Homebase vs. Square Payroll

Homebase is well suited for small business owners and startups who need to track employee hours more efficiently, and who desire for their employees to be able to directly compliment each other, or have more control over the ability to trade shifts. It is less appropriate for larger businesses that have multiple departments, or businesses with few departments and employees who may be scheduled in more than one department.

Incentivized

I would say that Square Payroll is perfect for companies that don't exceed 100 employees. The multistate payroll system allows for us to be able to handle business with ease when we go do work in Mississippi or Arkansas. The multiple payout options are great for our particular business. We might deal with a multimillion dollar contract one day and a $120 order the next.

Incentivized

• Homebase provides an easy way to schedule employees. Their scheduling platform is extremely user-friendly and easy to edit once the schedule is made.
• Homebase makes it easy for employees to switch schedules on their own, a manager just simply has to approve rather than physically rescheduling both employees, this is great for any small retail business or restaurant with many hourly employees.
• Homebase makes it easy to adjust hours that have been incorrectly clocked or clockouts that have been missed.

Incentivized

• 1099 contractor payments are easy, and they provide you with the IRS filing as part of the service.
• Direct deposit/debit from your already connected account to the employee.
• Reporting and management features are simple yet inclusive.
• Low cost compared to alternative solutions.

Incentivized

• Notifications could be more punctual
• Employees should be able to pick up shifts outside of their scheduled times! Right now managers need to do it.
• Importing hours on QBO payroll could use attention. Doesn't separate normal hours from overtime.

Incentivized

• [In my experience] they can cancel your service at any time, without warning or explanation. When they do this your funds are held by them for up to 90 days, at which time they are presumably accruing interest on your money. This could take a small business under very quickly and there is nothing you can do about it.
• [I believe] getting verified is complex and not customer friendly. Until you are verified you can't talk to payroll customer service, which is paradoxical. Even getting a hold of account services for this purpose is tricky and exceedingly time-consuming, plus they can not answer most questions directly.
• [I feel] they don't communicate well, closed my account with no notice whatsoever. The only notification I had about the need to verify my account was one easily lost email. Not having responded to this email fast enough created months of stress and difficulty in the setup process, only to find in the end I would need to start from scratch to attempt to sign up again.
• [In my experience] if they close your account you can never reopen it. You have to start a new account from scratch.
• [In my experience] they can hold your money and not deposit funds if your account is "under review". This can happen without explanation. No customer service is directly available for this. I was told I had to wait for them to call me.
• [I believe] they are either lying, or the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing to such an extent that they give a great deal of misinformation.

It could use a mobile-friendly interface. Other than that it's a simple layout and non-cluttered which allows you to get done what you need to get done. No unnecessary dodads or distractions.

Incentivized

I think they have quick and helpful customer service reps, however, I give them a 9 because I have had to wait on hold for long periods of time before.

Homebase is simpler to use. Easier to navigate and is much cheaper than other alternatives! We had trouble when I worked as they were harder to reach our ROI. Deputy was too expensive and it was the reason we decided on Homebase! Employees also find it easy to use on their end!

Incentivized

We have tested the QuickBooks Online platform. Before using Square, we tried QuickBooks, but the experience we had was not to our liking. QuickBooks Online is a much more complicated platform to use, the interface is much larger and has complexity in the configuration of the collection of hours of work of the employees. In addition, QuickBooks technical support does not respond in time to users' doubts, on several occasions we had several doubts about the operation of the platform and the response was too late and inconsistent. We decided to use Square Payroll because it offered us a much more accessible UI, a simpler but more precise interface for what we needed in our company, to be able to make payroll payments and make detailed reports on the workers.

Incentivized

• There are no longer employee scheduling issues.
• Payroll is very easy to use and quick

Incentivized

• Square Payroll has dramatically reduced the time it takes to process payroll.
• We could have a faster payroll with the Square POS integration for commission, but that is not something we've implemented yet.

Incentivized