Homebase vs Shiftbase

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Our analysts compared Homebase vs Shiftbase based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Employee Scheduling Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Product Basics

Homebase is a cloud-based solution that helps manage employee schedules, maintain timesheets and streamline payroll processes. Managers can create staff shifts using drag-and-drop scheduling tools and pre-built templates. They can also define rules to put schedules on autopilot for recurring tasks based on employee availability, skills and labor budget.

The platform is mobile-optimized and offers a native app for employees to view schedules, communicate, set preferences and trade shifts. You can use a POS system to track employee attendance and work hours or use the app to let staff log time from their phones. The platform maintains timesheets while integrating with payroll modules for wage calculation.

Verify employee identity and location with the built-in photo capture or GPS time clock functionality. Additionally, you can automate break tracking and overtime calculations to comply with shift worker regulations. It sends automatic alerts for employee absences or late logins while allowing managers to record daily summaries using the manager log.


Pros
  • Ease of setup
  • Efficient scheduling and time tracking
  • Robust mobile app
  • Cost-effective
Cons
  • Limited customization
  • Customer service issues
  • System update bugs
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Shiftbase is workforce management software that helps businesses with frontline workers manage employee schedules, track time, monitor attendance, handle time-off requests and maintain employee profiles. It offers a comprehensive set of features to streamline HR processes and optimize shift and task management.

Its scheduling feature helps you easily create, modify and share employee schedules. The platform supports shift templates, recurring shifts, drag-and-drop scheduling and flex teams for efficient workforce allocation. It also considers employee availability and absences to ensure optimal scheduling. Additionally, you can manage personnel costs, track wage costs and create schedules based on work hours or budgeted labor costs.

For time tracking and PTO management, Shiftbase can track worked hours, manage time-off requests and ensure compliance with labor regulations. Employees can view their schedules, request time off and track their hours through the mobile app. Also, managers can approve or deny time-off requests and monitor employee attendance.

The human resource management module includes tools for creating and managing employee profiles, storing important documents and managing employee communications. The software also offers compliance management tools to help businesses adhere to labor laws and regulations. This includes features for tracking overtime hours, managing minimum wage and Working Hours Act (ATW) compliance, and generating audit reports.

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$24.95/Location, Monthly, Freemium
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$3.50/Employee, Monthly
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Tailored to your specific needs
Small
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Small
Medium
Large
Windows
Mac
Linux
Android
Chromebook
Windows
Mac
Linux
Android
Chromebook
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile

Product Assistance

Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support

Product Insights

  • Start Scheduling For Free: Homebase allows you to schedule up to 20 employees in one location at no cost. You get basic scheduling tools, a time tracker and POS integration to manage employee shifts from anywhere.
  • Streamline Team Communication: The platform excels in collaboration tools, helping managers run their teams efficiently. It includes everything you need, from one-on-one chats and team messaging to a bulletin board, newsfeed and even read receipts. Plus, you can recognize outstanding employees with shout-out cards and appreciation notices.
  • Go Mobile: The Homebase mobile app boasts impressive ratings — 4.4 on the Play Store and 4.8 on the Apple Store. Managers can create open shifts for qualified employees to claim, while features like geofencing and time tracking improve overall control. The app informs everyone with push notifications for upcoming events and alerts employees about late logouts or missed breaks.
  • Create the Perfect Software Stack: According to our analysis, Homebase ranks exceptionally well for its integration and extensibility with third-party solutions. It allows you to easily import or export data in CSV or Excel format. You can connect it with popular solutions like QuickBooks Online, Rippling, Gusto and ADP. It offers a native payroll integration at a cost. You can access its API with partner integrations and design custom connections with any tool!
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  • Start Scheduling For Free: The starter plan lets you manage up to 75 employees in one location across five teams for free. You can manage employee profiles, create schedules, assign tasks and set role-based permissions. Employees can also track time manually via the mobile app.
  • Streamline PTO Management: Shiftbase's time and attendance management tools, highly rated with a 91 score by our analysts, offer a streamlined PTO management process. Employees can easily request and track time off, while managers can efficiently approve or deny requests and monitor attendance. This not only reduces administrative burden but also ensures accurate payroll calculations and compliance with labor regulations.
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  • Scheduling: Create, copy and save schedules that can be modified or reused later. View employee availability and time off requests, manage shift changes, and forecast labor costs.
  • Time Clock: Clock in and out from the web, a tablet or an integrated POS. The advanced subscription packages can prevent employees from clocking in early for their shifts and returning from breaks early. The time clock feature can also round time and allow for automatic clock-out.
  • Timesheets: Track clock-ins, breaks and overtime hours with online timesheets. Generate a daily summary of activities, track breaks and export timesheets to payroll, reducing time errors.
  • Team Communication: Send direct messages and broadcast messages to entire groups directly through the app.
  • Hiring: Streamline the hiring process by providing pre-written job descriptions, interview reminders and applicant tracking capabilities. Post open jobs to Craigslist and other job boards. Import new hires to the schedule automatically.
  • Reporting: Track and generate reports on labor costs as a percentage of sales, actual hours worked, employee performance and shift feedback summaries. The more advanced subscription plans also track labor costs by type and generate reports on the application programming interface, on-time arrival and other customized reports.
  • Drag-and-Drop Interface: Users can view and sort schedules by role, time period or employee hours with a drag-and-drop interface. Managers can also copy the previous week’s schedule and publish work changes directly through the mobile app.
  • HR and Compliance: Centralize employee information, eSign documents and send automated welcome packets for a smooth self-onboarding experience. Define clear PTO policies and approval workflows, set up black-out dates and define advance notice requirements for more control. The platform offers consultancy with external HR advisors for expert insights and policy reviews, helping comply with labor regulations.
  • Employee Benefits and Productivity Tools: Early access to earned wages allows staff members to avoid overdraft fees. Peer-to-peer recognition tools and automatic performance metric tracking help foster a productive environment. You can also gain valuable insights into employee sentiment through anonymous end-of-shift feedback.
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  • Employee Scheduling: Create and publish work schedules with an overview of expected costs. Repeat standard shifts by dragging and dropping into upcoming schedules while building custom templates. Get employee availability reminders when creating schedules while sending automated shift reminders. Invite employees to pick open shifts.
  • Time Tracking: Prevent errors while recording employee work hours using an online time tracking module. Employees can clock in via mobile apps or desktops based on GPS locations. Copy work hours from timesheets to time registration automatically while saving manual effort and errors.
  • Absence Registration: Automate absence management processes while tracking vacation hours and employee leave requests. Employees can create leave requests while forwarding them automatically for supervisor approval. Get a real-time overview of accumulated vacation hours while entering balance hours for new employees.
  • Resource Management: Manage vacation balances, employment contracts, employee work hours and information from one place. Process employment contract modifications while calculating overtime hours accurately. Set employee birthday and anniversary notifications.
  • HRM: Build personnel files with employee notes, automatic leave accrual, contract reminders, notifications for anniversaries and birthdays, and automatic calculation of plus/minus hours. You can track employee competencies and certificates, monitor employee well-being through overtime and absence tracking, and receive alerts when documents expire.
  • Reporting: Get an accurate picture of worked, scheduled and approved employee working hours. Gain in-depth insights into labor costs compared to revenue, worked hours per department or a team and more. Generate customized exportable reports containing crucial operational data.
  • Mobile App: Manage workforce schedules, absences and availability on the go using Android and iOS apps. Monitor employee work hours while posting important announcements and messages from anywhere. Receive push notifications about timesheets and availability changes.
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Product Ranking

#6

among all
Employee Scheduling Software

#103

among all
Employee Scheduling Software

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Analyst Rating Summary

84
75
100
52
87
62
91
91
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Collaboration
Integrations and Extensibility
Mobile Capabilities
Leave and Absence Management
Schedule Management
Leave and Absence Management

Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

Homebase
Shiftbase
+ Add Product + Add Product
Collaboration Employee Management Leave And Absence Management Mobile Capabilities Platform Capabilities Reporting And Analytics Schedule Management Security And Compliance Shift Management Time And Attendance Management 100 87 91 93 61 50 88 83 86 74 52 62 91 83 63 81 84 67 79 74 0 25 50 75 100
100%
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50%
83%
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17%
58%
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42%
88%
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12%
88%
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12%
93%
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7%
80%
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20%
67%
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33%
67%
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33%
50%
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50%
83%
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17%
85%
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15%
80%
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78%
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22%
67%
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33%
84%
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16%
79%
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21%
74%
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26%
74%
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26%

Analyst Ratings for Technical Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

90%
0%
10%
80%
0%
20%

User Sentiment Summary

Excellent User Sentiment 1169 reviews
Excellent User Sentiment 421 reviews
91%
of users recommend this product

Homebase has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 91% when considering 1169 user reviews from 4 recognized software review sites.

90%
of users recommend this product

Shiftbase has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 90% when considering 421 user reviews from 2 recognized software review sites.

4.6 (13)
n/a
4.2 (108)
4.6 (225)
4.6 (1027)
4.4 (196)
4.1 (21)
n/a

Awards

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated Homebase and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Collaboration. Homebase stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award
Collaboration Award

Shiftbase stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Ease of Setup and Use: Many users found Homebase easy to set up and navigate. The platform is intuitive, making it simple for both managers and employees to use.
Scheduling and Time Tracking: The platform simplifies employee scheduling, making it easy to create, modify and track schedules. It includes useful features like a time clock, timesheets and attendance tracking.
Integration with Other Tools: Users appreciated its integration with various payroll processors and POS systems.
Accessibility: You can access the software from various devices, including desktops, tablets and smartphones, enhancing flexibility for managers and employees on the go.
Cost-Effectiveness: Several reviews mentioned that the free basic plan suffices for smaller businesses, providing essential features without extra cost.
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Increased Flexibility: Users appreciate the ability to assign different roles and create flexible rosters, making the platform suitable for self-rostering and cross-team visibility. It offers color coding to differentiate users and tasks, improving visual clarity.
Ease of Use: The software is user-friendly and requires minimal training. It simplifies scheduling and time tracking, especially when compared to manual or Excel-based methods.
Time-Saving: Shiftbase significantly reduces the time spent on administrative tasks like calculating hours and scheduling, with users reporting substantial time savings.
Responsive Support and Help Resources: Users consistently highlight the excellent customer service for its quick responses and effective issue resolutions.
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Undo and Modification Limitations: The lack of an undo feature can be problematic if accidental changes or deletions occur.
User Interface Issues: Some users found the new updates and interface changes cumbersome, with issues like light markings, lack of lines and frequent refresh rates. Others mentioned that the iPad app is not optimized and often mimics the mobile website, limiting its functionality.
Customer Support: Several reviews highlighted delayed responses from customer support and insufficient support hours, which can be challenging for businesses operating outside regular hours. Also, the platform heavily targets the U.S. market and offers limited support for international users.
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Lengthy Setup Process: Transitioning to Shiftbase from other systems requires a time investment. Users mention that setup can take two to three days, but the platform is highly efficient once it’s operational.
Challenging User Interface: While Shiftbase is functional, users mention that its presentation, particularly in areas like team rosters and part-time employee scheduling, could be more refined with color-coded visual representations.
Limited Advanced Features: The platform has limited functionalities, such as no custom fields, rigid reporting templates and a lack of customizable graphical representations for tracking specific tasks or plotting work hours.
Clocking Issues: The system doesn’t automatically log out employees based on their physical location. Users have complained about spending time manually adjusting or verifying clock-in and clock-out times when employees forget to log their hours properly.
Lack of Detailed Change Logs: There are no clear records of who removed or altered shifts, which limits accountability and tracking.
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In my research, I was particularly impressed by the guided onboarding process. The intuitive setup allowed me to get the platform up and running within minutes, enabling easy scheduling without a steep learning curve. This ease of use also extends to onboarding employees.The auto-documentation request feature stood out to me. I could define the required documents for each employee, and the system automatically sent follow-up reminders. This automation significantly streamlined the process of maintaining up-to-date employee profiles with all the necessary paperwork.Homebase’s integration with other tools, such as payroll processors, accounting solutions and POS systems, is a huge plus. It saves time and reduces the hassle of manual data transfers, making the overall management process smoother. Additionally, the system can handle basic hiring, onboarding, payroll and compliance management, making it an all-in-one HR suite for small businesses.However, I encountered some drawbacks. One notable issue was the auto-scheduling feature. While the idea behind it is great, it proved complicated in practice and lacked customization options to meet my specific needs.Users have reported facing issues with the vendor’s customer support team. There were reports of delayed responses, and the support hours were insufficient for businesses operating outside regular U.S. business hours. Despite these issues, the platform’s cost-effectiveness, especially with the free basic plan, makes it a viable option for small and medium enterprises. It offers essential scheduling and time-tracking features without hidden costs and implementation complexities.

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Shiftbase is a workforce management and scheduling platform that offers one of the best starter plans for free. You can start managing employee databases and schedule shifts of up to 75 employees in one location across five teams.In my experience, Shiftbase was easy to onboard if you’re not migrating from other scheduling platforms. However, the process is more cumbersome when you’re looking to migrate employee and scheduling data from an external platform. Unlike its competitors, Shiftbase cannot automatically set up your account using a CSV and Excel file containing your business data.One of the things I like most about Shiftbase is how easy it is to create flexible schedules, factoring in staff costs, revenue and budgets. Managers can track working hours through the website, mobile app or clock terminal. This gives insights into attendance and wage costs, allowing for better decision-making and optimized staffing. Additionally, it’s easy to manage employee leave and absences with Shiftbase, making it ideal for businesses with flexible or part-time staff.The platform can connect directly with payroll systems, reducing manual data entry and ensuring accurate, on-time payments. Shiftbase also offers basic reporting tools that help businesses understand budget allocation and staff work hours.Based on my experience and the feedback from other users, Shiftbase is a great option for businesses that need a simple and efficient way to manage their workforce. However, it lacks many advanced features that may be essential for larger enterprises with bigger teams. For example, it doesn't offer built-in AI for conflict alerts, seasonal demand analysis or workforce optimization based on seasonal trends.Overall, Shiftbase is a suitable choice for small to medium-sized businesses seeking a user-friendly and affordable workforce management solution. Its ease of use and focus on core scheduling and time-tracking features make it a good option for businesses with straightforward scheduling needs. However, larger enterprises with complex requirements, such as advanced analytics, AI-powered optimization or integration with multiple systems, might find Shiftbase's feature set limited.

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