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BambooHR Review

Michael Graw

In a Nutshell

BambooHR is an HR software provider founded in 2008. The platform offers in-depth tools for hiring and onboarding new employees, including an applicant tracking system and interactive checklists for new hires. BambooHR also helps your business manage current employees by centralizing paperwork, automating approval workflows, and running payroll. Overall, BambooHR is best for businesses that want an all-in-one HR management system.

pros

  • Centralized document storage in the cloud
  • Customizable user access roles
  • Mobile app for iOS and Android

cons

  • Payroll capabilities cost extra
  • Few tools for managing contractors

Bamboo at a Glance

6.4
Editorial Score

Integration Capabilities

Only integrates with payroll
6.0

Features

Dedicated HR manager, payroll processing, compliance management
6.0

Employee Experience

Employee Voices, onboarding
6.0

Reporting and Analytics

Detailed analytics available but limited reporting
8.0

Trials

No free trial
6.0

Bamboo Bamboo Visit Site

BambooHR at a Glance

Best for: Small and medium-sized business with W-2 employees
Price range: Pricing by quote
Benefits & HR: Medical, dental, disability, 401(k), paid time off
Automatic tax filing: Yes
Apps: iOS & Android

Features and Add-ons

BambooHR is a comprehensive HR management system that includes features for hiring and onboarding, managing employee records, automating workflows and approvals, time tracking, benefits management, payroll, and more.

The software includes an applicant-tracking system to help you recruit and hire new employees. Once you hire, an interactive checklist helps new employees navigate the tasks they need to complete during the onboarding process. You can create different onboarding templates for different jobs or departments, further streamlining this process. BambooHR also supports e-signatures to make it easier to sign hiring paperwork.

BambooHR offers a cloud-based document management system to help you organize your employee records. Thanks to customizable user access roles, HR managers have control over what data employees are able to enter on their own. The software also supports custom workflows so you can easily manage approvals for things like time off requests.

BambooHR also handles payroll and benefits management. The platform supports a variety of benefits, including medical, dental, disability, and 401(k) plans. Employees can access their pay stubs online or through the BambooHR mobile app, and BambooHR takes care of filing your local, state, and federal payroll taxes. 

Notably, BambooHR has relatively few features for managing contractors and other non-W-2 employees.

Additional features of BambooHR include:

  • Custom reports for any data in BambooHR
  • Mobile apps for iOS and Android
  • Performance reviews from managers and peers
  • Automated reminders
  • Net Promoter Survey for employee satisfaction

Tax Compliance

BambooHR handles local, state, and federal payroll taxes for your business automatically. The software automatically imports payroll data from your employee records database and timesheets, making it simple to run payroll without errors. BambooHR also accounts for withholding, benefits, and deductions when calculating payroll and taxes.

Payment Options

BambooHR enables you to pay employees by paper check or direct deposit. Pricing for these payment options is by quote only.

Pricing/Costs & Fees

BambooHR offers 2 standard plans: Essentials and Advantage. The Essentials plan includes features such as employee records management, benefit tracking, automated approval workflows, and time off management. The Advantage plan adds features for hiring and onboarding (including BambooHR’s applicant tracking system), custom user access roles, advanced reports, and access to integrations in the BambooHR app marketplace.

In addition, BambooHR offers payroll, time tracking, and performance management features as individual add-ons. Pricing for the Essential and Advantage package as well as for add-on features is by quote only. You can request a trial of BambooHR before committing to a plan.


Essentials
Advantage
Employee Records Management
Benefit Tracking
Time Off Management
Hiring and Onboarding
X
Advanced Reporting
X
Integrations
X
Payroll
Add-on
Add-on
Time Tracking
Add-on
Add-on

Bamboo Bamboo Visit Site

Usability

BambooHR is very easy to use. Despite offering a wide variety of features, the platform is well laid out and straightforward to navigate. Managers can sort and filter employees in overview tables or dive into summary pages for individual employees. Helpfully, most features within BambooHR support templates, making the work that managers do quickly reproducible in the future.

Employees have the ability to access BambooHR to enter their own data, reducing the workload for HR managers. Employees can check their pay stubs, track their hours, manage basic aspects of their benefit plans, and request time off. HR managers can create custom user access roles, giving your HR team fine-grained control over how employees and managers can modify data in BambooHR.

BambooHR is also available as a mobile app for iOS and Android. Employees will find virtually all of the same features in the mobile app as they will in BambooHR’s online dashboard. HR managers can approve requests and create reports, but the mobile app doesn’t support advanced benefits management features.

Conclusion

BambooHR is a comprehensive HR management platform for small- and medium-sized businesses. It can handle everything from hiring and onboarding to employee and benefits management to payroll. The software has relatively few features for managing contractors and freelancers, so it is best for companies who primarily employ W-2 employees.

BambooHR is very easy to use and offers a mobile app for both employees and HR managers. The software empowers employees to enter their own data while giving HR managers the ability to customize access roles. In addition, automated workflows and automated payroll taxes reduce the amount of work that falls on your business’s HR managers.

Overall, BambooHR is ideal for businesses that want a single HR software solution for all of their needs.

Michael Graw is a freelance writer specializing in finance, business, and tech who writes for Top10.com. His work has appeared in numerous well-known online and print publications, including Techradar, BestMoney, Business2Community, Day Trade Reviews, Pacific Standard, Fortune, Business Insider, and more.

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