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Every January, your caregivers, drivers, and crew leads open a W-2. If you run payroll through GMS, the employer named on that form isn’t your company. GMS says so in its own FAQ. That one line on a tax form is a good place to start when you’re weighing Netchex vs. GMS.
Group Management Services, better known as GMS, is an IRS-Certified Professional Employer Organization founded in 1996 and headquartered in Richfield, Ohio. It focuses on trucking, construction, janitorial, staffing, light manufacturing, and home health care. Netchex is payroll and HR software you run yourself. With GMS, your workforce is co-employed. With Netchex, it’s yours alone.
Last updated: September 2026. Netchex data sourced from G2. GMS details come from GMS’s own site, its press releases, and StaffMarket client reviews, checked September 2026.
The Short Version
GMS packages payroll, HR, workers’ comp, safety programs, and benefits into one PEO relationship, with health coverage through its in-house master health plan. It knows blue-collar work well. The tradeoff is structural. GMS becomes the employer of record on your W-2s, your admins work inside GMS’s process and cutoffs, and many services carry their own charges on top of the base fee.
Netchex gives you the core coverage without the co-employer. You stay the sole employer, keep your own benefits plans and broker, and run payroll on your own schedule. A US-based, FPC-certified support team answers 90% of calls in under a minute. Customers rate it 4.8/5, and G2 reviewers give it an 8.9/10 for Quality of Support.
Company Overview
| Netchex | GMS | |
| Business model | Payroll and HR software, you remain the sole employer | Professional Employer Organization (co-employment) and benefits administrator |
| Headquarters | Louisiana | Richfield, Ohio, with 25 offices nationwide |
| Founded | 2003 | 1996 |
| Ownership | Privately held | Privately held, led by founder and CEO Mike Kahoe |
| Benefits | Your own plans, your own broker, administered in Netchex | GMS’s in-house master health plan |
| Independent client rating | 4.5/5 on G2 | 4.00/5 on StaffMarket, from 4 client ratings |
Netchex vs. GMS: Whose Name Is on the W-2?
GMS’s payroll FAQ doesn’t hide it: “Since GMS is a PEO, our name will appear as the employer on the W-2.” That’s co-employment in practice. The PEO becomes an employer of record for payroll taxes and benefits, and your wages report under its tax ID. Your company name still shows on pay stubs, but the tax form tells a different story.
Benefits sit with GMS too. It runs its own master health plan and says it’s “the only PEO that provides an in-house master health plan.” For a home health agency or a trucking company, that means the coverage your people rely on belongs to the PEO. Leave GMS, and you’ll rebuild benefits, tax accounts, workers’ comp, and payroll history in your own name.
GMS deserves real credit here. It’s an IRS-Certified PEO, which carries federal employment tax protections. Its FAQ also says you “retain full control and direction over your employees.” Day-to-day supervision stays with you. The employer relationship on paper doesn’t.
Netchex keeps that paperwork simple. Your EIN, your W-2s, your benefits plans, chosen with your own broker. There’s no second employer anywhere in the picture.
| Structure | Netchex | GMS |
| Who employs your people | You, as the sole employer | You and GMS, as co-employers |
| Employer named on the W-2 | Your company | GMS |
| Whose health plan it is | Yours, with your broker | GMS’s master health plan |
| IRS-Certified PEO protections | Not applicable, no co-employment | ✅ CPEO |
Who Controls the Workflow
In a PEO, payroll processing, tax filing, benefits enrollment, and compliance run through the PEO’s service model and systems. At GMS that system is GMS Connect, and the process has firm edges. Its FAQ says payroll must be submitted and approved three business days before the pay date, and you can’t call or fax payroll in.
Three days is a long time in home health, where caseloads shift daily, or in construction, where crews move between jobs. And the admin side can carry more weight than you’d expect. One StaffMarket-verified GMS client put it this way: “Benefits administration is done manually and more oversight on our part is necessary than we’d like.” Great for employees, the reviewer said. “For the company administrator, not as much.”
Netchex hands the controls to the people doing the work. Payroll, time and attendance, benefits administration, recruiting, onboarding, and performance run in one system your team configures. With OneScreen Payroll, most teams run payroll in about 15 minutes. Adding a pay rate, a job, or a new location is something your admin does, not something they request.
I love the integrated platform. With our old payroll company you would have to make the same change in several different areas of the software. With Netchex, it only takes once. This system is so user-friendly, it makes training a breeze. And the customer service is second to none!
Source: Chris Hayes, Payroll Specialist, Netchex customer
How the Fees Stack Up
GMS quotes every client individually, so you won’t find its rates online. What its service-package page does show is how the bill is built. Beyond the core package, line after line is marked “Additional charge,” “PEPM” (per employee per month), “Per ACH,” or “Must be quoted.”
Look at what lands in those columns: online timekeeping, performance management, learning management, EPLI, cyber liability, custom reports, QuickBooks Online integration, time clocks, extra or off-cycle payroll batches, and a late payroll processing fee. Workers’ comp coverage must be quoted. For a trucking company, GPS tracking, ELD monitoring, and dashcams are each billed monthly.
Per-employee charges have one thing in common. They rise with every hire. Add a crew for a big job or staff up for a new client, and the fee follows. It all sits on top of wages, employer taxes, benefit premiums, and workers’ comp. A growing company should model year three, not just the first invoice.
With Netchex, you pay for software and service. You don’t pay a co-employment fee on top of your own benefits, because the benefits are yours from day one.
Service and Support
GMS assigns a dedicated payroll specialist after your first payroll, and its StaffMarket reviewers like the responsiveness. One wrote that there’s “No wading through a series of prompts in a call center.” That’s a real strength. The independent sample is small, though: 4.00/5 from 4 client ratings, all from the same client.
Netchex’s support team is US-based and FPC-certified, answers 90% of calls in under a minute with first-call resolution, and pairs every customer with a dedicated Account Manager.
Netchex has the best support of any service provider I’ve ever worked with. There aren’t any hoops to jump through with Netchex support.
Source: Mary Lang, Accounting and Financial Control Director, Atlanta Air Charter, Inc.
| Service factor | Netchex | GMS |
| Independent client rating | 4.5/5 on G2, 8.9/10 G2 Quality of Support | 4.00/5 on StaffMarket (4 client ratings) |
| Who you work with | Dedicated Account Manager for every customer | Dedicated payroll specialist after your first payroll |
| Where the work happens | US-based, FPC-certified support team | US offices, plus a 2023 joint venture operating in Chennai, India |
Ownership and Growth
GMS is 30 years old and still led by its founder, Mike Kahoe. It has grown through a run of PEO acquisitions: a Chicago PEO in 2021, Venture Workforce Solutions in California in 2022, and Simpeo in Alabama in 2023. At the Simpeo deal, Kahoe talked about continuing “to blend these organizations.”
Stable leadership is a plus. Blending acquired PEOs is harder work, and clients of those companies live through the systems and process changes that follow. If your employer relationship is part of the package, that’s worth a question on your first call.
Switching Considerations
Leaving GMS means moving your workforce back under your own EIN, so next year’s W-2s carry your name. Benefits come off GMS’s master health plan and get set up in your company’s name through your broker. You’ll place your own workers’ comp policy, and your payroll history has to come along.
Netchex treats that as a managed project. Implementation is free, project-managed, includes your data import, and takes about six weeks. Customers rate it at 96% implementation satisfaction. Netchex also works directly with your benefits broker and CPA, so your office manager isn’t left doing it alone.
Who Each One Is Actually Built For
Choose GMS if: you run a trucking, construction, or home health business that wants to hand off workers’ comp, safety programs, payroll, and benefits to one IRS-Certified PEO, you value its fleet and safety tools, and you’re fine with GMS as employer of record.
Choose Netchex if: you want your own team running payroll and HR on your schedule, you want your caregivers and crews to stay your employees, and you’d rather not pay a growing per-employee fee for the privilege. Netchex is built for hourly, multi-location businesses with lean HR teams.
Still comparing? Our list of the 5 best GMS alternatives for home health, construction, and trucking companies puts PEOs and direct software side by side. For the bigger picture, see 5 Best PEO Alternatives for Growing Businesses.
Frequently Asked Questions
GMS is a PEO, so your workforce is co-employed and GMS’s own FAQ says its name appears as the employer on the W-2. Netchex is payroll and HR software you run yourself. You stay the sole employer, keep your own EIN, and keep your own benefits plans and broker.
No. GMS quotes each client individually. Its service-package page shows many services billed as additional charges or per employee per month, from timekeeping and performance management to off-cycle batches and fleet tracking. Per-employee charges rise with every hire and sit on top of wages, taxes, premiums, and workers’ comp.
Yes. GMS is an IRS-Certified PEO, which gives clients certain federal employment tax protections. It’s a real credential. It doesn’t change the co-employment structure: GMS still shares employer status with you, appears on the W-2 as employer, and runs benefits through its own master health plan.
Netchex provides free, project-managed implementation in about six weeks, including your data import. The team helps move your workforce back under your own EIN so future W-2s carry your name, and works directly with your benefits broker and CPA to set up plans and carry over payroll history.
Keep Your People. Keep Your Process.
See how Netchex handles payroll, HR, benefits, and time tracking for field crews and caregivers, without a co-employer in the middle.
This guide reflects publicly available product information and independent reviewer data as of September 2026. Feature availability may vary by plan. Contact each provider for current details.
Disclaimer: Any product roadmap or future plans provided herein are for informational purposes only. They do not represent a commitment to deliver any material, code, feature, or functionality. Plans may change without notification. The development, release and timing of any features or functionality described remain at the sole discretion of Netchex, its affiliates, and partners. Netchex does not give legal, tax, or accounting advice. You are responsible for ensuring your use of Netchex product meets your individual business and compliance requirements.
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