APS is a national workforce management and cloud-based HR solution provider. The platform includes core HR, payroll, time and attendance (including manager and employee self-service), compliance tools, and onboarding.
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BambooHR
Score 8.2 out of 10
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BambooHR is an on-line human resources solution that provides onboarding, payroll, and benefits management. It also offers automated time-off management and employee self-service.
$250
per month
Pricing
APS Payroll
BambooHR
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Core
$250
per month
Pro
$250
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
APS Payroll
BambooHR
Free Trial
No
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Yes
Yes
Entry-level Setup Fee
Required
Optional
Additional Details
Our Payroll solution is offered as a standalone service, but additional solutions must be used in conjunction with our Payroll solution. This ensures the best possible user experience for our customers.
No matter what HR looks like at your company, we have the perfect plan for you!
I think that APS Online is scalable to any organization. It's a wonderful product and I have had so many managers that work with me that feel the same way. We haven't been with them quite a year yet but since we've started it has made a world of difference for us. Things to ask about- 1- Do they specialize in or can they accommodate states that you are working in and their various rules? 2- What type of customer service? Do they have a call center or do they have a designated person like APS? 3- How long do your reports stay in the system? (ADP "archived" theirs after a year so we couldn't reach them)
If someone is looking for a basic HRIS that will serve a small employee population, BambooHR is a great starting point. This works well enough for what a small business needs. It starts to fall apart in larger organizations or as the needs exceed what BambooHR is capable of. There is a severe lack of customization, and it feels like they are afraid of the users breaking the system, so they put in many guardrails. I'm good with having those, but it dampens the experience for more advanced users. Overall, it is a decent starting point, but not a system any company would want to use long-term as they grow.
It's fast and intuitive. Our previous contractors were ADP and Paychex and neither were intuitive. Our payroll runs have less errors now than with previous vendors. Payroll prep time is down from 5 hours with ADP to 2 hours with APS for the HR Manager.
The limiters are great. I'm always afraid of that error that no one caught. Let's assume that you add a $200 limiter to overtime. Any time that a staff member is about to receive more than $200 in overtime for that pay period, a red flag goes up for the HR manager to double check.
We have 3 programs in public schools that block certain ports. APS has a 2nd feature using GPS so that staff can only check in for their shift while they are in the designated GPS range. Great for someone who has to report to a remote location. Just add the GPS coordinates and they can't check until they get to the project.
Reporting - We have six different business units and the reporting is separate for all three. Most reporting I do requires information from all business units so am running six reports and then copying and pasting to get the report I need.
Multi-state taxes - We have a number of employees who live in New York and work in New Jersey. APS OnLine is designed to accommodate one state withholding so ability to have "worked in" state and "lived in" state taxes withheld went away. This was a shortfall.
The Carrier connection setup took much longer than expected. After a year, we are still having some issues with some items transferring over to the GL.
The CA overtime calculation does not calculate after 8 hours per day, only on the 40 per week so we override each week.
Reporting - when running Benefit reports, it recognizes employees who formerly carried the plan but may have dropped it. To get around this, we have to delete off the employee's record so the history is not readily available.
I have been using the system for over a year now and feel more comfortable with the functionality of it. I have just recently implemented the benefit administration portion.
There's nothing wrong with this platform. I would recommend it to any business starting with more than 10 employees. I will continue to use the program for as long as I need to, hoping they continue being tremendous and finding other ways to incorporate more technology.
In general, it's a great system to use. We were looking for simplicity and ease of use and have received raves from our employees in their ability to access and make use of the system. There is still so much more that we have yet to gain as we continue working through each of the modules.
It is a very easy page to manage for people that are not used to computers or technology in general. That is one of the main reasons Hermosillo chose this service. It has a very friendly UI for every employee to understand, and that is really important because, in the end, we want our employees to feel comfortable looking at their information.
Yes, there is a huge team in the back of the online platform or it looks like it because I have never been left without an answer when I have a question or waiting from a response on my chat .... There must be a huge team, this is so great and I always seem to have someone that is very knowledgeable too. So many times in the past I had to leave with customer service that would connect you with someone else because of the expertise, here everyone seems to be some kind of an expert in the HR function.
I love BambooHR. Reports are easy to run and download and it usually covers any types of requests I get from the management team. You get excel or .csv downloads/reports and it is fast and simple, not too crowded so it is easy to read through. We don't integrate the tool yet but again, soon we will. we just did not had the time to utilize it yet but that's the plan.
I had to learn APS on my own, and the support team held my hand. They are still there when I have an occasional question. Anytime I need support, I can call my rep or send an email and help is on the way, without failure. The support team is awesome
The support is good, they can respond, however the chat sometimes has line to wait, and sometimes you miss your window because you have to keep working. However, they do respond to inquiries and help you to navigate and solve your problems in a timely manner. So, I don't have complaints on that.
As far as I can recall, everything went well with doing it online and got questions answered. Was thankful to work with a dummy file to get used to some practices prior to getting our own domain within bamboo to then place our personnel information in the system, this helped a lot!
It would have been helpful to understand the phases of the implementation up front so I could have prepared differently for enrollments, billing, and transfer of information to payroll. At the end of the day, I'm happy with the selection and the system and anticipate I will like it better as we go along. We have done a number of other system implementations in the past few years, and this has been pretty painless, however, I've had a few surprises.
BambooHR's initial implementation team was amazing. We loved having a dedicated person we could call, email or speak to during the entire process. I feel that's so important when you are new to a software. Our process was time consuming, but well worth the final product.
Paychex was probably the best system, but the constant shifting of support teams caused a loss of institutional knowledge every time. ADP was impersonal and support phone calls almost always went overseas. The lack of knowledge of the support service was disturbing. It was hoped that APS would provide a good system with quality support. Support normally isn't bad other than the journal entry.
BambooHR was already in place when I started. BambooHR has much better intuitive navigation than any of the other systems but not as much customizability as something like Workday
Since my organization has dropped with employees, I always find ways to reduce costs. I thought there would be a cheaper option, but I was glad that my package included a lot for the price, and downgrading would cost more. The rep could have let me downgraded and taken me to a higher package. I am thankful that didn't happen.
There is so much you can do with this platform, it is incredible and so welcoming. We don't utilize it 100% yet just because we are growing and the HR team has not been able to concentrate on other areas offered to us but but we will soon. Which is also why we got the product, specifically because what BambooHR can do to help us meet our growing business needs.
We were able to transition quickly and continue to successfully hire and onboard new hires for several Clubs that opened within weeks of moving to APS.
We do struggle a bit with the ease of reporting simply because our locations are all under separate EIN and that can make it difficult to easily combine data queried under custom reports, so the volume of reporting that I might wish to be able to push through weekly in order to help address 'real time' trends is not always available.
The lack of effective dating for position and wage changes does mean that HR and available APS data is not 'real time' accurate and that HR does need to return to the system to update changes well after-the-fact, which is not ideal.
