[NY] Is Paychex really this bad, or is my experience unusually dysfunctional?

Title: HR people: is Paychex really this bad, or is my experience unusually dysfunctional?

I’m curious about other HR/payroll professionals’ experiences with Paychex because I genuinely can’t tell anymore whether what I’ve encountered is normal for the platform, an implementation/account-management problem, or something specific to my employer. I was brought on for finance/ compliance work but somehow found myself in charge of figuring out how to set up health benefits for a 501c3 for myself and the other sole W2 employee. The non profit's board of directors are comprised of 100% volunteers. Some red flags are setting off my spidey senses I guess and Paychex has NOT helped. I haven't been able to shake this feeling like I am close to discovering something someone doesn't want seen.

Some examples from the past few months:

• Very beginning: I filled out my W4 via a digital Q/A format like application which is normal when you start a new job. I went and checked the actual W4 form and it omitted my APT# and didn't fill out the top. Payroll rep didn't understand what the issue was, I had to fill out my own W-4 and upload it to the "flock system" idk "flox system" myself to have it list my full address. I noticed MCMT taxes were not reported anywhere and asked about that, suddenly they appeard in the system.
• Basic questions about recurring Paychex-related charges have gone unanswered or bounced between representatives. I literally have asked for basic things like what are the exact programs we are paying for that keep showing up on a monthly basis as it's not reconciling with the invoice we receive for Paychex services. The invoice doesn't break anything out, just the fee that changes and x # of emlpoyees (we went from 2 to 3 as one is seasonal).
• Our bi-monthly invoice averages $600, aka $1200 a MONTH. FOR 2 EMPLOYEES. Is this insane or am I just new to this and unaware re the costs of payroll? I checked into it and ADP quoted me about 1/3 the cost. I can't get the $1200 monthly figure to align with the costs I'm seeing on our checking account.
• I spent about a month trying to get a clear explanation regarding Corestream/benefits-related charges and how the program was set up. I feel like I am going insane, no one will give me a straight answer. Our "HR PRO contact who tried to sell me so hard on the benefits of corestream saif that the "perks" like employee paid dental/vision/ AD&D/ Critical Illness (basic deductions that employees can usually opt into for a relatively cheap amount at most companies/ I was planning on transferring us over to AFLAC for this kind of stuff) is now showing up on our company General Ledger for the month of June for 1 employee. That employee is not me, it happens to align with the other employee's deductions (I was wondering why he was still enrolled in their crappy vision/ dental when I got us a great plan?).
• I don't know how I found this GL but I didn't create it. It looks like a vendor who provides services to the nonprofit's GL but is titled with the non profit I work for's name.
• There seemed to be very little actual HR assistance with getting health insurance/benefits established. They actually triple deducted me in July for some add on dental benefit because they issued 3 checks and voided one. They never told me that the check was going to be clawed back. Shouldn't they have warned me between the 3 days that they'd be doing that? The total is usually $40 per paycheck, my dashboard says $120 for July.
• My I-9 verification was completed by someone who was not an employee or authorized HR person. (Literally they asked my mom to verify it/ whoever was with me physically). We're paying for HR PRO LOL WTF. I've done my fair share of onboarding and I can't make sense of this.
• When I asked for historical information, a live representative actually told me, “It’s a website, not a filing cabinet.”
• Getting a basic employee-cost report supposedly required roughly 24 hours rather than being something that could simply be generated. I had a deadline and needed simple answers- salary+benefits paid by employer= employee cost. For 2 people….
• I know I used to have more access to all reports back when I was a 1099 employee hired to do their taxes. Now that I'm W2 and have a bit of a larger scope in terms of what I'm in charge of I've had nothing but difficulties running simple reports/ seeing basic info.
• My reports show a different username ending/ user domain for me vs. my coworker. It changes domain name depending on when I run the report. Sometimes myself and the other employee are both "@/xyzfoundation", which would make sense. Sometimes the domain says a different domain for both of us. Recently it's reflecting a TOTALLY different company's domain for the other employee which has led me down another rabbit hole. This other employee once accidentally emailed me without switching his Microsoft account (I assume because usually his signature in Microsoft is our foundation.) His signature was for a different company but the domain in the email looked how it normally does.
• My manager is "EMPLOYEE, TEST" with an email domain called "PAYCHEXFAKE.COM". I am listed as the other employee's manager with our normal domain. No one has explained to me why there is a "TEST FAKE EMPLOYEE" despite asking multiple times.
• That report contains a legend saying “Show All Companies = No,” which I don't understand and haven't been able to get a clear explanation for.
• I received inconsistent explanations about who actually pays for the Paychex service. During the conversation with our HR PRO contact, I was initially told it was paid for by my coworker. When I pressed asking if we should then be reimbursing him and taking over the payments, she stated that the non profit was actually paying for it, not my other coworker who she initially referenced by name.
• I wasgetting notifications on my personal gmail (my laptop wasn't issued by my employer) that it was controlled by an organization and I didn't have access to change certain things. Freaked me out- I unsinstalled OneDrive and Outlook, the gmail message went away and no sign of being tied to an organization in Gmail. This leads me to believe there is zero way of knowing that my coworker who set up our emails/ had me do the whole microsoft authentication stuff (despite it causing massive issues due to getting locked out while he was on vacation) because he can access my emails and see what I download. I know this sounds crazy and please tell me if I'm wrong. Because the president of the foudation has a email address that he doesn't use with our domain and I'm wondering if my co-worker possibly monitors that inbox as well without the President knowing. Why have an email for someone who never uses it (he has his own gmail he utilizes for foundation related matters, just not Microsoft outlook).
• Questions about a payroll withdrawal/reversal have not received a clear answer.
• I also wasn't notified by Paychex when my employment status in the system was changed to inactive.

There have been other oddities, but those are the big ones.

One thing I'm not sure is actually a Paychex problem: I was set up as salaried and non-exempt. I understand that combination can be perfectly legitimate, so my concern is less the classification itself and more whether the payroll/HR administration surrounding it was being handled correctly.

For people who actually use Paychex professionally:

Is this remotely typical?

Does Paychex generally provide substantive HR/payroll support and maintain accessible historical records, or is it normal for the employer to be responsible for virtually everything while Paychex is basically just the platform/processer? They won't even respond with exactly what taxes they're responsible for reporting/ witholding/ paying as they said they don't file 2 specific kinds (can't remember off the top of my head).

And when you've had discrepancies involving payroll withdrawals, benefits charges, employee status changes, or reporting, how difficult has it been to get a knowledgeable person who can actually explain what happened?

Am I insane and paranoid? Is this normal? I feel like I've been screaming to the rooftops and everyone is pretending they can't hear me at work.

THANK YOU IN ADVANCE WHOEVER GOT THIS FAR 🙂