BambooHR review by Inspector Jones

We like BambooHR, because it provides a great balance of features and simplicity for small and medium-sized businesses. If you're using spreadsheets to track your people, time off, training, and employee information at the moment, or if you're not happy with your current software, BambooHR should definitely be on your shortlist.

BambooHR covers the core HR functionality for businesses with tens or hundreds of employees, while remaining simple. It has a clean user interface, which is easy to use and navigate. Training is available, but we certainly didn't need to use it. You can quickly make changes online, sort, filter and search your employee records, or even modify the layout to suit your needs. We particularly like the BambooHR android and iPhone apps for managers and employees. Thumbs up!

At the heart of BambooHR is a full employee database which contains comprehensive information about all of your people. This lets you keep all of your employee information in one place, saving time on compiling reports, searching for information, or making updates. Employees and managers have full access to self-service, so that everybody can update their own information, without the involvement of HR.

BambooHR provides a comprehensive employee database

BambooHR tracks what's happening with each of your employees, across a broad range of HR functions. You can manage pay and benefits status, with a full history. There are paid time off calendars, management of employee leave balances and requests. BambooHR also manages training requests and history. The performance management features can replace your simple paper-based forms to run annual performance reviews, and keep supervisor (or peer) notes. However, we think this is an area that BambooHR can improve in the future - with more robust goals, different question-types, and supporting more complex workflow. There is also a place to keep a record of signed contracts and other documentation for each employee.

You are able to customize BambooHR for your needs. It's easy to put together custom reports based on your individual requirements. There are also a set of pre-built reports, and you can print out an org chart. BambooHR supports adding custom fields, and custom tabs, if there is specific information you need to manage. All of this information can be exported to CSV, Excel or PDF.

Custom reporting using BambooHR

BambooHR has an app store, which you can use to explore other integrated apps. You might want to use some of these for more specialized recruitment, payroll, timesheets or performance management features. Some integrations include The Resumator, CATS, Jobvite, Sterling, Benetrac, Netsuite, and Cornerstone On Demand. We're also pleased to see BambooHR's open API, so that you can build your own integration, with your own systems (if you ever need to).

In a few areas, we think that BambooHR is punching above its weight. Their solution has features which are more common in larger enterprise HR suites - things like multi-currency support, custom user groups and permissions, international timezones, dates and numbers, and fully customizable reminder emails. We particularly like the power edits functionality. This lets you edit a number of records at the same time - for example, if 12 staff all attend the same training session, you can record this all in one hit.

We've found the support from BambooHR very good. They offer unlimited support, by email or telephone, from 9am-6pm ET. Service levels are above 99.99% (which is excellent). BambooHR also provide assistance for installing the system, and for data migration. There is a wide range of online forums, videos, a knowledgebase and webinars also available. When we've spoken with the BambooHR team, they've been very friendly, responsive, and happy to help.

Finally, we think the BambooHR pricing is fair. It's priced on the number of (active) employees at your company (inactive employees are free - so you can keep all of your details for ex-staff without any extra cost). This cost covers everything; all new features are provided for free, and there is no limit to the amount of use.

In summary, BambooHR is a great human resources solution for companies with tens or hundreds of staff members. It covers all of the basics, at a good price, with the ability to customize and extend where you might need it. We recommend putting BambooHR on your shortlist.