Affordable HR Management Software for Small Business

Managing the various responsibilities that fall under the human resources umbrella can consume a huge amount of any business owner’s time. But HR management software can take the load off of your shoulders.

Whether you need to find and hire new employees, oversee benefits and health insurance offerings, track employees’ hours and accrued time off—or all of the above—a bevy of powerful HR management software solutions stands ready to help you offload those tasks and reclaim your calendar.

[Learn more: Does Automated Human Resources Make Sense for SMBs?]

3 HR Management Software Platforms Designed for Small Business

In this article, we look at three HR management software platforms for entrepreneurs. Read the entire article, or click on a link below to jump to a specific product.

SutiHR

Designed to automate many of the more tedious and time-consuming tasks, the SutiHR HR management software platform offers small businesses a streamlined system to oversee personnel management, time tracking, payroll, and a number of other core capabilities.

HR management software

SutiHR’s enroll-in-benefits capability.

You can easily create each employee’s profile during the onboarding process, during which the HR management software ties in additional information such as your company’s confidentiality agreement or yearly performance reviews. Maintaining accurate records—a straightforward process—includes an option to track department transfers or job promotions as appropriate.

The system lets you track flexible benefit options, plus your employees can easily review—and change—their benefits to suit their individual needs. In addition to tracking conventional insurance plans, SutiHR can also manage bonuses and other benefit types. Your company can also use SutiHR to manage requests for time off, log approvals or rejections directly into the system, and quickly access reports any time you want to monitor attendance trends.

SutiHR pricing starts at $5 per employee, per month for the Professional package. Bumping up to the Premium or Enterprise packages provides additional services, including, among other capabilities, recruitment and training administration.

SentricWorkforce

SentricWorkforce, integrated HR management software for small business, lets you track and analyze work eligibility, training requirements, performance appraisals, and attendance. It makes adding new employees to the system fast and simple. Need to keep multiple groups in the loop on new hires? The system can save you time along the way by emailing documentation to different people.

HR management software

The SentricWorkforce payroll feature.

The HR management software’s group enrollment options—and the capability to send individual-level changes directly to carriers—simplify benefits management. You can also track real-time and historical benefit costs, along with COBRA benefits and total compensation statements. Workers can also access critical information, such as employee handbooks and directories, through SentricWorkforce. They can quickly route time-off requests to the appropriate managers and even update their own personal information.

SentricWorkforce offers a flexible payroll module that accommodates off-cycle checks for commissions and bonuses without a lot of fuss. Employees can also access W-2s and other tax filings through the system.

SentricWorkforce pricing begins at $2 per employee per month for the Starter package, which focuses on personnel records, absence management, and performance tracking. Bump up to Pro ($6/pe/pm) and Premium ($12/pe/pm) tiers for additional features, such as employee and manager self-service, benefits and open enrollment, and recruitment and training.

Zoho People

Zoho People HR management software simplifies and streamlines business owners’ workflows. For example, employees at different experience levels or in different locations may have their own parameters for vacation time or training. Rather than forcing you to fit your company’s business model into a predefined structure, Zoho People lets you define the types of leave available to your employees—vacation, sick days, training time, PTO, etc. You can also specify leave accrual levels for each worker.

HR management software

The ZoHo People time tracker.

You and your employees can track time through the Web or through mobile check-in and check-out, and you can customize the settings are customizable to fit your company’s specific needs. In addition, you can use Zoho People to track both billable and non-billable hours, as well as multiple shifts, which makes shift mapping and other tasks quick and painless.

A powerful performance-appraisal feature lets you (or managers and supervisors) record feedback from several sources, and it can even include self-appraisal data straight from the employees themselves. You can analyze performance trends over time to see where improvement opportunities exist.

[Learn more: Jazz Tunes into SMB Hiring and Talent Retention]

Zoho People offers a free plan for businesses with up to five employees. The Basic plan (up to 10 employees) costs $19 per month; the Standard plan (up to 25 employees) costs $49 per month, the Premium plan (up to 50 employees) costs $99 per month, and the Enterprise plan (up to 100 employees) costs $199 per month. Yearly plans are also available.

Julie Knudson is a freelance writer whose articles have appeared in technology magazines including BizTech, Processor, and For The Record. She has covered technology issues for publications in other industries, from food service to insurance, and she also writes a recurring column in Integrated Systems Contractor magazine.

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