BambooHR vs. Buddy Punch vs. Gusto

I have found that using BambooHR for recruiting has helped cut my company's recruiting budget down. I don't find BambooHR good for payroll, since we already use a company we trust. I wish our hour-tracking software integrated with or connected to BambooHR; otherwise, employees worry they aren't receiving their PTO.

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I think that is very convenient as far as tracking your employees when they are punching in or out to ensure they are physically at the location they are supposed to be for that shift. I also think that the option to download this app to your personal phone is amazing, it makes it more convenient to punch in or out when you aren't near a laptop or a residence to use one. The feature of being able to attach a note with your punches explaining possible late punchers or absences is very beneficial to the employee allows show proof if needed.

I think Gusto is well-suited for any business, big or small, to use for accounting purposes. It makes it easy to keep track of many things, such as pay stubs, benefits, paid time off, and much more. Where I could see it being less useful is maybe for enterprise businesses with way more employees.

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• It's a great hub to see the company's current status on who's off, how many days off we have, and which holidays are coming up.
• Feedback forms are a great way to help you and your team grow. They're easy to set up and use.
• Training management is a great feature since it centralizes the required trainings.

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• Their customer service is second to none. We have requested several changes over the years for the web interface and app; I think all the requests we've made were implemented by this point. I only wish this was the case with other companies we utilize.
• They allow you to set different pay rates based on department which allows us to pay employees more for the skilled jobs they perform versus the more basic work they perform. This is a huge benefit to a small company as it encourages employees to strive for more skilled work and they keep moving up the ladder to become even better assets to the company.
• The reports you can run are very thorough and work very well for us when it comes time to enter payroll.
• Having the ability to set alerts has allowed us to cut back on unnecessary overtime as employees can get reminders prior to going over. We can also set reminders for employees to punch in/out for the ones that have a tendency to forget.

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• New employee/contractor onboarding - all the documents are stored and easily accessible (the same goes for off-boarding).
• A one-click option for syncing hours worked with payroll.
• The option to run payroll on auto-pilot.
• Ensuring I'm tax compliant with the states we have employees in.
• Always having digital records of payroll runs.

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• I think it could display PTO in number of days, as well.
• I wish that the benefits page was easier to navigate.
• I don't like that the pay stub area is hidden, since I am typically alone at home when I review that data.

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• Sometimes I need to check back to be sure I'm still punched in.
• The indicator between punched in and out is not very indicative of if I am or not.
• I want to total hours not just by the week but by pay periods 1-15 days, 16-end of [the] month.

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• Digital compliance tools for remote teams
• Gusto upsold us labor law posters, but I later found them available for free online. Since we’re a fully remote team, I had to manually download and distribute them digitally. It would be much more efficient if Gusto offered free, auto-distributed digital posters tailored to remote compliance.
• Benefits setup is unintuitive for startups
• While our rep was helpful, navigating the benefits system felt complex and not tailored to early-stage companies. More guided flows or simplified options for small, remote startups would be a big help.
• Limited dashboard customization for remote workflows
• As a fully online company, we’d benefit from dashboard options that highlight relevant tools for remote operations—like compliance tracking, digital communications, or onboarding checklists.

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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.

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Unless they break it, I'm never leaving. It's just too easy. Gusto is also really affordable, and for what I pay, it's worth having the historical record within the system. I like that I can go back and pull up W2's for year's past. This sort of easy access reporting, has been helpful especially when getting reports for PPP loans.

The interface is so user-friendly for admins and employees. I've never seen another HRIS this easy to use, on both a computer and a mobile device. It's clean, intuitive, warm, and powerful. In the 5 years I've used it, I haven't had a single employee complain that Bamboo is confusing or hard to navigate.

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Most of my employees have figured it out pretty quickly, even the ones who are a little less technically savvy. If you have a phone, then you have the ability to use this app. There are a few quirky things with notes and punches that happen, but this may just be the employees

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Gusto is pretty user-friendly, and the website is easy to navigate overall. They also offer good, responsive customer support and have helpful articles available when needed. So far, I have not had any major issues with the platform and am overall very happy with it.

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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.

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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.

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I don't think they have ever figured out an issue for me, and chat support has team activities when I need them. I don't know how that is possible, but I rarely use the feature and, when I try during the posted business hours, they are not available. I've contacted support to get help with applications that were coming in without required information, like salary, even though the salary requirement was toggled on. I reached out on July 24th and received this response on Aug 12, after we had found someone for the position and closed that job posting. This is the response: "The specialists reviewed the backend logs and noticed that there were several edits made to the application questions during the time in question. This could have impacted the required status of the salary field and allowed candidates to submit their applications without filling it out. If you notice this issue again in the future, please let us know right away so we can investigate further and ensure everything is working as expected." They ask me to reach out "right away" when I notice something amiss. If you go back to your records, I believe you will find that there was an employee activity on July 24th, which is when I noticed the issue and reached out immediately, and there was no one available to assist for three days.

Gusto's customer service has really deteriorated lately and they seem to have really changed their focus. It used to be when you called you were routed to an individual who knew about payroll, benefits, reporting, etc. but now you get someone who seems to have not received the correct training. My last call about a dismissal payroll took me over an hour of my time and the person still could not help me and finally transferred me to someone else.

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I didn't have in-person training besides teaching my managers how to use the program. However, I couldn't omit this question (maybe a system glitch).

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Overall this training was great and our implementation specialist was wonderful and very helpful. We felt really prepared once our training was completed, But we could get additional help immediately even when we were live. The continuation Support heros after implementation are wonderful and you can always get a LIVE person each time you call into their office.

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We implemented bambooHR in Fall, 2023 then implemented Payroll 1/1/24. A vital piece of information was not known or missed in that we are exempt from State Unemployment Tax and have a Reimbursement Set-up, so bambooHR did not send Payroll Reports to the State. Those reports need to be sent regardless if we are exempt or not.

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Reach out to support immediately if you are having trouble setting up Gusto. Rather than being confused and trying to figure it out yourself, it's much better to talk to someone who knows what they are doing. Save yourself time and frustration and reach out to support

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Bamboo HR's user interface is better than the alternative products listed above. It is easier to scroll through tabs and navigate different sections and reports. You do not need to train your team members to use Bamboo HR. This saves time on training. The user interface of other products listed above is not as simple and clean as Bamboo HR.

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We originally scheduled and ran payroll through Homebase, but in the last few months the software became very buggy, customer service was slow and when they did respond, was not helpful. When we cancelled our account they didn't even try to make things right. We are so happy that Buddy Punch is like us--taking care of their clients and really invested in their success!

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While I never actually got to the point of trying out ADP, I had several conversations with an ADP representative, and it seemed that they would be able to provide the same (if not less) level of service for a significantly higher price

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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.

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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.

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VERY professional!

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• As the Director of HR, I have freed up a lot of my time. I can easily access employee information and spend less time switching between multiple platforms.
• It has helped my staff become more self-sufficient in their jobs and take greater ownership of their career lifecycle as employees here.
• Using Bamboo has shown us where we have had inefficiencies and where we need to focus on compliance, which has been very helpful.

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• Efficiency has definitely gone up switching to Buddy Punch. Ive never quantified specific hours or time lapse it has given to my personal managerial efficiency. But it has without doubt.
• I can see a better overview of the employees I need to be concerned with and not have to filter out others not concerning me.
• Ease of use has decreased mental stress and angst in maneuvering employee time cards.

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• Time tracking + payroll calculations me 30-60 minutes every time I run payroll.
• Integrated workers' comp, so I didn't have to find an outside carrier and get quotes—it's all taken care of in the same platform.
• Improved employee experience with onboarding.

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A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info