Compensation Insurance. If you’re an existing franchisee owner, we can convert your current policy to Whirks and set it up on the pay-go model or we can quote out a new insurance policy for you to review. We are very competitive on workers’ compensation insurance rates and would be happy to review it for you to select the most economical option for you.
The Whirks People package includes:
- Electronic Onboarding of New Hires
- Payroll Processing (Direct Deposit, Paycard, and Paycheck options)
- Payroll Tax Filing
- Employee Self-Service Apps
- Workers’ compensation insurance
AND
- Federally-compliant Employee Handbook
- Labor Law Posters
- HR Hotline
- Monthly HR Workshops
- Annual Business Risk Assessment
Why Whirks instead of Paychex?
There are advantages to working with both Paychex or working with us as your partner. If you’d like to review a deeper dive into the differences between our companies, please check out this article: Paychex vs. Whirks? What’s the Difference? Overall, please check out our google reviews and our BBB accreditation to see what our clients say about us.
How do I transition to Whirks from Paychex?
If you are an existing franchisee owner using Paychex for payroll today, a transition doesn’t have to be difficult! We make it easy on you by converting all historical data from Paychex into our payroll platform and then scheduling live training with you to teach you how to use our tech tools and how best to interact with our service team. First, you’ll want to request a proposal of service from our sales team. You can schedule a call with us by using this link. As you request your conversation, please have your legal company name, EIN, and employee count handy. If you have a copy of your current workers’ compensation policy, you can send us a copy of that as well.
If you don’t want to use our link, please contact one of our salespeople – Shelby, Mark, Patricio, JD, or Walker.
Shelby: shelbyb@whirks.com | 901.300.8208
Mark: markg@whirks.com | 901.300.8563
Patricio: patriciom@whirks.com | 901.446.3338
JD: johns@whirks.com | 901-347-0354
Walker: walkerw@whirks.com | 901-506-9497
Once we put together a service engagement for you, we’ll request a copy of a voided check from the account you run payroll from and request a couple of IRS documents we need signed. Then we will schedule a Kick-off call with our payroll team so that we can begin your transition. Normally, a good rule of thumb is to allow 30 days between your kick-off call and the first pay date that we will process together. We can absolutely move faster if we need to, so if you have a specific timeline in mind, please be sure to have that date ready during your kick-off call.
For more information, check out this article: What to Expect During Implementation.
