Intuit confirmed this week that the phase-out of its Complete Payroll product will conclude at the end of this year, a process the company said it has been undergoing for several years.

As of December 31, users will no longer be able to process payroll with the Complete Payroll service, though Intuit has assured users they can continue to process payroll without disruption through the rest of 2011. Intuit said it would also process and file all 2011 year-end payroll tax forms.

“There was no formal announcement because we had been transitioning our few remaining Complete Payroll customers to other Intuit payroll solutions over the last several years,” said a company spokesperson. “We discontinued Complete Payroll because it was built on an older technology platform that made it difficult to maintain. As part of Intuit’s ‘technology refresh’ program, our payroll team built a new offering that we believe will be a significant improvement: Intuit Full Service Payroll.”

The spokesman added that customers have “an array of Intuit payroll choices,” depending upon what’s right for their businesses, ranging from a do-it-yourself service, to an assisted payroll offering, to full-service payroll.

The company has also designed an Intuit Complete Payroll Service Discontinuation FAQs page, which recommends Intuit QuickBooks Assisted Payroll as well as Intuit Full Service Payroll as two options to consider. The site claims that both offer many similar features to Intuit Complete Payroll, including processing and filing of tax forms.

For more details and a comparison chart, visit http://payroll.intuit.com/compare/compare-quickbooks-payroll.jsp.