So, whether you’re looking to switch from one of these vendors to the other or you’ve narrowed down your shortlist to Gusto and Zenefits, compare these two platforms in terms of features and pricing to determine which one might better fit your company’s needs.

Gusto vs. Zenefits: Which Is Better?

	Gusto	Zenefits
Pricing	Cost effective for small teams	Better value for growing businesses
Benefits administration	À la carte	Comprehensive
Payroll	Fully automated	Limited automations
Time/attendance tracking	Only syncs with payroll	Syncs with payroll, scheduling, and other time management features
Recruiting	Limited functionality outside of integrations	Embedded JazzHR partnership
Onboarding	Checklist with task delegation to HR staff	Self-onboarding

Gusto vs. Zenefits: A Detailed Comparison

Benefits Administration

Back to top

Both Gusto and Zenefits allow customers to keep their existing benefits brokers, although this comes at an extra cost. This is valuable for companies that already have a benefits package but are looking to switch platforms for payroll, onboarding, or other functionalities.

Regardless of what benefits companies choose with these vendors, both of them help keep businesses compliant with the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Moreover, Gusto and Zenefits integrate data across employee onboarding, payroll, and benefits administration modules, eliminating the need for repetitive data entry.

In spite of great overlap in terms of benefits administration, Gusto and Zenefits differ in terms of set-up, compliance, carrier management, and mobile accessibility.

Here’s a quick overview of how Gusto and Zenefits compare in terms of benefits administration. They both offer compliance and bring-your-own-broker (BYOB) support, but they’re mirror opposites in their electronic data interchange (EDI), mobile app, and financial wellness offerings.

	Benefits Administration
	Gusto	Zenefits
EDI	no	y
Mobile app	n	y
Financial wellness	y	n
Compliance	y	y
BYOB	y	y

Gusto

Back to top

Gusto’s benefits administration features are included with every plan. This is beneficial for businesses that need help with benefits as well as payroll, but companies that have an existing payroll solution may be paying for additional Gusto capabilities that they don’t need.

Benefits selection

Gusto’s licensed advisors assist companies with benefits selection to put together competitive benefits packages for the right price. Not only does this save time, but using these brokers also saves money, since bring-your-own-broker incurs an additional fee and isn’t available with Gusto’s lowest pricing tier.

Gusto offers a variety of no-cost (included), low-cost, and premium financial and health benefit options. While these á la carte benefits allow customers to customize their benefits packages, the costs may add up quickly.

For example, upgrading to one of the two higher price tiers (Plus and Premium) unlocks access to more of Gusto’s benefits, which include:

• Workers’ compensation
• Health savings accounts (HSAs) and flexible spending accounts (FSAs)
• Commuter benefits

With Zenefits, on the other hand, customers can add most benefits without worrying about increasing the total cost of maintaining the software.

Compliance

Gusto helps companies remain compliant and file the right paperwork with the right government agencies. It offers assistance with:

• Affordable Care Act (ACA)
• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
• Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA)

Yet, Zenefits only helps with ACA and ERISA compliance. Moreover, Gusto has automated compliance alerts for state and federal regulations but only in its top two plans. Zenefits’ Compliance Assistant, on the other hand, is available with all plans.

EDI

One drawback to consider is that Gusto’s benefits administration features don’t support electronic data interchange (EDI). EDI connection provides a secure, convenient way to automatically communicate changes to carriers, such as an employer’s changes to the benefits package or an employee’s changes to their selection.

Not having EDI means HR teams will likely need to spend extra time and energy contacting carriers and making benefits changes manually during open enrollment.

Zenefits

Back to top

Zenefits’ benefits offering is straightforward because it doesn’t separate benefits into different pricing groups like Gusto does. This makes Zenefits’ approach beneficial for businesses that want to manage a wide range of benefits from a single platform without adding to the overall cost. 

Benefits selection

Zenefits helps companies without a benefits strategy put together a customized benefits package but for an extra fee. Gusto, on the other hand, provides help via licensed advisors for all its plans. 

Compliance

While Gusto offers federal and state compliance alerts in its top two plans, Zenefits has more robust automation features for benefits administration compliance. Zenefits automates compliance through its Compliance Assistant, which is included in all plans. 

The Compliance Assistant helps companies stay on top of federal compliance regulations for benefits, payroll, and HR. It allows users to set custom deadline reminders and sync them to work calendars, so they never miss a deadline. 

The Compliance Assistant dashboard provides at-a-glance information about the status of the company’s compliance. This feature relieves HR staff of the burden of staying current with changing regulations.

EDI

EDI connection with insurance carriers is available with TriNet Zenefits as an add-on. This is especially useful for companies that offer a wide range of benefits and/or have a large workforce that exceeds the capacity of what the HR team can handle manually.

Which to choose for benefits administration?

Zenefits. Here’s why: Zenefits offers a more comprehensive benefits package that allows customers to choose from a wide variety of employee benefits without worrying about cost fluctuations.

In addition, bringing your own benefits broker to Zenefits’ system incurs an add-on fee, but this option is available for all plans. Its compliance features are also more robust than Gusto’s, which offers peace of mind for small HR teams that don’t have the bandwidth to monitor compliance measures closely.

Also read: 7 Questions to Consider Before Choosing a Benefits Administration System

Payroll

Back to top

Both Gusto and Zenefits facilitate data integration between payroll and the rest of the HR ecosystem, namely onboarding, time tracking, and benefits. This prevents payroll errors associated with manual entry and eliminates the need to enter information more than once.

They also both offer assistance with compliance by automatically calculating taxes and facilitating organized, properly-formatted tax document management.

Gusto and Zenefits both offer a lot of automated features in their respective payroll systems, such as automatic tax calculations and filings. However, what exactly each one automates differs slightly.

	Payroll
	Gusto	Zenefits
International payroll	y	n
Robust reporting	n	y
Automated payroll	y	n

Gusto

Back to top

Gusto offers full-service payroll in different scopes depending on the plan. The Simple tier includes single-state payroll, while Plus offers multi-state payroll. Companies with distributed, remote work models that opt for Gusto will likely need to start out with the Plus plan. Gusto also offers international payroll in more than 80 countries, which is a plus for companies that employ staff around the globe.

Gusto’s winning feature is its AutoPilot, which allows HR to set up payroll to run automatically. Zenefits offers automations to remind staff to run payroll on time, but this pales in comparison to the benefits of Gusto’s fully automated system.

Gusto integrates with Quickbooks, but they’re also competing payroll vendors. Compare them: Gusto vs Quickbooks

Zenefits

Back to top

Zenefits offers payroll as an add-on module for its all-in-one HR platform or as a standalone product. This provides customers the flexibility of using existing payroll software while benefiting from the rest of the Zenefits platform.

When syncing with onboarding, Zenefits automatically prorates payment based on an employee’s date of hire. It also automatically calculates deductions from paychecks based on what the employee selects during self-onboarding or annual open enrollment periods. This means that no one from HR has to manually enter the appropriate payroll deductions; the employee selects benefits, and Zenefits adjusts paycheck deductions accordingly.

Zenefits offers a variety of report types, so HR leaders can surface insights on virtually any aspect of their payroll operations. These types include:

• Payroll timeline reporting
• General ledger reporting that syncs with accounting software
• Job cost and labor distribution reporting

Gusto offers similar reporting features, but they’re found in its time-tracking module.

Which to choose for payroll?

Gusto. Here’s why: Gusto’s set-it-and-forget-it AutoPilot feature for automating payroll is a winner. Its international payroll capability is an added bonus that Zenefits does not offer.

Time and Attendance Tracking

Back to top

Both vendors enable remote clock-in and clock-out and offer reporting tools to gain insight into key metrics such as total workforce costs and how much time is being spent on various projects.

Zenefits’ and Gusto’s mobile and desktop apps facilitate easy clock-in and clock-out, so employees can log their work at the right time and place. Both also offer geolocation features to give a manager visibility into an employee’s location when they start and stop work and prevent time card fraud.

The geolocation feature is particularly useful to help field service management companies optimize service routes and boost employee accountability, among other benefits.

	Time and Attendance Tracking
	Gusto	Zenefits
Geolocation	y	y
Built-in scheduling	n	y
Integration with payroll	y	y

Gusto

Back to top

Gusto offers a time-tracking tool that’s only available in its top two price tier, but its most basic plan allows for integration with a company’s own time-tracking tool of choice.

Its native time-tracking tool integrates with payroll but not with other areas of HR, which makes it tricky to align employee time-off benefits with the amount of time they request and receive. This may require managers and employees to cross-check between the time-tracking and benefits modules when managing time off.

HR teams can customize PTO policies and select paid holidays through the time-tracking tool that then syncs with payroll

Employees manage time-off requests directly in Gusto’s time-tracking tool, which is more intuitive when compared to Zenefits’ approach. Approved time off syncs with both payroll and with Gusto’s built-in calendar. Alternatively, users can integrate Gusto with a third-party calendar such as Google, Outlook, or iCal. However, employee scheduling requires integration with a third-party app like When I Work or ClockShark.

Gusto features time-tracking reports that are similar to what Zenefits offers but with some variation. For instance, in Gusto’s time-tracking software, users can generate workforce cost reports based on hours worked but not by labor type, which may be a drawback for companies that work with employees as well as contractors.

Zenefits

Back to top

Employee time tracking is included in all Zenefits plans and syncs with the HR, benefits, and payroll modules. Zenefits’ differentiator is that it packages time tracking with employee scheduling.

Zenefits has a built-in scheduling tool that enables shift managers to create and edit shifts and send push notifications to employees when schedules are ready. It syncs with time-off requests in the HR module, so managers don’t mistakenly schedule employees during their time off.

Zenefits has built-in compliance tools to keep the company compliant with labor laws related to employee break time and overtime. It also includes time card fraud protection features. For example, businesses can require employees to take a picture of themselves at clock-in to ensure it’s actually the designated employee using the clock-in mechanism. This helps prevent buddy punches and reduces the need to closely monitor the time clock.

Which to choose for time and attendance tracking?

Zenefits. Here’s why: Gusto and Zenefits both offer comparable time-tracking tools. However, Gusto doesn’t provide access to its native time-tracking feature with all plans like Zenefits does.

Furthermore, Gusto doesn’t have built-in features to manage time tracking, time off, and employee scheduling all in one place. The comprehensive data syncing with Zenefits’ built-in tools means there’s a smaller chance of incompatibility with third-party tools.

Recruiting

Back to top

Zenefits and Gusto enable recruiting in different ways. Gusto’s recruiting tools are native to the software, whereas Zenefits users reap the benefits of its partnership with JazzHR. Both platforms integrate with popular recruiting tools like Greenhouse and Lever.

	Recruiting
	Gusto	Zenefits
Candidate screening tools	n	y
Syndicated job posting	n	y
Applicant tracking	y	y

Gusto

Back to top

Companies can use Gusto’s built-in recruiting tools to create job listings and track candidates. However, companies should note that these features are not available in Gusto’s basic plan, which means customers must upgrade their entire package to be able to use the software for hiring purposes.

Alternatively, customers can integrate third-party recruiting software. This approach comes with its own set of technical challenges and budgetary considerations, but it may be more effective for ambitious hiring goals.

Gusto Recruiting enables job posting and applicant tracking, but it doesn’t syndicate job posts, so recruiters are responsible for sharing the post link manually. When assessing candidates, hiring teams can collaborate by sharing feedback on candidate scorecards.

Gusto’s recruiting features allow hiring teams to transition candidates who have accepted offers into the onboarding process. This helps ensure the new hire experience is as smooth as possible. Plus, having these tools connected provides HR with more comprehensive analytics and insights about how to improve the hiring process.

Zenefits

Back to top

Zenefits offers recruiting as an add-on powered by JazzHR at any pricing level. In contrast, Gusto doesn’t offer job posting, ATS capabilities, or other advanced recruiting features in its basic package. With Zenefits, users can leverage the power of JazzHR to recruit, track, and hire candidates without leaving the Zenefits platform.

Companies that opt for the recruiting add-on can syndicate job posts across various job boards and social media networks to improve hiring efficiency and reach a wider pool of candidates. The applicant tracking system allows hiring managers to rank and track applicants through the application journey.

Zenefits also features automation for matching sought-after skills with the right candidates. This kind of screening capability is not available with Gusto at any subscription level.

Which to choose for recruiting?

Zenefits. Here’s why: Zenefits offers recruiting as an optional add-on for any price tier, while Gusto’s recruiting features are only available for the top two tiers.

Compared to Gusto, customers who opt for Zenefits’ recruiting add-on also have access to a wider range of hiring features like syndicated job posts, automated communications, and candidate screening. These extra features add to the overall cost of the platform, but they provide a level of functionality that’s unavailable with Gusto.

Employee Onboarding

Back to top

Both Zenefits and Gusto offer tools to streamline the process of getting new employees up to speed quickly. However, each vendor’s approach offers unique advantages for different kinds of businesses.

In terms of similarities, Gusto and Zenefits provide customizable templates for key documents in the onboarding process, such as confidentiality agreements and direct deposit forms. With both vendors, new employees can sign documents digitally, and HR teams can set up automatic app provisioning for third-party tools like Slack and Google Workspace.

From there, these two differ in how they approach the rest of the onboarding process.

	Onboarding
	Gusto	Zenefits
Templates	y	y
Background check	n	y
Integration with ATS	y	n
Self onboarding	n	y
Mobile app	n	y

Gusto

Back to top

Gusto features an onboarding checklist that includes suggestions of typical stages in the onboarding process, but HR professionals can add steps that are tailored to their company’s particular needs. For example, tasks on the onboarding checklist may include setting up the new hire’s email account, adding them to payroll, ordering their business cards, and giving them an office tour.

The various tasks on the checklist can be delegated to an entire HR team, which can help keep things running smoothly and ensure nothing slips through the cracks. However, the lack of automated onboarding capabilities means that the whole process will take more time and manual effort than it would with Zenefits.

Zenefits

Back to top

Zenefits’ employee onboarding works on a browser and via the Zenefits mobile app. The software empowers employees to take control of their own onboarding process without needing to reach out to HR every step of the way. HR administrators can monitor new employees’ progress to ensure all tasks are completed in a timely manner.

Thanks to its partnership with Checkr, Zenefits also conducts fast and comprehensive background checks on new hires directly from the platform to expedite the process.

Which to choose for employee onboarding?

Zenefits. Here’s why: Zenefits puts onboarding completely in the hands of the employee, requiring little to no touch from HR along the way. Zenefits also includes integration with a background check tool, which is a crucial part of any company’s hiring process.

Gusto vs. Zenefits: Ready to Choose?

Back to top

Zenefits and Gusto are two of the most popular HR software solutions on the market, and for good reason. They both offer a range of functionalities at a more competitive cost than larger platforms like SAP SuccessFactors and UKG. Each vendor offers unique advantages for different types of buyers, but the right choice will support your company’s HR goals now and in the future.

If neither software meets your company’s unique needs, explore other solutions on the market through our HR Software Guide​​.

Currently Trending HR Software

The post Gusto vs Zenefits appeared first on TechnologyAdvice.

Smaller businesses often can’t afford to purchase a fully integrated HRIS that includes all use cases. That’s why we’ve gathered the best HRM software to help small businesses carry out core and strategic HR use cases. 

Top HR Solutions

We can also help you by curating a list of the best HR software for your small business. Click the image below to enter your feature needs, and our unbiased Technology Advisors will set you up with a list of HR software options that meet your requirements.

The Best HR Management Software for Small Businesses

Best for core HR: Namely

Manage time-off requests, workflows, performance management and more on Namely’s platform. Credit: Namely

Namely is a web-based platform specializing in core HR and talent management for growing companies. Their product covers payroll and benefits administration, time tracking, and performance reviews, and it serves as a system of record for all of your employee data. Namely also offers a built-in social news feed and custom reports for individual and team metrics.

The system is designed to be adaptable and user-friendly, which makes it stand out against more complicated enterprise solutions. But Namely’s penchant for small and growing companies doesn’t mean they skimp on resources: business clients receive 24/7 customer service through a dedicated Namely account manager. 

While Namely has a ton of great features, it doesn’t offer an applicant tracking system (ATS), which can make recruiting more difficult. It also isn’t built for multinational businesses, but most smaller companies won’t need to worry about that.

Get Pricing

Get pricing for Best HR Software for Small Business 2023

×

How can we contact you with pricing info?

Make sure this product is right for your budget. Our experts will be in touch with all the pricing info you need.

By clicking the button above, I confirm that I have read and agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Best for hiring: JazzHR

JazzHR enables easier hiring with advanced organization tools to evaluate candidates. Credit: JazzHR

JazzHR is an HR solution designed for applicant tracking and interview management. JazzHR helps companies post jobs, screen applications, and manage the interview process through a centralized, real-time platform. 

Managers can create custom recruiting stages with automated to-dos (e.g. follow-up emails, reminders), and add stakeholders to the process as users with varying permissions and privacy levels.

Post directly to job search sites like Indeed, Glassdoor, and CareerBuilder, and use built-in SEO tools to make sure you have the right title and job description. JazzHR also offers social recruiting, employee referral programs, applicant screening, background checks, resume review, branded career sites, interview guides, and recruitment calendars.

Although it doesn’t have a native mobile app, career sites and interfaces are automatically optimized for the device in use. While JazzHR is great for recruiting new talent, it doesn’t offer much in the way of talent management. Once you find the right people, you’ll need a separate tool to manage them.

Get Pricing

Get pricing for Best HR Software for Small Business 2023

×

How can we contact you with pricing info?

Make sure this product is right for your budget. Our experts will be in touch with all the pricing info you need.

By clicking the button above, I confirm that I have read and agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Best for employee self-service: BambooHR

Bamboo HR empowers employees to own and manage their employee data, such as vacation time and overtime. Credit: BambooHR

BambooHR is a cloud-based core HR solution designed to meet small business administrative needs and give employees efficient self-service access. 

The web application serves as a central repository of employee information, such as job and salary history, benefits, and training. Employees can access company documents, request time off, view, and edit their personal data all from a single dashboard.

With varying levels of custom access, administrators can manage time-off requests, set accrual policies, and generate custom reports based on any data in the system. For expanded use, BambooHR integrates with many popular applications for applicant tracking, eSignatures, payroll, and performance management. The system is also accessible on mobile devices through native apps for iOS and Android.

The recruiting aspect of BambooHR doesn’t include background checks, so you’ll need another way to handle those. Additionally, it doesn’t have any tools for goal management or employee recognition that could help keep your staff engaged and motivated.

Although BambooHR doesn’t offer some of the robust features of its competitors, the price point is hard to beat, and the user experience is simple.

Get Pricing

Get pricing for Best HR Software for Small Business 2023

×

How can we contact you with pricing info?

Make sure this product is right for your budget. Our experts will be in touch with all the pricing info you need.

By clicking the button above, I confirm that I have read and agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Best for payroll: Gusto

Gusto makes payroll management simpler with its automated features. Credit: Gusto

Gusto is a user-friendly HRM software solution that features payroll functionality and a variety of automated features to save HR teams valuable time. 

Gusto’s payroll management tool automatically files payroll taxes at the local, state, and federal levels at the end of the fiscal year. This feature comes included while competitors charge an extra fee. 

Gusto’s AutoPilot feature automates payments to employees to ensure they always get their paychecks on time. Employee forms like I-9s and W-2s are securely stored and organized in Gusto’s digital platform. 

An added benefit for companies with a distributed remote workforce is Gusto’s compliance with the latest state tax laws. This ensures employers remain compliant in their payroll practices.

Best for benefit administration: TriNet Zenefits

Employees can select and manage their benefits in the TriNet Zenefits platform. Credit: TriNet Zenefits

TriNet Zenefits—formerly called Zenefits—offers comprehensive HR software for hiring and employee data storage, but it also offers benefits administration at no additional charge. You just cover the health plan fees. 

Benefits administration works for health insurance, life insurance, commuter benefits, as well as flexible spending accounts (FSA) and health savings (HSA) accounts. However, if you opt for your own third-party benefits broker—instead of Zenefits’ broker—this add-on incurs a small monthly fee. 

You can extend your Zenefits plan with add-on payroll, advisory services, and recruiting at a low monthly or annual cost. Zenefits’ flexibility to add on later makes it a great option for small businesses that can’t commit to all the features now but plan to later as their financial resources allow.

Get Pricing

Get pricing for Best HR Software for Small Business 2023

×

How can we contact you with pricing info?

Make sure this product is right for your budget. Our experts will be in touch with all the pricing info you need.

By clicking the button above, I confirm that I have read and agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Best for a deskless workforce: Connecteam

Easily contact employees through Connecteam’s employee directory. Credit: Connecteam

Connecteam is a mobile-first employee management tool that’s designed with communication in mind. Connecteam helps mobile-ready teams share information on the go by combining all of this and more in a single app:

• Time clocks
• Scheduling
• Forms
• Checklists
• Messaging
• Surveys, polls, and company reviews

Connecteam’s one-on-one chat and the ability to send an update to the entire team at once enables instant connection with individuals or the entire team. 

Also, with a relatively small group of employees in a small business, Connecteam makes it easy to find a colleague in the directory and call them directly from the app—no fumbling for phone numbers and copying them over to the phone’s call app.

Why Do Small Businesses Need Human Resource Management Software?

Human resource management software helps HR teams at small businesses stay organized with hiring, training, and managing employees. Software solutions do this by providing a central interface to manage and even automate these different functions. 

HRM software also serves as an employee self-service portal for some functions like benefits administration, for example. It empowers employees to make and act on decisions related to the conditions of their employment without necessarily needing to reach out to someone on the HR team. 

Small businesses with tighter budgets and limited IT resources still face many nuanced challenges. 

No dedicated HR staff

Many small businesses either assign HR responsibilities to a cross-functional manager or to a single, in-house HR administrator. In both scenarios, a single person handles payroll and benefits, time tracking, grievances and disciplinary action, hiring, and promotions, which can be overwhelming.

While HR software can’t replace an HR administrator, it can make it easier on the staff you do have. It simplifies and even automates certain HR processes, like sending new hire paperwork and benefits enrollment, your team can focus on the tasks that most need their expertise.

Record-keeping and regulatory compliance

HR regulations are constantly in a state of flux. And the growing popularity of remote work models has only made HR management more complex. Small businesses must balance healthcare reform, tax codes, and labor laws, often for more than one state. Failing to stay current and compliant with these policies is sure to result in mistakes, processing delays, and in worst cases, legal fees.

HR software organizes your records and makes them easily searchable and accessible. Many HR tools also automatically calculate tax and benefits withholdings to reduce the chances of human error and keep you compliant.

Employee attrition

According to a 2022 report from Pew Research, 22% of U.S. workers are considering a job change within the next six months. And a PwC Pulse Survey reports that 65% are actually in the process of looking for another job. Without a strategy for investing in talent and building an attractive work culture, small businesses lose good employees to competitors that offer higher salaries and better benefits.

The right HR software can actually lower operating costs, so you can afford to invest more in your people. Through automating and streamlining processes, HR software reduces the workload of your HR staff, meaning they’ll likely be less stressed as well.

Performance gaps

With smaller teams, it quickly becomes apparent if certain employees aren’t pulling their weight. But without a formal performance management or training system in place, it’s difficult to encourage consistent improvement among employees.

Many HR platforms feature performance management tools to standardize the review process and ensure that everyone’s meeting expectations. This can also improve metrics for bonus payouts to reward employees going above and beyond and motivate those that aren’t.

Given these pain points specific to small businesses, they need HR software that centralizes and streamlines workflows.

Types of HRM Software and the Tools that Small Businesses Need

HR software for small businesses falls roughly into three primary classes structured around use intent: core HR, strategic HR, and integrated HR suites.

Core HR

Core HR solutions help businesses perform the administrative functions of managing a workforce — payroll, benefits administration, time and attendance tracking, workforce planning, and regulatory compliance. The self-service portal — which lets employees access their work-related data and enter updates and requests — is also an integral feature for most core systems.

• Time tracking: Keep track of hourly employees’ time on and off the clock and time-off requests.
• Employee scheduling: Easily administer employee schedules and shift swaps. 
• Payroll: Manage, maintain, and automate payments to employees.
• Benefits: Administer benefits to hires including health insurance, death benefits, retirement, and leave benefits.

Strategic HR

The primary focus of strategic HR solutions is to hire, retain, and develop the best employees, which is why it’s often referred to as “talent management.” These solutions mostly address recruitment, performance management, training and development, and succession planning. Some may even be best-of-breed applications designed to address a specific aspect of talent management, such as the hiring process.

• Hiring: Choose the employees who fit your needs, culture, and growth plans and build a candidate pool.
• Performance management: Track and improve employee performance through goal setting.
• Communication: Facilitate communication between employees and their managers in the form of messaging. Bonus points for tools that also include goal-based communication.
• Training: Train employees on job skills, career pathing, leadership, or company-specific knowledge.
• Rewards: Recognize and celebrate great behavior and improvements employees with bonuses, games, or let them choose how to spend their rewards.

Integrated HR suites

Integrated HR solutions provide end-to-end functionality across most or all areas of HR management. These include administrative aspects as well as recruitment, talent management, and e-learning (or learning management systems). Some product suites are sold in modules, which can be scaled up or down according to need.

Key features of comprehensive HR software include many components of core and strategic HR software plus:

• Applicant tracking and onboarding
• Compensation and succession planning
• Social recruiting
• Learning management
• Goal tracking
• Document management
• Reporting/analytics

How Do You Find the Right Human Resource Management Software?

Human resource management encompasses a set of employee-centered HR processes throughout the employee lifecycle—from hire to promotion to potential exit. It also includes tools to communicate with employees day to day.

HRM software comes in all shapes and sizes to fit the needs of your employees and your business. Because of their more limited budgets, small businesses should prioritize software features that address their most pressing needs. 

Luckily, all of the options covered here offer optional tools to add on later. So no matter what software you choose, it will grow along with your company. 

If none of the options listed here seem like a good fit for your organization, let our experts help you find the right solution using our Product Selection Tool. It only takes 5 minutes to get a list of employee management tools that fit your budget and needs.

The post Best HR Software for Small Business 2023 appeared first on TechnologyAdvice.

Accounting isn’t exactly a favorite pastime for small businesses. Most are busy trying to find customers, explore new markets, and create sustainable strategies for growth. The tired business of ledgers and invoices is usually an afterthought — a chore to be procrastinated or even outsourced.

SEE ALSO: Why the CFO and CIO Need to Collaborate

Cloud-based accounting software can save small businesses from tedious spreadsheets, complicated filing systems, and hours of redundant data entry. But if you choose a product that’s ill-suited for your business, you can end up doing more harm than good.

If you’re shopping for a small business accounting solution, you’ve probably come across Xero and FreshBooks and wondered how the two are different. Both offer affordable, cloud-based platforms that simplify and automate accounting for the small business user. But there are some important distinctions to note.

Xero vs. FreshBooks: Vendor Overview

Xero was founded in New Zealand in 2006 by now CEO Rod Drury and his personal accountant. The company went public on the New Zealand Exchange in 2007 and is now worth an estimated $62 million.

Xero has over 540,000 global subscribers and has received numerous awards from Accounting Today, Marketers that Matter, CPA Practice Adviser, and other organizations.

As a company, FreshBooks is a little older — founded in 2003 — but doesn’t necessarily own a bigger share of the market. FreshBooks claims 5 million users, which probably divides down to a similar size customer base as Xero. The company has yet to release an IPO (initial public offering).

Xero Industries Served: Retail, e-commerce, high-tech, nonprofit, legal, hospitality, coffee shops, marketing/advertising

FreshBooks Industries Served: Contracting, legal, consulting, personal services, creative agencies

Systems and Pricing

Cloud-based accounting software is relatively simple, so you don’t have to worry too much about piecing together a multi-module product suite like you might with ERP or marketing automation. You pay one subscription price for one product.

That said, both platforms offer their accounting software in several different pricing tiers, depending on features and needs.

Here’s what the breakdown looks like for FreshBooks:

• Sprout: up to five clients
• Seedling: up to 25 clients
• Evergreen: up to 250 clients, includes 1 additional user, team timesheets, and team expense reporting
• Mighty Oak: unlimited clients, includes 5 additional users, team timesheets, and team expense reporting

As you can see, the biggest differences are in the number of clients you can manage, the number of staff who need access, and the use of team-wide accounting features. Each edition is priced per month and includes phone support during business hours, credit card processing, and data import/export.

Get Pricing

Get pricing for Xero vs FreshBooks: Accounting Software Review

×

How can we contact you with pricing info?

Make sure this product is right for your budget. Our experts will be in touch with all the pricing info you need.

By clicking the button above, I confirm that I have read and agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Xero, on the other hand, has only three pricing tiers:

• Starter: limited to 5 invoices, 5 bills, and 20 bank transactions per month;
• Standard: unlimited invoices, bills, and bank transactions; includes payroll for 5 employees
• Premium: unlimited invoices, bills, and bank transactions; includes payroll for 10 employees and multiple-currency support

All Xero plans are priced per month and include 24/7 support and free updates.

Get Pricing

Get pricing for Xero vs FreshBooks: Accounting Software Review

×

How can we contact you with pricing info?

Make sure this product is right for your budget. Our experts will be in touch with all the pricing info you need.

By clicking the button above, I confirm that I have read and agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Features

Features are one of the most important areas to consider when you’re comparing software, and, incidentally, where you’ll see some of the clearest differences between Xero and FreshBooks.

FreshBooks was primarily designed to be an invoicing tool. They’ve added a few more accounting features through the years, but the core product is still aimed at service businesses that bill clients for their time and expertise (e.g. therapists, architects, lawyers, plumbers).

FreshBooks is built around five areas of functionality: invoicing, expense management, time tracking, reporting, and payments. The basic workflow looks like this: businesses create custom invoices, send them to clients, and receive payments online.

If you’re managing project-based work, you can also draw up estimates and easily convert them to invoices when the project is completed. FreshBooks offers native mobile apps for iOS and Android devices and is compatible with almost any currency.

On the surface, Xero seems to cover a wider spectrum of accounting features, which gives it a slight advantage over FreshBooks in terms of utility. Moving beyond the basics (invoicing, expenses, and payments), Xero also provides out-of-the-box features for bank reconciliation, inventory, and purchase ordering.  For a full list of features, check out our Xero product page.

The ability to connect Xero to your bank account means you won’t have to move back and forth between two systems, entering and re-entering financial data. You can import and organize bank statements without leaving the software and reconcile statement lines with transactions in Xero. Another perk, Xero is one of the leading alternatives to Quickbooks. If you’re looking to switch products, they can migrate your accounting data in as little as three hours.

Like FreshBooks, Xero is accessible on the go through native apps for iOS and Android.

Apps and Integrations

In some ways, an accounting solution’s utility depends on how well it can exchange data with other back-end systems. In most cases, these will be systems that house customer and financial data (a point-of-sale application or a CRM database), but they could also be related to productivity, documents, projects, or e-commerce.

If any of these systems are part of your IT environment and will affect the way you manage finances, make sure the software you choose supports native integration, or at least an API for passing data back and forth.

Xero offers a well-stocked marketplace of 500+ native add-ons for payment processing, customer management, e-commerce, data analysis, POS, and document management. Popular add-ons include Salesforce, Shopify, PayPal, ADP, and Zendesk. For any other integration needs, you can use Xero’s REST API service or consult a developer in their partner network.

FreshBooks’ add-on marketplace doesn’t disappoint, even if it’s less expansive. They offer a few options for marketing (HubSpot, ActiveCampaign, MailChimp, Wufoo) and project management (Basecamp, Citrix Podio, Proposify) that you won’t find with Xero. For custom integration, you can use the FreshBooks API and webhooks to sync data with third-party applications.

Services for Accountants

Beyond the software itself, Xero and Quickbooks offer a variety of tools and services to help accounting professionals maximize job success.  If you’re an independent CPA, this could be a pretty big selling point, so it’s important to know where the two vendors diverge.

FreshBooks offers a free webinar where accountants can earn 2CPE/CPD credits and a FreshBooks Certified badge to help promote their services. Accounting partners can have their firm added to FreshMap, which is similar to QuickBooks’ ProAdvisor tool — an online directory where businesses can search and connect with certified accountants. FreshBooks also helps accountants manage client reports and journal entries through their free Accountant Center portal.

Xero offers a variety of programs, resources, and products for accountants. Their partner program is a great way to connect with new clients and grow your practice. Partners get discounted margins of up to 30 percent, free training, promotional material, and a dedicated account manager. They also get free access to Xero Partner Edition and a listing on the xero.com/advisors directory. Oh, and window stickers. The partner program is graduated based on the number of organizations you work with:

Additionally, Xero also has an online knowledge base full of videos, webinars, and self-paced e-learning courses that help accountants succeed on the job and earn qualified CPE hours.  

Choosing the Best Accounting Solution for Your Needs

While there’s some considerable overlap in functionality, Xero and FreshBooks are two very different products. FreshBooks is a great choice for small teams or sole proprietorships that need to simplify client billing. As a more robust solution, Xero is a better choice for whole-business financial management or independent accounting.

If you’re still having trouble deciding, give us a call. We’d love to help.

And remember, Xero and Freshbooks aren’t the only cloud-based accounting solutions. To see a list of options sorted by deployment, industry, and features, check out our accounting software selection tool.

The post Xero vs FreshBooks: Accounting Software Review appeared first on TechnologyAdvice.

As you continue to grow, you start noticing a troubling trend: you are losing visibility of your business. You can’t shout across the office to Karen who does inventory management anymore. You have to log in to several different software solutions to find information that used to require opening an Excel sheet.

Your simple CRM used to do the job, but now you’re wondering if it might be time to invest in an ERP as well. But ERPs are traditionally used by larger businesses, and you’re still technically a small business. How do you know if the time is right?

ERP vs CRM: What’s the difference?

The days of enterprise-sized businesses being the only users of ERP systems are long gone. Businesses of all sizes use these systems today, but that doesn’t mean every business should use an ERP. Conversely, most businesses should use a CRM.

If you’re considering getting an ERP in addition to your CRM, begin the decision process by considering the different functions CRM and ERP systems serve.

As you can see, while both software solutions perform different functions, they work together. In other words, a CRM is not a simplified ERP, and getting an ERP does not replace your CRM.

This is good news because it makes your life much less stressful when it’s time to make the switch. Instead of having to move over all your customer data from Salesforce, for instance, you can simply integrate Salesforce with Netsuite or Sage.

• To recap: a CRM helps you grow your business while an ERP helps you manage that growth. You should use a CRM to scale your business until it’s too hard to manage by conventional methods.

ALSO READ: How To Use Change Management To Ease ERP Onboarding

How do you know when managing your business without an ERP is too hard?

You don’t have to wait until a big mistake happens to realize that it’s time for an ERP. If you’re paying close attention to your day-to-day operations, you should start to notice when things aren’t running smoothly anymore.

Inventory problems

If you’re an ecommerce company, you might manage your own inventory with no problems when you’re only doing a few thousand dollars in sales every month. Once you start receiving hundreds of orders a week, however, it becomes drastically harder to stay on top of fulfilling them while also ensuring that you have sufficient inventory to do so.

If you can detect a clear upward sales trend before demand outpaces supply, you can be proactive and get an ERP before you fail to deliver hundreds of customers’ Christmas presents on time.

Start doing some simple business forecasting if you aren’t already doing so. This will help you recognize that you will need more insight into daily operations in a few months and help you avoid fulfillment problems.

Communication problems

Few things in business are more important than good communication. This is true of interpersonal communication as well as interdepartmental communication.

Obviously, there are ways around this issue that don’t require getting an ERP, but at some point, a weekly all-hands meeting or a #general Slack channel just won’t cut it anymore. An ERP will streamline communication among departments by putting everything into one centralized system, eliminating the need for you to ask employees questions that require them to circle back around with you.

Too much business software

If you’re like most companies, you use a variety of different software tools to run different parts of your business. Even if you’re a small operation, you probably use a CRM, an HRIS, an accounting system, and some kind of basic marketing software.

These tools work great for individual teams, but they don’t always play nicely together. Not all systems integrate with each other, leading to information traffic jams, outdated or inaccurate information, and misalignment of key business goals across departments.

If this continues unchecked, you can end up with serious issues that affect sales forecasts and budgets. But using an ERP can integrate all these disparate systems into one single source of truth. By directing every important source of information across your business into one central database, you get an accurate and up-to-date view of your whole business.

Make your CRM work with your ERP

An ERP is a more comprehensive system than a CRM, but that doesn’t mean an ERP renders a CRM obsolete. Rather, integrating your CRM with your new ERP is an important step of implementing a new ERP, as you’ll want to pull in sales and customer information to the big-picture view of your business.

Information about your customers such as their name, contact information, order history, and support interaction lives in your CRM, but all the information about billing, shipping, and supply chain management (to name a few) lives in your ERP. This means that if you don’t integrate your CRM and ERP, you constantly have to switch back and forth between the two systems to get a full view of your customers.

Not only is this process time-consuming — it also leads to simple errors that can cause big problems down the line. For instance, a customer might reach out with a support message asking about the shipping status of their latest order, but switching back and forth between systems makes it easier to make a typo in a tracking number or to even grab a different customer’s tracking number.

Integrating your CRM to an ERP ensures that the right information is synced to the right customer, preventing uncomfortable mistakes like this from happening that hurt the customer experience.

How do you know which ERP to choose?

It’s certainly helpful to know when you should start thinking about getting an ERP, but deciding which ERP to go with is also a tough decision. To learn more about ERP software, browse our ERP Software Product Selection Tool to compare over 140 ERP vendors.

If you’re short on time, give us a call at 877.702.2082 or email us at info@technologyadvice.com. Our Technology Advisors are happy to give you a free, five-minute consultation to learn more about your business software needs and can provide you with a shortlist of the best software options for you.

Top ERP Software Recommendations

The post The ERP vs CRM Dilemma: How To Determine When Your Small Business Should Make The Switch appeared first on TechnologyAdvice.

Put into perspective, with over 125 million small businesses active all over the world, that “one in a million” idea has likely been replicated at least 100 times over.

The thing is, though, you don’t necessarily need to reinvent the wheel to be successful in the business world; you simply need to do something better than your competition does. In other words, you just need to provide your target customers with better value than anyone else in your industry.

Of course, now the question is: how do you go about doing this?

Your first step is to learn as much as you can about your competition and about the service they offer your target audience. In this article, we’ll discuss some of the most effective methods of gathering this information.

How to Gather Insight Into Your Target Consumers’ Experiences Within Your Industry

As you surely know, we currently have access to more information than any human at any given time in history.

And, even if we don’t have immediate access to the information we’re looking for, we really don’t have to do all that much to bring it to the surface.

Whether passively taking in industry-related data that’s already “out there,” or actively working to uncover it, you have more than a few options at your disposal.

Let’s dive in.

Browse Public Records

If you’re looking for “insider info” about the way in which your competitors operate, you often don’t need to look any further than their own websites. Most major companies usually make some financial documents (such as quarterly reports) readily available on their website in order to provide transparency to their shareholders. Case in point, a simple Google search for “Konami quarterly reports” brought up a list of the electronics company’s reports dating back to 2012.

Similarly, companies also tend to archive their past press releases and similar announcements on their websites, as well.

Typically, these reports and press releases contain information such as:

• The company’s recent performance metrics
• Information regarding future initiatives and service improvements
• Insight into the industry trends that made such initiatives and improvements necessary

In addition to checking out first-hand sources for company- and industry-related trends and information, you also want to dig into third-party websites and publications as well. For example, sites such as PRWeb curate press releases and other documents from a variety of industries on a daily basis – allowing you to collect insight from numerous sources in one convenient place.

By analyzing these documents, you can gain an in-depth understanding of your customers’ expectations – as well as your competitors’ ability (or lack thereof) to cater to their needs. In turn, you can then focus your energy on strengthening the necessary areas of your own service, and on filling the gaps in service your competitors have noted throughout their recent campaigns.

Peruse (and Use) Public Forums

While you stand to gain a decent amount of insight regarding your target audience by digging into data provided by your competitors, you can gain much more by looking directly to the source.

Your competitors almost certainly have some sort of presence on social media and similar platforms. Typically, these channels can be an absolute treasure trove of customer comments, product reviews, and other first-hand information that can help you better gauge your competitors’ ability to meet the needs of their customers.

In the screenshot above, for example, a customer explains in crystal-clear terms what they loved about their experience with Intrepid Travel – as well as where they believe the company has room for improvement. For companies that offer similar services as Intrepid, there’s certainly a lot to take note of from this four-sentence comment left by a rather satisfied customer.

You’ll also want to check out third-party forums and platforms that relate to your industry as a whole, as well. For example, Reddit and Quora are full of posts, comments, questions, and complaints from consumers within almost any industry you can imagine. On these forums, you’ll likely be able to gain insight not just into the quality of the products your competitors offer, but also into the quality of the support they offer their customers throughout the buyer’s journey and beyond.

Use Tools and Technology

As with most other aspects of the entrepreneurial venture, technology makes conducting research on your competition, your target customers, and your industry incredibly easy to do.

To keep up to date with industry trends and current events, there are tools such as Google Alerts. Essentially, Alerts monitors the web for newly-published content that contains specific keywords, then shoots the user an alert via email prompting them to check out the new content. This allows you to be one of the first to know about the latest news and trends within your industry – whether posted by a competitor or a consumer in your niche.

For deeper insight into your target customers – who they are, what they value, and how they act as consumers – you can use tools such as Claritas’ MyBestSegments. This software combines your company’s data on your current customers with that of customers throughout your industry, and helps you determine the best way to reach consumers with a high potential for conversion.

Lastly, you can use survey software such as Fieldboom to develop questionnaires for potential customers who may currently be doing business with a competing company. Through this option, you can create tailored surveys that elicit information from respondents regarding their experiences and level of satisfaction while engaging with companies similar to yours. In turn, you’ll be able to tweak the services your company provides in order to meet the needs of these individuals more effectively than your competitors may have been able to.

Simply put:

The more you know about your target customers – especially with regard to their experiences with other brands within your industry – the better you’ll be able to serve them as you grow your business.

While you absolutely need to conduct this research when diving into a brand new industry, you should also continue to do so as time goes on, as well. Reason being: the needs of your customers – no matter what industry you’re in – will continue to evolve…and so will your competitors’ services.

By staying up to date – and even one step ahead – of trends within your industry, you’ll continue to be a go-to service provider for your target customers.

Stewart is the marketing & outreach manager at Fieldboom. With Fieldboom, you can create beautiful smart forms, quizzes & surveys in minutes.

The post Competitive Analysis: How to Spy on Your Competitors’ Customers appeared first on TechnologyAdvice.

ALSO READ: The Top Payroll Software For Enterprise And SMB

Yet while you can forgive yourself for messing up your own check, as you add employees to your company, payroll problems aren’t so easily forgotten: Your team relies on accurate and timely payroll operations in order to live well; your business can only succeed if your budget is correctly balanced; and the IRS isn’t that understanding of excuses like, “I’m new to this” or, “Oops.”

Payroll mistakes have very real and very costly consequences. Here are five common payroll errors that with the right knowledge, tools, and preparation, your small- to medium-sized business can avoid.

ALSO READ: How to Choose the Right Small Business Payroll Software

1. Employee Misclassification

Exempt or non-exempt? Contractor or part-time employee? The rules governing how employees are classified are created to protect individuals from being taken advantage of by their employers. But most employee misclassification mistakes are a result of simply not understanding where the lines are drawn and how the labels are determined. The IRS is increasingly auditing for these classifications as mistakes can result in underpaid payroll taxes. In today’s gig economy, it’s smart to deeply familiarize yourself with the rules or consult an expert.

2. Using a Paper-Based System

The homegrown system for tracking hours and invoices that feels comfortable because you’ve had it in place so long is actually uncomfortably close to the danger zone. Paper gets misplaced, thrown away, or shuffled around. It’s not only notoriously inaccurate, it’s a time consumer. Manually moving data from paper to online systems offers much room for duplication, deletion, or other human errors.  Doing payroll yourself is an option but switching to a digital solution will prevent costly mistakes and save valuable time during tax season.

3. Poorly Handled Payroll Taxes

The list of Federal tax rules encompasses 75 pages of paper and doesn’t even begin to touch on the many and varied rules for state and local taxes. It’s enough to send anyone’s head spinning and errors always come back around to haunt you to a costly end. Late payments, missed payments, or simple lack of knowing what to pay top the list of payroll tax mishaps. Because the rules are so complex, it’s smart to bring in professional services or payroll software to avoid this mistake.

4. Over Scheduling or Under Scheduling

If you’ve been handling your employee scheduling on a piece of paper, dry erase board, or spreadsheet, it’s time for an upgrade. Just like other manual systems, going offline with your scheduling creates massive room for human error. This dark space is growing even larger as people become more reliant on their phones for information about work. Over or under scheduling shifts not only has costly implications for payroll, it also negatively impacts employee satisfaction.

5. Mishandling PTO

Another area in which mistakes are costly both in terms of finances and employee happiness is paid time off. Team members who put in the work not only deserve a break, but their productivity going forward will benefit from it. Making mistakes with tracking, accruing, and paying out unused PTO is easy to do when you use manual systems or don’t have multiple systems synced. Digital solutions can help hold both you and your employees accountable on PTO.

With the correct payroll measures in place, your business will benefit from smoother operations, more satisfied employees, and far fewer costly mistakes. Not sure where to start when it comes to payroll or hr software? Use our Payroll Software Product Selection Tool to compare more options, or contact one of our Technology Advisors for a free consultation.

Top Human Resources Software Recommendations

The post 5 Costly Payroll Mistakes Small- and Medium-Sized Businesses Should Avoid appeared first on TechnologyAdvice.

_____

Email is not dead. In 2015, email was one of three most popular areas where small business owners planned to hone their digital marketing efforts. In today’s technology-driven world, that says a lot.

Since the concept of email marketing began, the ways in which businesses use it have rapidly evolved. In order to keep up, you must rethink the way you see email. More specifically, you need to recognize the importance of email automation.

You may already be familiar with terms like ‘autoresponders’ or ‘follow ups.’ Essentially, these are automated emails. Email automation lets you automatically send out messages to your subscribers at preselected times and after specific actions they’ve taken.

Why is this important?

Because these days, email marketing is more than just collecting subscribers and sending out newsletters. Instead, it’s more about building relationships in the inbox.

Let’s explore three ways automated email campaigns help with relationship building and enhance your business in the process.

1. Take Your Audience From “Like” to “Love”

No matter your industry or company size, there is one main goal that drives all of your business efforts: to take a customer from the first point of contact to a point of sale or action.

Beneath this overarching strategy, the point of your email marketing is to help move readers from one in your sales funnel to the next. In other words, you want to move your customers from “I think you’re awesome,” to “I think you’re awesome and I’m willing to pay for the value (product or service) you provide.”

There are many ways to help guide prospects down the funnel. One way is to tailor your email content based on specific information, such as where the prospect discovered you. Build one campaign for users who met you in person and may not need as much introductory information to help move them along the sales funnel. Then, create another for people who found you online and may need a longer introductory period before you fully engage them with your sales and marketing strategies.

Decipher where your audience members are on the relationship scale (how much information they already know about your business, how likely they are to make a purchase, etc.) and build an automated email campaign that’ll help entice readers to not only like your product, service, or expertise, but to love it.

2. Send Smarter Emails

Don’t think of automated campaigns as just your average email autoresponder. Now that subscribers have a personal relationship with you and your business, think of emails as a method for sending hyper-targeted messages that will resonate with your audience. In other words, email automation makes it possible to send the right content to the right people, at the right time, which significantly increases your chances of cutting through inbox noise.

The running theme here is getting personal with your audience so you can send smarter emails. For instance, send emails based on subscriber interests. To find out what your subscribers prefer, you might include additional custom fields in your email list signup form that asks what kind of content they’re most interested in receiving. With that information, create a series of welcome messages with content that relates to their specific interests.

Next, use email automation to build welcome campaigns specific to the responses you get from the signup form. Then, schedule your emails to send at a specific time of the day when your followers are most likely to read them. If your subscribers are signing up via mobile devices, then the best time of day to test a send message could be during morning and evening commute times.

Similar to emails that center on audience interests, you can also send messages based on where they are in your sales funnel. To do this, create two different email series for customers versus non-customers. For the non-customers, send educational information about your industry. For customers, send them educational information about your specific product or service as it relates to that industry.

With the ease of autoresponders and automated campaigns, there is no need (or excuse) to be generic with your messaging. You have the power and responsibility to personalize.

3. Save Time

Creating automated campaigns not only warms your audience up to you and help move them through the sales funnel, it also saves you time. In fact, 74 percent of marketers say the biggest benefit of automation is saving time. Think about it, spend 30 to 60 minutes focused on building various automated series and you’ll save hours over the course of the month and year.

Instead of going through the hassle of creating and sending the same content repeatedly, you can rest easy knowing that your previously crafted emails are working to build and nurture relationships. This will free you up to focus on other aspects needed to grow your business.

Time to Rethink Email

Your audience likely receives tons of messages daily from other businesses. You don’t want them to overlook the content of your emails. The good news is that people want to hear from you (otherwise, why’d they sign up?) and they want personalized messaging. Introducing automated email campaigns into your marketing efforts will help you turn subscribers into customers and customers into advocates. Download our study below to learn more about what customers want from email campaigns and start adding some automated techniques into your email mix.

The post 3 Ways Automated Email Campaigns Help Your Business appeared first on TechnologyAdvice.

Especially in product-driven companies, the universal imperative is to do more with less. These businesses often serve niche markets and are driven more by expertise and innovation than strategic planning. Projects are run by department heads or by team members themselves. In some cases, there is no structure in place for managing process, and teams coordinate tasks manually. Projects are organized through a deluge of messages across multiple channels (emails, spreadsheets, handwritten memos, etc.).  

According to research from the Project Management Institute, only 42 percent of companies report that their projects align with organizational strategy. This lapse in planning correlates strongly with strategic failure on a larger scale. The Economist Intelligence Unit reported last year that 44 percent of all strategic business initiatives were unsuccessful.

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

All of these factors make small businesses perfect candidates for project management software, especially cloud-based products that offer simplicity and versatility. We’ve put together a list of four solutions in this category to help you keep your team on track without breaking the bank or complicating the development process.

Casual

Casual is an online project management tool specifically designed to help non-project managers orchestrate repeatable projects for small and growing teams. PM programs can sometimes be highly specialized and even require the intervention of your IT, but Casual cuts to the chase with its clean, attractive interface and “casual” approach to management.

It doesn’t rely on Kanban boards, Gantt charts, or task lists, but instead organizes work in an intuitive flowchart style that lets you visualize project status from one central dashboard. Casual helps you construct a project lifecycle by creating individual tasks with cause/effect relationships and defining the order of execution. Manage milestones, deadlines, team member assignments, time records, and share documents from the web service or separate mobile application when you’re on the go.

Of the products we’ll be looking at in this article, Casual is about as basic as it gets. But if you’re a PM outsider looking to bring a little order and predictability to your projects minus the complexity of a corporate system, Casual is a smart choice.

KanbanFlow

KanbanFlow is a lean project management tool developed by Swedish software company CodeKick AB. The application uses its namesake — the Kanban board technique — to organize projects and project players visually. This is an excellent collaboration method, as it allows all stakeholders to view each other’s progress and tasks in real time from the same interface.

One unique feature of KanbanFlow is its built in “Pomodoro” time-tracking feature. Pomodoro is a technique in which workers focus on their tasks in 25 minute stints with breaks in between. Team members’ time stats are recorded as they work, which gives management the ability to analyze productivity.

Essentially, the KanbanFlow tool lets you create tasks and subtasks, upload files to the tasks, make comments, track time, and conduct some useful analytics on the whole process in real time. The software is simple, but efficient. It’s designed for speed and ease of use — the company even promises that users can learn how to use KanbanFlow in less than two minutes. The basic version, which already includes unlimited users and boards, is free, although they do offer a premium version with faster support and the added features of email integration, board templates, filters, swimlanes (further categorization), data import/export, access controls, and time management.

Redbooth

 Redbooth is an online collaboration platform for team and task management with a large suite of project management tools and an on-premises option for businesses that would rather house it on their own servers. Though it’s not typically celebrated as a small business solution, Rebooth’s scalable pricing model puts its sophisticated features well within reach of even the most budget-conscious companies.

The application lets you manage tasks and projects and provide your team with valuable communication tools like built-in chat and video conferencing, screen sharing, and file sharing. Redbooth also integrates with Outlook and Gmail, so you can keep emails connected to relevant projects, as well as create tasks from emails and discussions with one click.

Redbooth comes in eight different languages and is compatible with desktop and mobile through a native app. The nice thing about their pricing model is that it doesn’t exclude features from the low-end tiers — which, again, means it’s a viable option for a small business, depending on how many users will need access. Notable companies like Subaru, eBay, and US Airways have already turned to Redbooth for their project management needs.

Podio

Podio is a cloud-based project management tool that focuses on helping businesses see the bigger picture by connecting projects with the entire business paradigm. With over 500,000 clients, Podio is one of the most popular PM solutions of its kind. Some of its success is owed in part to the 2012 buy-out by Ft. Lauderdale software company Citrix.

Podio lets your teams collaborate on different kinds of projects — whether they be design, IT, sales, or marketing-related. From the main interface, users can see the status of open projects, upload attachments, and post comments in real time. Unlike other less customizable products, Podio doesn’t limit you to one visual format; administrators can choose from a number of different displays, like simple tables to dynamic card boards, depending on their needs. The interface is drag-and-drop, so you can also pick and choose the features you need and don’t need with minimal exertion.

Podio comes with built-in chat and video conferencing features, as well as social-media-style commenting, status updates, and activity streams to reduce inbox clutter. Connect your inbox to the task board using unique, task and app email addresses, and access all of it in or out of the office on the Podio mobile apps for Android and iOS.

Podio offers a basic free version for up to 5 users, or a full-featured paid version; both come with the company’s vow of “stellar support” from its centers in San Francisco and Copenhagen.  

*

Too often, small businesses dodge this kind of IT expenditure because they think they can’t afford it. Even if you’re not designing software or managing large-scale, global manufacturing projects — even if all you need to do is get your team to collaborate and meet a few deadlines each month within a set budget — a small business project management application can help you do this in a way that aligns with your business strategy consistently and efficiently, keeping you competitive and profitable in the process.

The post Four Sleek Small Business Project Management Tools appeared first on TechnologyAdvice.

It’s no secret: more businesses are adopting gamification than ever before. But while many of these companies are large enterprises, gamification can work just as well for small businesses and startups.

In fact, the rapidly growing employee-facing aspect of gamification fits perfectly into the unique office culture of startups. Small businesses can also harness gamification to improve customer loyalty with cheaper and more effective reward programs. Marketing divisions as well should view gamification as a huge opportunity to add unique value to campaigns, and give users a more engaging experience.

One of the main reasons small businesses hesitate to explore gamification is the fear that these systems will be expensive, and difficult to introduce. However, the gamification market is becoming more specialized everyday, meaning small business can find affordable, turn-key gamification solutions if they search hard enough.

Actually, they don’t even have to search. We’ve already compiled a list of the top 5 gamification companies for small businesses.

1) OfficeVibe

Keeping employees engaged should be a high priority for any business. But engagement can be a tricky concept: is the goal to make employees happier, more productive, or both? To make the undertaking more difficult, humans are fickle, so the tactic that increases engagement this month may be annoying and repetitive next month. OfficeVibe helps clear up the gray area of engagement with single question surveys that employees take on a weekly basis.

The surveys contain only one question to keep the barrier to completion low, and the frequency is set to once a week so the data stays current and actionable. OfficeVibe also comes equipped with dashboards that present survey results in digestible graphs and charts as well as gamification elements that makes participation more enticing. Results can be segmented by department, enabling an even more specific view of your company’s mood. OfficeVibe makes engagement quantitative, rather than qualitative.

Get Pricing

Get pricing for 5 Gamification Companies for Small Businesses

×

How can we contact you with pricing info?

Make sure this product is right for your budget. Our experts will be in touch with all the pricing info you need.

By clicking the button above, I confirm that I have read and agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

2) Kudos

In an era where attracting talent is paramount to an organization’s success, small businesses and growing companies need a gameplan for keep their employees’ happy. If Officevibe helps engage the office through surveys, Kudos allows organizations to do nearly everything else associated with recognizing and rewarding employees.

Wisely mimicking the set up of popular social media channels, Kudos offers employees and managers a dedicated social media channel they can use to publicly recognize their peers’ hard work. Recognition comes in peer to peer and manager to peer forms, and each time someone’s recognized they receive a certain number of points as decided by the sender.

Kudos also gives you a way to make these points mean something with its rewards feature. Admins can activate different rewards that require different point totals, with the system specifically set up to create gift cards redeemable at restaurants as well as other entertainment venues, though customer rewards can be implemented too.

Like many SaaS systems, Kudos comes in tiered subscription plans, the most expensive of which features human resources functionality. Managers can assign goals and create corresponding badges to awarded when employees meet or exceed said goals.

Kudos has a ton of other functionality, making it more of an engagement operating system as well as a social network for employees.

Get Pricing

Get pricing for 5 Gamification Companies for Small Businesses

×

How can we contact you with pricing info?

Make sure this product is right for your budget. Our experts will be in touch with all the pricing info you need.

By clicking the button above, I confirm that I have read and agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

3) Hull

For businesses with a heavy web presence or a proprietary app, creating an identity management system is an important part of growing your user base. Identity management systems supply businesses with an infrastructure for managing user profiles and gathering behavioral data.

That’s what Hull does for businesses; it helps them construct a unified user profile across all devices. This helps businesses track user actions across websites, social media, and your app. Using data gathered from Hull, businesses can segment users and send targeted push notifications to entice the right behavior.

Hull only requires a user’s email and password for them to sign in, and some users can navigate your app in guest mode. This software also allows for a great deal of customization, with private messaging, comments, likes, votes, followers, credits, and counters all available as social media-esque gamification functionality. Hull even lets businesses contact user segments by email, in-app push notifications, or Facebook notifications.

Hull requires a certain amount of technical expertise, so it’s not for businesses that don’t have any developers. For businesses who do have strong development resources, Hull is less expensive than comparable solutions, and offers a number of compelling features.

4) Ambition

The phrase “If you can’t measure it then you can’t manage it” epitomizes the modern business mindset — particularly from a sales and marketing standpoint. As your organization grows, so will your sales team, creating an urgency to quantitatively track performance in a scalable way.

Branded as a Sales Productivity Suite, Ambition equips you with the means to create meaningful performance metrics while also shifting the work paradigm to feel more like a game. Using the eponymous Ambition Score, which is composed of aggregate performance metrics, this system calculates an employee’s day to day production for your organization. Changes in the Ambition Score over time indicate notable increases in execution or a warning of reductions in output.

To make the software more engaging and collaborative, Ambition can divide employees into fantasy sports style teams and host sales competitions that use cumulative Ambition Scores to choose who wins.

Other gamification elements include a leaderboards specific to job function and department as well as a personalized news feed that congratulates employees on meeting their goals or setting new personal performance benchmarks.

Ambition also offers a great deal more — such as numerous CRM integrations and business intelligence reporting on a revenue level — making it a comprehensive system for motivating your customer-facing teams.

Get Pricing

Get pricing for 5 Gamification Companies for Small Businesses

×

How can we contact you with pricing info?

Make sure this product is right for your budget. Our experts will be in touch with all the pricing info you need.

By clicking the button above, I confirm that I have read and agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

5) Perkville

Perkville is a gamification provider for small businesses that relies on in-person transactions. They supply clients with the means to build loyalty programs, mostly using software that the company already owns. By signing customers up for their loyalty campaign, businesses can track when these customers make purchases through their Point-0f-Sales system and award them points on Perkville. Once customers sign up for Perkville, they can also tell their friends about companies to receive more points.

Of course, these points need to mean something, so businesses can designate rewards in exchange for a certain number of points. Customers can then print out vouchers for these rewards right from Perkville.

Get Pricing

Get pricing for 5 Gamification Companies for Small Businesses

×

How can we contact you with pricing info?

Make sure this product is right for your budget. Our experts will be in touch with all the pricing info you need.

By clicking the button above, I confirm that I have read and agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Enterprises aren’t the only companies using gamification. With a host of new, affordable solutions, gamification is for small businesses too.

Top Gamification Software Recommendations

The post 5 Gamification Companies for Small Businesses appeared first on TechnologyAdvice.

That’s always been my entrepreneurial motto. Time wasted becomes opportunity wasted, so just dive in and experience everything you can.

This approach has produced great success in both my life and business, but not without a few challenges along the way. These challenges make up my “database of mistakes,” a mental database that (hopefully) keeps me from repeating such missteps as I move forward.

While flipping through these setbacks, it’s clear that many of them come from the same area: hiring.

At TechnologyAdvice, we’ve learned the hard way that “growing pains” are more than an overused cliche and an under-appreciated Alan Thicke sitcom from the ’80s. They are a harsh reality for small businesses trying to expand in both revenue and manpower. This is especially true when your company values action first and discussion later.

We needed a bigger staff, so we moved fast and assumed we’d figure it out as we went. Turns out, we needed to invest more time and more thought into identifying the employees that were the best fit for our team and our culture.

And we are not alone.

A recent CareerBuilder study revealed seven in ten businesses were affected by a bad hire in 2012. 41-percent of those businesses estimated the cost of that mistake to be at least $25,000. So much for those IT upgrades you had planned for the office.

That number fluctuates depending on the size of the business, but you can use this formula from The Undercover Recruiter to determine what it would be for your company. That same report also reminds us that 75-percent of demand for new employees is to replace workers who left the company.

We’ve lost more than our fair share of time, money, and productivity in the black hole of bad hiring over the past few years, so hopefully some of the lessons we’ve learned will help you avoid these same mistakes.

Here’s a few “highlights” from our hiring adventures:

We hired talkers, not walkers

Have candidates ever seemed too good to be true? Sometimes they are. We no longer go with our gut after being blown away in an interview. We focus on past work patterns, and let tangible examples speak for themselves.

This lesson came from a recent hire who sold us on being able to adjust to our pace, mission, and culture. This person had great work experience, great references, and skills that fit the position. However, it was all in a different career field, and different office environment. We made the hire anyway, convinced by the person’s seeming passion. Less than a week later, the person quit — citing differences with our focus, schedule, and culture. Lesson learned. Now we make sure they’ve “walked the walk.”

We hired people more interested in making friends than working hard

We work hard. We grind. We set big goals. But we also like to celebrate accomplishments and have fun. It’s a balance. We play ping-pong and drink beer while sharing laughs and high fives. We like fun people – you might say they’re our weak spot. But they have to be productive. Our expectations of each position are now clearly set in the interview process to eliminate any blurred lines between “work hard” and “play hard.”

We hired employees who didn’t know their job requirements

Okay, maybe we were part of the problem. We weren’t always clear up front, and a lot of roles evolved as we grew. But we also need people who are motivated enough to investigate what they’re getting themselves into when they accept a job. To do our part, we now test drive the position for a potential hire. We invite them in for a half day to experience the work they’ll actually be doing before accepting our offer.

We hired for inconsistent reasons and gave inconsistent expectations

This one was definitely on us. We didn’t do a great job of establishing goals and expectations for some positions. For others, we weren’t clear enough in how the position affected others and fit into the company’s mission.

Now we make sure to do three things:

1. Share more about our history in hopes of being transparent and fostering commitment.

2. Explain how we developed the current need for the position and how it fits into our company’s vision.

3. Make a clear list of goals for the first month, quarter, and year for each position, then have regular check-ups to help everyone meet these goals.

We hired team members who suffered from “millennialitis”

It’s a real condition. Look it up. (Okay, actually don’t). But it is a concern. We have a very young staff — about 90% millennials — in a city that Forbes ranks among the top ten destinations for millennials in the US. That means we’re always looking for young people with great potential. However, we had to learn to better identify that potential. Do they still share a checking account with their parents? Did they work through school, or at least actively participate in clubs or groups? Can they provide evidence of dedication to self-improvement and growth? If most of the answers are “no” (besides the bank account), then it’s likely a real-world job will be a tough adjustment.

I know. A lot of this is common sense, but it’s amazing how blinding it can be when you’re going full speed.

More action. Less thinking. — except in hiring. If you’ve also learned this lesson from a bad experience, we’d love to hear your story in the comments below.

Investing more time and more thought helped us double our staff to 35 over the past 14 months, and we’re hoping to add several more teammates before the end of the year. Check out our open positions and let us know if you think you’d be a good fit for our team.

With these nuggets of hiring knowledge now filed away in our database of mistakes, our focus is forward — meaning growing pains are again a thing of the past.

Apologies to Alan Thicke.

__

Photo Credit: RobertCross1 (off and on) via Compfight cc

Top Human Resources Software Recommendations

The post How to Hire Great Employees: Move Slow, and Think First. appeared first on TechnologyAdvice.