The Comprehensive BambooHR Alternative

A suitable human resource management (HRM) system will resolve as many of your administrative tasks as possible while improving employee experience with a comprehensive and easy-to-use employee self-service portal.

We compare BambooHR vs. flair for your new all-in-one HR platform to see which one is best suited for your company culture to make the entire employee lifecycle more efficient and productive – from recruitment to retirement.

BambooHR aims to be the number one human resource software solution for employees and their leaders by facilitating a quality-focused employee experience.

If you're in need of cloud-based human resources software, BambooHR is a good choice for consolidating your employee database and general employee management through a single platform.

However, if BambooHR hasn’t met all of your expectations in its range of features or pricing details, you might be looking for affordable alternatives to BambooHR that cover all of your core HR functions.

Who Is BambooHR Best Suited For?

BambooHR is ideally suited for developing businesses that need to better organize their employee data management with a concise employee database, offering features for automated employee onboarding, applicant tracking, and recruitment.

BambooHR Pricing Summary

BambooHR's most affordable plan begins at $4.95 (~€4,70) per employee per month, but you could request a more favorable price quote via their website.

If you've never used BambooHR before but are considering it as an alternative to another HR software, they offer a 7-day free trial for you to try it out.

BambooHR’s Key Features

Before you select the workforce management platform best suited for your HR needs, it's important that you take a bit of time to explore each software's key features.

• Like flair, BambooHR can improve employee satisfaction through automation and the simplification of workflows.
• BambooHR also offers a pretty comprehensive marketplace platform with over 1,300 third-party app integrations that you can use.
• One of the standout features of BambooHR's human resources suite is its company culture-building tools that help with employee engagement in challenging workplaces, such as the eNPS score survey.
• BambooHR's performance management module helps your team cater to the construction of a friendly working environment.

flair is a comprehensive cloud-based human resources software that has been developed within Salesforce.

Our platform was created with managers' and employees' daily working lives in mind, aiding them with processes like employee time-off tracking, benefits management, and general human capital management.

With flair you can create customizable workflows to optimize your HR operations, and keep track through data-driven reports.

BambooHR is undoubtedly a human resource software solution with an impressive range of features to ensure effective employee data management, but there are a few missing features that flair does offer.

For instance, flair's resume parsing tool makes talent acquisition so much easier by extracting important information from CVs to help find the perfect candidate faster. Both BambooHR and flair offer candidate management and the creation of custom job boards.

Online time clocking and timesheet management digitizes the core functions that measure employee productivity and absenteeism. flair provides advanced employee analytics based on these features for accurate compensation management anywhere in the world.

With flair, you can also sync holiday calendars and calculate benefits costs into payroll to ensure fair pay and precise audit reports.

Who Is flair Best Suited For?

flair provides an incredibly comprehensive HR solution that caters to the human resources needs of small- to medium-sized businesses, as well as large ones.

If your company uses Salesforce, or plans to do so in the near future, then flair is ideal for you as we're seamlessly integrated with Salesforce. But, you don’t need to use Salesforce to make the best of flair – ours is a standalone HR platform that will benefit any company.

flair also integrates with over 4,000 other apps, so you can easily plug in other software you're already using.

If pricing is why you're looking for a BambooHR alternative, flair is the cheaper alternative without compromising on the quality of our features.

flair Pricing Summary

flair offers affordable pricing plans, beginning with our competitive Core module, which starts at €6 per employee per month.

The Core module is geared toward solving essential human resources needs, boasting an impressive list of features, including document management, full-service payroll, time tracking features, and time-off management, as well as Employee Hub.

If you're unsure whether flair is the right HR software platform for you, we offer a 14-day free trial, so you can try it out first.

flair’s Key Features

flair's HRM platform has an intuitive interface and provides a centralized database with customization options to suit your business niche.

flair enables the automation and management of processes with employee document management, time tracking, performance reviews, full-service payroll, talent acquisition, and employee engagement.

This already makes flair a great BambooHR alternative, and we offer more than team management and absence management tools.

Some of flair's standout features include:

• Shift Planner for dynamic shift scheduling
• Goal setting and feedback tools
• Customized onboarding features
• Business expense management features

Let’s take a closer look at the key features flair has to offer:

Airtight Goal Tracking For Straightforward Performance Management

Goal management is one of the most important features for soliciting constructive feedback on employee performance.

While BambooHR has goal setting and tracking as part of its overall package, flair's goal management feature enables you to tie employee objectives to company goals, which aids businesses and their managers to better guide internal teams across departments toward company-wide success.

Moreover, you can access your admin dashboard to see advanced HR analytics, your staff directory, and additional options on a single dashboard. This means you have a single source of truth to keep tabs on your company culture and finances.

Image source: flair

When a business with flexible employee schedules is united in its goals, then its overall profitability is bound to improve. You'll find that the average employee record shines when employees' outputs align with your company's needs, even if your team works asynchronously.

flair offers advanced employee scheduling and you can track the core competencies of your staff using our Skills Matrix feature. This means you get extra insight into team skills and can plan employee goals better, as well as improve team collaboration on projects.

Image Source: flair Changelog

Manage Employee Profiles With Salary Planning

Creating a comprehensive view of employee profiles is one of the most time-consuming aspects of an HR specialist's job.

BambooHR's payroll system is designed to manage US-based employee compensation, tax, and benefits. You can keep track of your company's compliance status and manage employee profiles using their TRAXpayroll additional custom software integration.

On the other hand, flair provides an uncomplicated employee directory system that helps your HR team manage payroll effectively, even when working with international contractors. International salary planning is one of our best standout features.

Qualified candidates must know they'll be appropriately compensated for their skills and time. flair's salary planning feature allows HR professionals to accurately calculate the fairest and most rewarding compensation possible.

Efficient Time Tracking With Online Punch Card And Clock

If you’re reading this there's a good chance you're currently managing many remote employees in a diverse international team.

While both BambooHR and flair provide excellent time tracking tools for full-time employees and wage earners, flair's online clocking feature allows for more convenient, accurate tracking and attendance management.

Image source: flair

Your overall team time can be challenging to manage, even for small to medium businesses. You and your team can work together on flair's Shift Planner to organize and swap out employee shifts, and employees can use our online punch card to clock in and out.

This ensures that managers can easily keep track of employees' day-to-day efforts through data-rich reports on work hours and productivity.

An online punch card coupled with an online time clocking feature means employees can precisely record what they did in a day while keeping in line with company policy. With flair, managers can then put together accurate business performance analytics with true reflections of employees' work schedules and work standards.

Both BambooHR and flair provide a helpful set of customer support options to resolve any hitch quickly.

BambooHR support representatives are available between 6 am to 6 pm (US Mountain Time). Otherwise, you can leave a message on their customer support software.

While flair also doesn't offer 24/7 support, our fantastic scope of help guides, installation services, and configuration resources ensure that our users experience a streamlined onboarding process.

The Help section and Changelog on our website are brimming with professional and knowledgable employee management articles that will take you through each of our crucial services, step-by-step.

BambooHR VS flair: Training

In your assessment process for the best-fitting solution for your company, you shouldn't neglect to consider the potential costs of training in the new software.

flair and BambooHR didn’t skip out on any of the most essential training resources, with a wide range of detailed media for you and your team to learn how to use the software for human capital management at your company.

Any advanced human resource software solution should offer an adequate level of training if its users are to operate the software to its full advantage. So, let's explore both flair and BambooHR's software training resources and services.

Both flair and BambooHR boast article-rich training sections. There you can get to grips with the range of features each HRM software offers, covering basic core HR functions and advanced features like how to:

• Process payroll
• Master the employee onboarding process
• Use the feedback tools
• Perform other important administrative HR tasks

BambooHR Training

BambooHR provides its users with a range of training modules on integrations and HR processes. Still, its current cloud-based system training involves a lengthy set of articles on topics like calculating upcoming time off balances and how to access its self-service employee portal as a key feature.

Whereas BambooHR has a great learning management system that tracks your course completion, it can be time-consuming to get through each section incrementally.

flair's Help Center

flair provides a wealth of training and learning resources for our users, divided into three sections: Configuration, Guides, and Installation.

Once you finish going through all three categories, you'll have a good understanding of how to use our applicant tracking tools, manage attendance tracking, how compensation management can be done, and how to run the benefits administration at your company using flair.

flair's training courses consist of straightforward articles divided between a high category count. You can easily delve into the narrower categories to find a step-by-step guide for every feature, such as how to set up workflows and create custom reports.

We understand that learning is not a linear process, and you might need to dive into certain sections as you work with the software.

These detailed articles are easily digestible and will allow for a quick response to any HR-related queries and issues that may crop up in your day-to-day work.

You can also learn from the Resources section on our website.

Let's now turn our attention to one of the essential factors in your BambooHR alternative decision-making process: pricing. Regardless of the size of your business or its HR budget, you'll want to select a feasible pricing plan.

BambooHR Pricing

BambooHR doesn't provide easily accessible pricing information, preferring that its potential customers send in a quote request along with their company size. BambooHR will then work out a personalized quote based on the best pricing plan for you.

However, we have G2's review of BambooHR to rely on. Bamboo has two broad plans, the Essentials and Advantage packages.

According to Software Pundit, BambooHR's plans begin at a monthly cost of $99.00 for a dozen employees. If you'd like to add more users, then you'll need to pay $8.25 per month per employee you add on.

HR professionals who would like to include BambooHR's payroll service (for US only) will be charged an additional $75.00 per month for every ten employees. You'll also need to pay an extra $4.25 per month per employee you add to this plan.

The premium BambooHR package includes its time tracking and performance management features which contribute an additional cost of $3.00 and $4.25 respectively, per month per employee.

flair Pricing

flair's affordable HCM platform offers a module-based pricing plan. Unlike BambooHR, which only offers time tracking with its premium HR packages (Advantage and higher), flair provides time tracking features as part of the extensive suite offered in our Core module.

In other words, flair offers a wider choice of features in our basic package than BambooHR does. Our Core module is a comprehensive suite for any HR team that's starting out or switching.

Our Core module costs €6 per employee per month and includes features for personalized employee onboarding, international payroll, Employee Hub self-service portal, time tracking tools, absence management, custom reporting, HR workflow automations, organizational chart, and online document management.

Check out our pricing page to learn more about flair’s pricing modules and to book a demo.

Another vital component to understanding whether either of these particular HRMS software will work for you or not is by investigating the experiences of other HR specialists and businesses.

Let's look at some of the unbiased responses on two leading reviews sites, namely G2 and Capterra, left by people who've used each respective human resource software solution.

G2 Reviews Comparison

flair earned a slightly higher rating than BambooHR on the review and comparison site G2, earning a 4.4 out of 5-star rating.

While BambooHR beats flair in the Ease of Use department, flair has a higher Quality of Support rating, meaning that users have enjoyed a better resolution process with flair's advanced features.

Now, let's find out how various business professionals found their time with both flair and BambooHR with a few top-ranking user reviews.

Top-Ranking BambooHR G2 User Reviews

• Karin C is the President of their company and gave BambooHR 4.5 stars while finding BambooHR to have a "very user-friendly, clean interface that has made HR much simpler for our company." They appreciate how resourceful the BambooHR software's main dashboard is and how readily available all their key data is. However, Karin C did not appreciate the several limitations of BambooHR's software. Karin C wrote out an extensive list of small but annoying irks they had with BambooHR, such as high-level managers being unable to access complete employee files, the restrictions presented by the hiring section, and how they swapped out BambooHR's time-tracking tool due to its its "very limited capabilities."
• Alex M, who is a Marketing Specialist, described BambooHR as a "great HR program" while giving it 4 out of 5 stars. They enjoyed having consolidated access to employee data and other HR-related things. Alex M's least favorite part about BambooHR was the blind spots in BambooHR's many automated processes. Ironically, the high level of automation allowed some essential processes' details to be incorrectly listed.

Top-Ranking flair G2 User Reviews

• Chanel K is an Operations Manager that has been using flair since 2019 and gave our Human Resources Software a full 5-star rating. Their long-standing relationship with flair’s HRMS software has resulted in a simplified and easier everyday working life. The Operations Manager uses flair for many HR processes, including core functions such as recruiting processes, individual performance appraisals, and employee management. Chanel K also greatly appreciates being able to better connect work procedures between their employees and managers. Chanel K couldn't find anything they explicitly disliked about flair and they would happily recommend it to other HR specialists and businesses in general.
• Michael K, the Managing Director of HERO Software, found flair to be an "awesome HR & recruiting tool, especially for ambitious companies who are growing fast" and also awarded it five stars. Michael K's favorite part about flair is its complete range of features set to handle any HR process, including recruiting. They also greatly enjoyed being able to integrate other important apps with Salesforce while connecting their payroll and sales, as well as the Slack integration. However, Michael K gave some constructive feedback and said that they would appreciate it if the candidate's joint review process received some fine-tuning. This is definitely something we're looking into!

Capterra Reviews Comparison

Overall, flair enjoys higher ratings than BambooHR on the Capterra reviews platform. Whereas BambooHR has more reviews, flair still has higher ease of use and customer service satisfaction rating.

flair Pros

• Great database management resource
• Efficient workforce management
• Impressive functionality and features
• Tailored feature configuration from customer to customer and plenty of add-ons

flair Cons

• Slow usage
• Updates can corrupt reports and steppers sometimes malfunction
• Experienced interface issues with performance management module, talent management, and time and project management
• Some negative experiences with additional custom software integrations

BambooHR Pros

• Easy to use and very practical
• Comprehensive feature suite and quick development
• Straightforward time control and approval processing for team member requests
• A great source for employee performance evaluation

BambooHR Cons

• The Home page could include more helpful information
• Doesn't have as many robust features as other HRIS systems
• Reporting, Request Signature, and File sections need to be optimized
• Inability to include the Executive Director/CEO in performance management feedback processes

Several differences between the two HR platforms might sway your decision depending on the suite of tools you require. Many business owners opt for software systems that can handle the entire hiring process, benefits management, as well as payroll processes.

This is a tall order! But we've shown you how flair meets these expectations and so much more.

There are many good alternatives to BambooHR for performing everyday tasks related to HR and payroll, but flair stands out as a strong competitor.

Where BambooHR's user interface is modest and sufficient, flair offers a modern interface that's easy to navigate and use – both for employees and managers.

Considering the impressive list of features that each software provides, it really comes down to your business requirements in terms of the combination of features that will work best at your company.

Employee data management on flair is pain-free and seamless, whereas some complaints about BambooHR's interface have come through. flair needs to fine-tune some of our interface issues, too, but overall, flair offers better ease of use.

BambooHR is a popular choice for businesses of any size for providing business insights. Both BambooHR and flair are affordable software for human capital management, but flair will be a more affordable option offering a personalized quote for your company.

BambooHR pricing is complex with a mixture of pricing tiers and module-based add-ons.

In terms of Salesforce integration, BambooHR doesn’t offer this feature and you’d need to set it up via an integrations platform such as Zapier. flair is native to Salesforce, so if you’re already using this CRM flair will fit into your workflow.

Need more convincing? Consider our other software comparisons and check out more reviews sites, or book a demo and see for yourself.