Auris vs. Planday vs. Zoho Projects

We changed payroll companies from Paycom to Heartland this year at the recommendation of our insurance agent who insisted they would integrate with the EASE system, which tracks employee benefits and deductions. However, 8 weeks into it, I regret my decision, since the setup hasn't been completed yet. The lack of responsiveness in some cases is astounding and often we have to ask 3, 4, and 5 times for something to be done. I hate to think what will happen after we are "handed off" from the payroll implementation team to the regular schmucks. We still are not able to track PTO and time off and we have been begging for the self-service feature to be turned on for employees so they can change addresses, bank account info, etc. Their training is NONEXISTENT and their manual is abysmal. DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY!!!!! I wish I could go back to Paycom!

Planday is a wonderful first step in organizing team management, such as mass communication, scheduling, time off requests, and centralized timesheets. I used it for my retail business and found it to be extremely helpful in communication with my team and keeping track of everyone scheduling needs in one place. As we grew, I noticed a need to assign tasks, which would be very helpful for larger companies or businesses with daily tasks that need to assigned to specific team members, departments, or shifts

Incentivized

My work involves projects of 5-15 people with numerous projects running simultaneously. Prior to Zoho, I did not have a central location from which to view all project statuses at once. Zoho looks to provide this and also looks like it will deliver. I am anxious to see how our organization's use of it develops. At this time, I feel I am likely to recommend Zoho Projects because my organization has made great software decisions in the past so I have a level of trust already that the research has been done that Zoho is the best solution for our line of work.

Incentivized

• White-glove customer support. All employees are in the United States and they must pay them well, because they don't seem to have turnover there.
• Technology is awesome. We have Payroll, HR, T&A, ATS, and onboarding with them.
• Their Tax Credit tech is amazing. I received more money in tax credits last year than payroll cost me. That's a net positive!
• Compliance with their HR team is great, and they don't hit you over the head on the price for it.
• Pricing is fantastic with a 3-year price lock. No BS discounting that jumps back up a year later.

• Provides an overview of staffing levels for each team, and the department as a whole.
• The UI makes it very easy to get a snapshot view of the staffing levels for set time period.
• Managing absences and arranging for shift swaps are also efficiently handled using Planday.

Incentivized

• We use it to manage our sales orders as there are lots of moving parts which are necessary to get client orders done properly.
• I use it anytime I have a new idea I want to put into motion. As I can create a list for brainstorming, feedback, specific actions necessary in order to test and or implement the idea.
• Unrelated to business, it's a great way to plan travel in order to make sure you don't forget those important things like passport, flight arrangement, client meeting confirmation, and meeting prep as far as what specific documents or things do you need to bring with you.
• And since everyone is on the go and expected to keep up with work, the mobile/tablet app makes it a breeze to keep up, work on, and create new projects.

Incentivized

• Sometimes the system (geocode) will not allow me to process address changes by asking for help from our specialist.
• Response for assistance is usually a lot slower when our dedicated specialist is not available.

Incentivized

• Holiday functionality - currently under review, new system launching early 2017 which will improve accuracy, calculate balances and deliver a more user friendly experience
• Payroll reporting - data is not all relevant, could be more flexible
• Schedule - could be more flexible to show employees consistently working across the group on one schedule

• There is no ability to add custom fields in the "Bugs" module - for example, if we want to add fields such as Version Number.
• Reporting is not integrated - its a fairly expensive add-on.
• There is no easy way to track actual and completed dates for tasks - so historical variance analysis is not easy.

I've reviewed about 8 other project management solutions and Zoho Projects is the best I've seen without being overly complicated. Zoho Projects keeps getting better! Recent new enhancements makes it even easier to navigate. There are new keyboard shortcuts that cut my time way down. The tools are very easy to use.

Zoho Project has been very user-friendly. As a small business, we have a diverse group of people with varying skill sets. This platform has been easy for our team to learn, implement, and succeed with. The mobile version is also very handy for our team.

Has not been down to my knowledge.

Speed meets my expectations.

I never have trouble reaching customer support. They always are able to assist with fixing any problems that arise. There honestly haven't been many issues at all. Only ones I've created :)

Incentivized

Although it might lack intuitiveness, once you get a hang of how Zoho Projects works, you can do a LOT. The impact good project management has on profitability is huge, and it has helped not only improve communication and coordination when working on a project, but more importantly have adequate tracking of time, due dates and potential bottle necks

Incentivized

The Heartland team could care less about how difficult your experience is. In fact, I think they delight in seeing you struggle!

I've considered moving payroll over to QuickBooks Online so that everything is in one place, but it would probably take too much work considering that our current system works really well. I think QuickBooks would confuse me, honestly. There are other systems that offer different user interfaces that are neat looking, but I haven't done too much research because Heartland Payroll offered me a really good deal for processing since we are a small company.

Incentivized

Ultimately Planday is the perfect tool for simple straightforward team time management, communication and scheduling. I would like to see a task management feature added to Planday and perhaps some integration for employee rewards. Planday is leaps and bounds above Quickbooks Time, and TimeClock Plus but falls behind Deputy only slightly by having less features available. Overall I would recommend Planday to any small business owner with a team of 5-20

Incentivized

Zoho Projects provides a more limited set of functionality and customization options than other task/bug trackers on the market, but what it lacks in functionality it makes up for in ease of use. It probably has 80-90% of the features of its competitors but takes about a third of the time to get up and running and realizing value.

Incentivized

• We have a net positive using Heartland. We actually bring more money in from their tax credits than the payroll service actually costs.
• I used to have a part-time person handing our payroll/HR needs. Now this is done by me because it's so easy.

• So much easier to manage than an Excel spreadsheet!
• The relatively low cost is completely outweighed by the time saved using Planday

Incentivized

• We needed a system to organize our growing business, so anything was better than what we had, which was nothing.
• Recording time spend is a huge reason for using project software. It has made me aware of the tasks that are taking too long and where we are not being profitable as a company.
• It has kept our team accountable for what needs to get completed and when projects are not in motion or completed timely. It's helpful to know in order to get billing out faster.

Incentivized