Choosing the right HRMS software for your startup can be a crucial decision. Since this is the backbone of your company’s operations, it’s important you choose wisely. You have to find HRMS software that is both affordable and efficient so you have more time to focus on core functions of your business.
Here is an extensive list of the best tools.
BambooHR
BambooHR is a web-based HR system that’s designed for small and midsized businesses. It enables enterprises to track training, benefits, store information, forms, time-off requests, and more.
BambooHR was built on the principle that HR is for the people only and not the paperwork. They position themselves as a solution that can help small businesses transition from spreadsheets to a flexible and efficient core HRIS system.
BambooHR is user-friendly with an engaging interface that makes using the solution easy.
The solution offers excellent onboarding tools, flexible performance management, customizable fields, tabs, user groups, performance reviews. In addition, BambooHR integrates smoothly with many third-party applicant tracking and payroll systems for extended functionality.
What sets BambooHR apart from other HR software is its intuitive and engaging user experience, making it easy for first-time users to adopt the solution without training quickly.
BamboHR is the best HR software for people management.
Cons
BambooHR doesn’t offer native integration with popular payroll software, something most of its competitors, like Gusto, offer. BambooHR also has a hefty setup fee, unlike Gusto and Zoho People, who don’t charge you a setup fee.
BambooHR Pricing
On its official website, Bamboo doesn’t have an explicit pricing scheme. However, you can find that their pricing starts at $4.95/ employee /month by digging around.
Bamboo offers a 14-day free trial.
OnPay
OnPay is a Payroll solution first and a human resources software second, but it excels in both that it still comfortably takes a spot in any list of HR software.
The solution offers the features needed to streamline almost any payroll process. It can also automate your tax filing and payment processing, making payroll that much easier.
OnPay will automatically enter payroll information such as work hours, benefits, and reimbursements. In addition, you get unlimited payroll runs for W-2 workers and 1099 contract staff.
Direct deposit payment is available, or you can go for printed checks instead. In addition, the vendor offers top-notch customer service that will solve whatever issues you might face quickly and efficiently.
OnPay’s main strength lies in its simplicity. The solution is straightforward to use, and you can complete most payroll processes in minutes with a few clicks.
What do you get for free?
You get everything for free for one month, but you need to choose a plan after that. Yes, this means this is also not a free-forever option, but most users who give it a shot tend to like it and upgrade to a paid plan.
The good thing is that you get everything they offer whichever paid plan you choose, as the only difference between these plans is the number of available users.
Cons
OnPay is very easy to use, but setting up the solution could be more accessible. Also, like any payroll software, things can get a bit complex with taxes in some states, and some users have complained about this issue with their tax filings in certain states.
However, this remains a possibility with any payroll software.
Manatal
Manatal is a cloud-based recruitment software designed to streamline the whole recruitment process for the corporate HR department and recruitment agencies of all sizes. The software is currently used in over 100 countries.
The software is praised for its user-friendly interface. It allows HR departments to manage all aspects of their recruitment processes, including pipeline and candidate database management, compliance, and candidate scoring through artificial intelligence (AI). It also includes a career page builder, a recruitment CRM, a complete API, and other valuable features.
Manatal also includes a complete reporting and analytics suite. It offers candidate, job, hiring performance, and leaderboard reports. This lets users analyze recruitment activities to determine why some initiatives work while others fail and how to improve them in the future.
Manatal’s support team is available round the clock via live chat and email. Manatal also provides extensive documentation and video tutorials to help users get the most out of each feature.
Features:
- All core applicant tracking system features
- Free and premium job posting on over a thousand channels
- Career page builder
- Duplicate candidate management
- Referral management
- Collaboration tools
- Full reporting suite
- Onboarding/placement management
- Documentation and video guides
- Automated resume formatting and branding
Pricing:
Manatal provides a 14-day free trial and has two price plans ($15 and $35 per user/month).
Breezy HR
Breezy is a visual recruiting and applicant tracking system that helps businesses improve their hiring process. Their drag-n-drop interface & automation features make it easier to focus on suitable candidates.
It helps you advertise your open jobs on over 50 job boards with a single click.
Breezy offers integrations with Google Apps and Microsoft Office 395 for email and calendar.
Breezy’s iOS and Android apps let real-time conversations flow, notify the team about relevant events.
Features:
- Assessment Management
- Activity Tracking
- Customizable Reports
- Data Import/Export
- Employee Database
- Employee Management
- Real-Time Reporting
- Recruitment Management
Pricing:
- FREE – 1 active position, one active candidate pool
- Startup: $143 per month, billed annually or $171 billed monthly
- Business: $399 per month, billed annually or $479 billed monthly
*All paid plans include free trial, unlimited users, candidates, and customer support.Signup Now!
Gusto
Gusto is an HR software that can simplify your business’s complex HR operations. It offers a centralized platform that enables users to manage benefits administration, payroll, and workforce compliance.
The HR software solution helps businesses go paperless by moving all their paperwork to the digital platform. Businesses can store their documents, forms, and employee data – all in one central location.
The employee directory allows the HR team to streamline tracking and manage time-off requests. You will also easily create a vacation and sick policy and store them where all your employees can easily access them.
Gusto offers plenty of features that you will need to pay for with other HR payroll services, such as W-2s, 1099s, automated tax filings, pay schedules, expedited payrolls, and multiple states. Even better, it doesn’t limit you to a certain number of payrolls, and you get unlimited payrolls.
Gusto is the best HR software for small businesses and startups.
What do you get for free?
- Vacation and sick policies
- Employee directory
- Electronic Signature
- Org Chart
- Digital forms, including W-4s and 1099s
- Automated balances tracking
- Online time-off requests by employees
- New hire self onboarding
Cons
Retrieving basic information (for employees) can be, at times, quite complicated, and a slack integration could step up the solution’s game. The reporting options could also use some depth, and some employers complained about having few options for 401Ks.
Bitrix24
Bitrix24 is a cloud-based collaboration and project management software solution that helps with all your HR-related tasks. In addition, it offers 25 free HR tools that can give you all the HR features and functions you need.
The solution is top-rated HR software among small businesses and is currently used by over 2,500 HR departments, staffing agencies, and recruiters.
Like an HR system, Bitrix24 offers features such as a private social network, document management, employee portal, shared calendars, leave requests, and employee workload planning. The solution also offers plenty of project management features.
It also offers some advanced features, such as appreciation badges, which can help companies give employee management a boost when needed.
Bitrix24 is a project management software that doubles as HR software. Still, if you are looking for something more specialized in project management, we highly recommend looking at the best project management software for startups.
What do you get for free?
- Employee directory
- Calendars
- Time off & leave management.
- Document management
- Time Management
- Activity stream
- Recruiting
- Permissions
- Company-wide announcements
- Work reports
- Performance Reviews
- Collaboration
- Company structure
- API
Cons
Unfortunately, the free version has some limitations, which you will run into more quickly than expected. You are only limited to 12 users and 5 gigabytes of online storage.
It’s also quite strange that managing employee absence, a feature that is considered essential for any human resources management system is not included in the free plan.
You also don’t get access to customer support. You also can’t brand the system with your company logo, which is not essential unless branding matters to you.
Cezanne HR
Cezanne HR is one of the best HR software solutions for international teams or teams with global operations. That’s mainly thanks to the solution’s capability of dealing with international regulations and local laws in different countries. They also offer multi-language and multi-currency support.
The solution is a modular system that allows users to pick and choose precisely what the business needs and nothing else. In addition, Cezanne offers tools for performance reviews, recruitment, people management, Payroll, and more.
Cezanne is a more comprehensive solution than other options on this list. It offers some advanced modules such as the career and succession module that allows users to strategically plan for their future needs, map key roles, identify potential successors, and so on.
Cezanne provides workforce analytics tools and complementary solutions for payroll. In addition, the platform is accessible to employees and HR managers through a native mobile app for Android and iOS devices.
Cons
Cezanne is a comprehensive, fully-featured solution, but this comes at the price of complexity here. It requires a bit of experience to get used to it and has a steep learning curve that will not fit everyone’s liking. In addition, the system is only available on the cloud, which means you’ll have to have an internet connection to access the platform.
Cezanne Pricing
Cezanne HR doesn’t have clear pricing plans, but instead of enduring the negotiations with a salesperson, you can get a quote using their online quote calculator.
Paychex
Paychex is a complete HCM suite that combines Payroll, HR, and benefits management in a single package.
It is well-suited for businesses of all sizes. It manages tasks such as HR, time and attendance, Payroll and taxes, insurance, employee benefits, 401(k) retirement plans, and accounting and finance.
Paychex has dedicated Care Act solutions that take action on complex health rules and regulations.
Paychex can automate applicant tracking and expenses management, making more convenient and efficient recruiting and expense processes.
The solution is flexible and scalable, which means you can keep using it as your business keeps growing without having to worry about making a move to another solution.
Paychex Pricing
Paychex doesn’t have a FREE plan; however, they offer a 1-month free trial. After that, their pricing plan starts at $39/month + $5 per employee.
Features
- Online payroll
- Payroll tax administration
- Track time and attendance
- New-hire reporting
- General ledger report
- Accounting software integration
- Workers’ compensation insurance
- Standard analytics and reporting
- Entirely U.S.-based customer service
- Automatic W-2s and 1099s
- HR and business forms
- Labor compliance poster kit
- Electronically deposit payroll funds into employees’ accounts
- Additional employee pay options
ADP Workforce Now
ADP Workforce Now is a well-known, web-based HR software made for small and midsized businesses.
ADP helps businesses automate all their HR and Payroll processes using a single dashboard.
From the dashboard, you will manage employee payroll, time and attendance, and benefits.
Some features include bonuses, time and attendance, employee health insurance statistics, benefits, and talent management.
You will also be able to generate insightful reports from this dashboard.
ADP Workforce Now comes with a benefit plan creation wizard that you can configure to meet the policies and processes of your business.
You can get three months FREE for small businesses and startups when you sign up for small business payroll processing.
Features
- Benefits administration features
- Real-time analytics
- Human resources management functionalities such as recruiting, engaging, retaining, and promoting your employees.
- Direct deposit
- General ledger interface
- New-hire reporting
- W-2s and 1099s
- Tax filing
- Payroll delivery
Cons
ADP only offers performance management and employee engagement tools in its plans reserved for companies with 50+ employees.
Zenefits
Zenefits is an online HR software solution to help startups and small-to-midsized businesses with their HR and payroll needs.
Zenefits offers an employee directory, business intelligence, insurance benefits management, and payroll processing.
The solution gives businesses the ability to manage all their HR-related processes from a single interface. It also offers employees the ability to access the system to control all their HR records.
Zenefits also works hard to keep your managers updated with employee tax and earnings, deductions, and more. With Zenefits, you will also not have to worry about ACA compliance, and the mobile app and PTO tracks add a new layer of functionality to the solution.
Zenefits’ features include personnel management, onboarding, and offboarding. In addition, Zenefits can smoothly integrate with your already-existing infrastructure and the apps and systems you are already using.
Zenefits is the best HR software for hiring and recruiting.
What do you get for free?
- Hiring
- Onboarding
- Offboarding
- Personnel Management
- Employee directory
Cons
Zenefits, as a standalone app, doesn’t offer much. The app’s free version is functional but pretty barebones, especially compared to some of its direct competitors on this list. Zenefits could greatly benefit from adding features – such as performance management – to their free version.
If you’re looking for payroll, you should better look elsewhere, such as these free and open-source payroll software.
Freshteam
If you want a human resources platform that will actively increase employee productivity, then Freshteam should be on the top of your list.
The solution offers plenty of features that allow you to manage all of your HR processes. These features include applicant tracking, CRM (customer relationship management), employee recruitment, and more.
Freshteam gives its users complete control over the hiring process, and it does so without sacrificing the quality of candidates.
The solution also offers referral management and basic team collaboration. Another bonus that comes with Freshteam is email application management. All of these features help to make Freshteam your go-to system for tracking and recruitment as you get all the functionalities you need in a single platform.
Freshteam offers integrations with many third-party apps and services such as Facebook, Google Calendar, Freshsales, and Freshdesk.
What do you get for free?
- Email Application Management
- Job Embeds
- Basic career site
- Team collaboration
- Referral management
- Management of job posting
Cons
Unfortunately, the free version limits you to only five users. The solution is also lacking in voice communications as it doesn’t offer any VOIP or telephony capabilities. Users have also complained that their mobile application needs some work.
OrangeHRM
OrangeHRM is a user-friendly, cloud-based resource management and HR tool suitable for businesses of all sizes and fields. The solution is used by more than 3.5 million users worldwide, thanks to its cost and the offered features.
This is an open-source solution, and it comes with all the benefits you expect. You can learn all about why Open Source Software is good for small businesses here.
OrangeHRM does offer paid plans, but the solution is free as you can get almost all the features you want at zero cost. OrangeHRM’s features include benefits and leave management, recruitment, personnel and information management, time and attendance tracking, and employee self-service.
There is also a large number of available customizations to choose from. The level of customizability means the solution is flexible and easily scalable. As your business grows, you won’t find yourself migrating to another system, which can be very annoying time-consuming.
What do you get for free?
- Document Management
- Performance Assessment
- Employee self-service
- Personnelinformation management
- Time and leave management
- Time and attendance management
- Travel and expense tracker
Cons
Of course, being an open-source software comes with its cons. The solution needs you, or someone in your company, to have some IT knowledge. You will need to implement your servers and maintain the solution (and its installed hardware).
Customer support is not included in the free version, and updates and bug fixes cost extra. In addition, some limitations could be problematic for advanced users. For example, you won’t keep an audit trail on system changes or customize workflows.
Zoho People
If you’re familiar with the Zoho family of business products and/or have used them before, then Zoho people might be the HR platform you need.
Zoho People is an excellent HR management tool that offers a free version with outstanding features. These features include time and leave management, admin operations, file cabinet, time and attendance tracking, form customization, and real-time collaboration.
You also get performance management functionalities, such as performance appraisals, self-appraisals, and performance reports. In addition, the employee self-service portal gives employees to access and control over their information.
Zoho people also offers integrations with many third-party apps and services. Zoho’s HR process automation is a great time saver and can save your valuable business time, money, and human power.
It acts as a complete HR solution available online, which means you can access it anywhere. In addition, it allows you to manage and access all your employee data from a single location.
Zoho People is the best HR Software for payroll.
What do you get for free?
- Leave Management
- Employee self-service
- Basic HRIS
- Recruitment Management
- Employee Management
- Third-Party Integrations
Cons
Unfortunately, Zoho’s free plan is only available for up to five users and offers a tiny 250-MB of storage. Both numbers mean that the free version is not a free-forever or a freemium plan but is meant as a free trial that will force you to eventually upgrade to a paid plan if you wish to continue using the solution.
Zoho People don’t come with performance management and employee engagement tools.
ICE HRM
ICR HRM is an HR software for startups, small and mid-sized businesses. The solution has a rich user interface that was built with PHP and Javascript. In addition, this solution is easily customizable and expandable thanks to its modular structure.
As you can expect from a complete HR solution, the solution offers plenty of features such as time tracking, attendance tracking, employee information management, and more.
ICE HRM allows you to easily update all employee information with the click of a button. The timesheets feature is excellent, especially in that you can easily export it as an excel file so you can use it with other applications or import it to another platform.
Since ICE HRM is an open-source application, you get all of this for free, and the only limitation is the number of available users.
What do you get for free?
- Attendance Management
- Time Tracking
- Employee management
- Company information management
- Time tracking and timesheets
- LDAP login
Cons
Unfortunately, ICE HRM’s free version is only available for up to five users. However, you can still use the solution for free, but you will need to host it on your servers and do the maintenance yourself.
ICE HRM is also missing some crucial functions altogether. These include document management, audit trails, and custom HR forms. You will also need to do the troubleshooting yourself as the support is pretty much non-existent, and you will need to find out the answers to your questions and problems on your own.
Conclusion
Best HR Software for SME & Startups – If you’re a startup looking to start from the ground up, the importance of hiring the right team is indubitable. And as soon as you have an idea of who your potential employees might be, you’ll need a solution to keep track of employee details and manage employee relations. That is where a HRMS system steps in – we’re listing out what we think are the best HR software for startups and small and medium enterprises (SMEs).