2019 Review of Cougar Mountain Denali Payroll

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From the 2019 review of professional payroll systems.

Denali Payroll is part of Cougar Mountain Denali, a suite of accounting and related applications. Denali Payroll is best suited for small to mid-sized businesses that already use or plan to use other Denali applications, though the product can also be used as a stand-alone payroll application if desired. The product could be used by accounting firms that provide payroll services to their clients, but is better suited to business owners looking for an in-house payroll solution.

Denali Payroll was designed to be an in-house, on-premise payroll solution, though the product can now be hosted on the cloud if remote access is desired. Denali does not offer a mobile app at this time.

Denali’s Payroll Tasks screen offers easy access to a variety of common tasks, where all payroll related data such as employee information, department, tax, benefit, and leave codes are entered. Users can set up all payroll details from the PR Module Preferences window, which is also where users can integrate payroll with other Denali modules, such as the General Ledger, Accounts Payable, and Bank Reconciliation. Direct Deposit can also be set up at this time. The Workflow option, directly below, can be helpful for those new to Denali, displaying the order in which payroll should be entered and processed.

Denali’s Prepare Payroll window offers a list of all employees and their standard pay information, including total hours, gross pay, total deductions, taxes, and net pay. Users can quickly go through the list and make edits where needed, and leave the correct information in place. Users can also import timesheets from TSheets into Denali Payroll, eliminating the need to enter time manually. Denali Payroll supports multiple companies, so users can just run payroll for the necessary companies. After-the-fact payroll is also supported, though limited to entering payroll check information as a manual check.

Denali Payroll includes tax tables for all 50 states and integrates with Aatrix to process federal and state tax forms, including Form 940 and 941 processing. All quarterly and year-end reporting, along with 1099 and W-2 e-filing is also handled by Aatrix.

Denali Payroll includes numerous payroll related reports, including the Employee List, Taxable Wage report, Employee Leave report, and a comprehensive Employee History report. All reports can be customized or exported to Microsoft Excel for further customization.  

Denali Payroll is part of Denali Business, which offers complete financial management. Modules offered in Denali Business include GL, AP, AR, Bank Reconciliation, Controller, Cougar Dtails, which offers dashboard functionality, Inventory, Order Entry, Purchase Order, and Multi-Location Inventory, along with the Payroll module, with all modules integrating. There are also a variety of add-on modules available that work directly with Denali Payroll including Aatrix Tax Service, eDelivery and TSheets Time Tracking. Users can also import or export data from a variety of third-party accounting and timekeeping applications if desired. 

Employee access to payroll data is not offered in Denali, though paystubs can be emailed to employees via secure email using the Denali eDelivery, an add-on module.

Denali Payroll does not offer any HR features, though users can choose to track a variety of information using the user-defined fields available in the payroll module. In addition, HR information such as job applications, tax withholding, insurance, and benefit information can be attached to each employee record, with the option to attach a photo as well.

Denali Payroll includes a variety of help and support resources, with users able to access Help from any entry screen in the application. An online user forum is available, and the Denali Documentation page offers access to users guides that cover all modules and features. The support line is available during regular business hours, and users can also request support from the Cougar Mountain website by filling out a form.

Denali Payroll can be used as a stand-alone payroll application or with other Denali applications and is best suited for small to mid-sized businesses that are already using other Denali applications. Denali is available in three versions: Basecamp, Ascent, and Summit, though users have the option to choose the modules they need. Those interested in Denali Payroll can request a demo or pricing directly from Cougar Mountain. 

2019 Payroll Rating – 4.5 Stars