Homebase Erfahrungen

Quite honestly, one of the first things I recommend to businesses that want to schedule employees and know their labor costs that are up to the minute.

The one feature that I do wish was available, would be a calendar view that showed the entire department or business, so that it could be displayed on a monitor or web-based application.

The interface/importing with QuickBooks Online. Easy to add time and track PTO, holidays, OT and more. Customization for our business hours was perfect. The cost is lowest I have found for the amount of features. T-Sheets in QBO is too pricey for us. Also the remote clock-in features and mobile app is a big hit with employees.

Importation of hours into QBO Payroll needs to be adjusted and checked, but having HomeBase open after importing employee time cards makes it simple. Just match 1 to 1 and your good. Also the initial holiday set-up can be a bit tricky but HB customer service is excellent and guided us through it.

There are a lot of features that come either with the free edition or the basic package, it was by far the least expensive option for what we were looking for. Time tracking, scheduling, and different pay rates for different roles.

The different features are not very well integrated with each other. When someone requests a trade or cover for a shift, they can attach a message to the request, but it doesn't go through the messenger feature. Someone has to open the request to see the message. Geofence is great for making sure someone is at work when they clock-in, but if they forget to clock-out before they leave they are kept from doing so because they are outside the geo-fence. So I (the admin) have to fix their timesheet the next day. There are also issues with the automatic clock-out feature if someone has two different shifts in the same day.

Very easy to use. The user interface is very simple and easy to navigate.

I feel like this is a beta software that should not have been rolled out yet. We have been using it for a week and have had issues every day since we started using it. Basic things that you think should just work doesn't work.
Example: All my employees have a 1 hour, unpaid lunch everyday. They clock in and clock out on this required one hour lunch but Homebase is still counting it in their total hours. So know I ma getting alerts that they all have overtime but they actually don't because Homebase is not calculating hours correctly.
So there have been several little things (Bugs) that I have found every day since using Homebase. I contact customer support and they tell me that they will pass it on to their product team.
This may sound harsh but the product team really should have tested this software more before rolling it out. Makes me question all the reviews I am seeing on here. All the bugs have been on basic functions.

How easy it is to have staff clock in and out. I also love how easy it is to fix hours when staff forget to clock in or out.

When setting up schedules you can not just copy one employee from week to week.

I've used this for so long now it is hard to imagine what I'd do without it. We began using it as a simple time clock, and it has slowly become our go to for hiring, time tracking, time off, and employee messaging. If you have a mostly hourly workforce it is super simple to setup, and as your business grows it has helpful and intuitive tools to make your life easier. Their support in my experience can be a bit disorganized, but they always get the job done and are easy to work with.

Not as helpful for salaried employees as it is for hourly employees in my experience. The lower tiers lack some of the onboarding functionality and digital form filing I'd like it to have, but I think this may have been added recently.

I like that I am able to link all of my locations within one application. I can easily schedule someone for multiple sites and assign specific duties, send messages, approve or decline time-off, etc.

I do not like that I can't edit someone's information when they take ownership of their account. I have some that forget passwords and not update their personal information like phone numbers and email addresses.

I get to schedule employees and they get to see it on their phones, check schedules, ask for time off, trade shifts, and get reminded to come to work an hour before their shift starts! I can change timecards on the back end if I need to, see how many hours I have scheduled, and estimate what payroll will be. It's easy to clock in and out in the app and Homebase keeps up with the times for pertinent questions to ask when they clock in.

Trying to shedule a shift from the app will make the schedule go off. You put in one time and then it changes it 2 hours for some reason, not a big deal, it usually schedule from my laptop anyway.

I love all the features of homebase. I have used several different scheduling products and homebase is by far the best! The scheduling, the ability to mass upload, the time clock, the time sheets, the reporting, the messaging! All of it is above and beyond anything I have ever used before! I would recommend this to anyone and everyone!

Only that I am not yet in a position to pay for the reporting features! I can't wait to use those!!

I like that schedules are showing in tables that is very organized.

I hope there is a way to put in the hours I need covered by a certain department and it will show if I have holes in the schedule. There is also no way put in bonuses, it is showing I can put tips but I would like to be able to put specific bonus type.

Asking for time off is simple for my employees, the message option is convenient.

Homebase since the beginning is constantly lagging. Whether it be to load pages, send or receive messages, especially sending images. Whether I am using the url on a desktop, or the app on my iPad or iPhone, it is extremely slow. I get message notifications long before the messages actually show up. It is like this for all my employee's that use the app.

The iPad version is difficult to use, it is as big as the size of a small phone screen, I don't understand why the app can't take up the entire screen of the iPad, like every other app I use on my iPad.

I don't know if this is an option, but for my restaurant in particular, as I'm sure is the case with many establishments that use your app, we have several different departments. I'd for one like to be able to only see my FOH employee's on the schedule, and have a separate for BOH.

It would also be convenient to not just limit the amount of employee's that can request off for a specific day, but to be able to limit by department. For example, to be able to say, 3 servers, 2 bussers, and 1 hostess is the limit for any particular day, rather than only being able to say 3 employee's in general is the max. I hope I explained that in a way it makes sense.

Additionally, working in a restaurant that is open nights and weekends, your support hours are not reasonable at all. There has been numerous times we've needed support and you have been closed, so we are just hopeless.

What I like most about Homebase is that it doesn't break the bank to put in a virtual timeclock system. It integrates with Quickbooks online and it is easy to use.

1. It does allow for a little customization, but not advanced enough for the way I run payroll.
2. It does not send separate regular hours and overtime hours to QBO.

We decided to go for Homebase because it mostly resembled what i was doing in as spreadsheet before. The timeclock is rather solid, we have set up a dedicated tablet to clock in and out. This is the main reason i got homebase for my team - so that they would have a schedule and be able to clock in and out. Also nice is the fact that custom national holidays can be setup and automatically be shown in the schedule. The Homebase team has over the years implemented a few nifty features to save me time as an admin.

Next is checking timesheets and correcting them when it comes to payroll - however this is where we stop with using homebase. We don't use any other features.

We don't utilize the payroll feature at all - everything can only be set in dollars. Overall, the software feels like it is made for the US market - not internationally. I have feature requested over a year ago that custom currencies should be implemented and even the way time is displayed (24h instead of am-pm). To no avail. Even from their content marketing strategy it is clear that Homebase is only focusing on the US market, with no interesting content for me as a hotelier on the other side of the world.

It is also sad to see that they have recently started adding a lot of fluff to their product like hiring, instead of making the core experience easier and faster to use. The new timesheets section looks nice, but i am 5 times faster with the old one (which could be faster still). I would love to see much more emphasis on a fast and easy to use product, with lots of features to get my work done quicker. Homebase is a classic example of software which gets better the less i have to use it. I would like to see the product move in this direction.

My team was using spreadsheets to schedule and to complete payroll before Homebase. What a manual nightmare. There were always so many mistakes and issues. Once we moved to Homebase, it instantly made things better.

My contractors were able to see their schedules instantly and at any time they needed it. The reminders an hour before their schedule help them to be on time for their shift. So we have fewer tardies. They can also check their payroll amount at any time during the month instead of having to wait until the end of the month when I am able to calculate it. They have also made schedule swaps easy.

It has helped my person who does the scheduling tremendously. It has helped her to be able to get our schedule done in a much faster and efficient way.

It has helped me complete payroll in a fast, easy effective way.

There are sometimes glitches, especially with the app. They are overall minor but can be a pain. For example, sometimes when there is a swap made on the app, it will show a notification, but when you go into the app it doesn't show the swap. Good thing we keep up with them in a chat or we would have no idea who was trying to swap.

Also, it is mostly geared towards companies with employees, this could be great if there could be modifications for people who have contractors and do not have to abide by the same restrictions, such as 8-hour shifts, working days consecutively, etc.

Pros:
*Free option
*Customizable - we're able to use it for employees to log in and out of the different unscheduled departments/roles they do within a scheduled shift. Makes it easy to track manhours and payroll by department when the people working in each department changes throughout each day.
*The app
*Easy to use
*Great additional features like job posting and document storage/sharing, PTO tracking

Cons:
*Getting the PTO tracking to work for us has been a long wait.
*Employees experience a lot of glitches of punches not going through.
*Takes forever to enter a schedule in the separate "available" and "actual" schedules. I would like to take a posted availability schedule and just make it be their working schedule with one click. Scheduling takes a bit of time, but isn't hard.

Homebase has been the perfect time clock system for our business. It was easy to configure and with the entire system web based I can monitor our staffing when I am off site. We use a wall mounted iPad to clock in and out which was less expensive than many physical time clocks.

My staff has enjoyed having access to their Homebase dashboard where they can easily review their punches/total hours.

One of the best features is the ability to specifically define your pay periods. Many systems only offer weekly, biweekly, or monthly with no customization of dates. Homebase allows complete customization for when you would like you pay periods to start and end.

I have also used their hiring tool. It is by far and away the easiest tool I have used to publicly post to multiple job sites at once. It is very straight forward and has been a great resource in helping us in our hiring.

I don't have any cons. It is a quality product and the team at Homebase has been quick to respond to any issues we have had.

First off......It is free for basic features. I love that it has an app for phone and tablet use. It is very intuitive and easy to learn. Staff can track their time and their salary. I could make a huge list here, but basically it is the software we needed, but now we can't live without it.

Some of the features are a little on the expensive side when purchasing plans, but mostly because of our exchange rate.

I love that the employees can request time off or switch/trade shifts from their phone and I can instantly deny or approve the request. I love the ease of pulling the time sheets, and reading the time sheets. I love the access to be able to edit employees time on a daily or weekly basis. Employees can be horrible for clocking in early unauthorized, not clocking out to walk down the street to the store, etc. This app makes it simple to edit this carelessness from employees without even having to sit them down and talk to them about clocking in and out. Its kind of like, Okay, you want to take 20 mins to walk down to dollar general and you have already taken your lunch previous, oh and you didn't clock out. Well let me fix that mistake for you. The system tracks tardies, which is awesome, bc after 90 days, anyone who has been tardy more than 20% of their shifts, only gets offered a part time position within the company. This system gives us accurate data to show the employees at their 90 day evaluation, and the data can't be disputed bc it is tracked based on their clock in and clock out times.

I don't like the fact that there is not room for multiple clock outs under the edit mode. If we do not clock out for an extra break, there is no where to add it. I always have to add the time employees are gone to their lunch break. It give a false interpretation and false data when we pull data from this system for evaluations. I really wish you would update this to add columns for extra breaks, and reasons for the breaks. Also, I wish you would add a column to give explanation for employees that clock in late, miss a scheduled day, or clock out early. This system does not even track early clock outs, just late clock ins. We often find that employees will leave early to take care of things, and sometimes it can become repetitous. I would like to be able to track the data.

I really value the integration with Square POS that allows me to use the analytical tools within Homebase. It's really helpful for me to be able to see my labor estimates and even the weather (coffee is largely dependent on weather). I value the real-time feedback on my labor costs as well. I also appreciate the flexibility of the timecard programming that allows the real world to happen and for callouts to not totally disrupt my timecards. We LOVE your integration with Gusto that makes my payroll incredibly easy. I came into this position expecting to drop your platform for hotschedules, but I've stuck with it because you integrate really well.

I am currently having problems with your Square POS integration and it's causing me to not enjoy the best parts of your program. Unfortunately your technical support is so backlogged that I get calls late at night when I can't access the program to make a fix.

I love how you can do the schedule out as far as in advance as possible but no one sees it until you post it. We have used other softwares that we would have to do a spreadsheet first and couldn't enter anything into the system until we were ready for anyone to see the shifts.

I would say the only thing I don't like is that we have trouble with the clock in system at one of our locations. Which is weird because it works perfectly fine at our other 3 locations. It doesn't register clock-ins a lot of times so my employees have to text me to clock them in.
I have reached out support about this several times in the past and they just say to delete the app and then reinstall. It works great for about a day and then acts up again.

Everything. For starters, it's very user friendly. I also love the scheduling, time sheet integration, PTO, chat/messaging, integration w/ Clover is HUGE. Having the COVID checklist when clocking in is also a great addition.

Homebase has some small glitches or bugs here and there but we look past that. For instance, although it's been a month or two now that I've heard an employee speak about this, Homebase does not always give you a notification when you receive a chat message.

This is a very simple to use software and it is very easy to train our store managers to use it. It also gives visibility to All team members who is scheduled and for what shift.

It is really the best scheduling software. I do not have anything negative to day about it. The only thing that I wish it has, is the ability to have another layer of management report view that would allow my General manager to see that exclude those reports reserved for me as the owner. Current levels are "owner/general mgr", "store manager" and "user". It would be nice to separate "owner" reports from "general manager" reports.

It is nice to choose the apps that will work for your type of business. We are a sports bar, and it was perfect for us. It feels so good to not have a bunch of added items you dont use on your POS!!!

It seems to slow up at times, but it resolves quickly.
I don't like that we purchased a tablet and that will be outdated so it no longer is supported or provided updates. The tablet is convenient, easy to use and we use it for training new staff!

Homebase is extremely easy to set up employee time clock which happens to be free if your business has a single location and with a single location you may set it up for unlimited employees. For a small business owner where every dollar and cent matters, it’s a no brainer. A business owner may assign or allow the employee to set up their clock in and out code. Also, it may be set to take a photo of the employee during the clock in and out sessions to help or eliminate other employees from clocking in and out for them. Homebase offers an iPad, iPhone and an android app. You may also use your device's browser. We downloaded the app, installed it on an iPad for our employees to clock in and out on. The administrator has 100% access via web browser login. There’s also a feature which allows employees to clock in and out in the field which would geo-tag the location of the clocking activities.

Not a lot a negative things to say. This software is best if you have multiple employees who may have a staggered schedule. Example: an employee opens, then you have a mid day shift, then a closer. You also have many employees that may be out in the field. geo-tag is not the best choice for a single entrepreneur who’s trying to track their time, set up easier ways to do so.

We have a few off-site jobs, not another location - but we are a food truck. So our shifts, timing, and dates and regularity change ALL the time. Homebase allows you to create and manipulate shifts, their names, times, etc. A lot of other platforms do now have as much customization available. AND its easy to create and change templates, as well as create and change schedules from a computer, phone, or ipad.

I wish we had options for printing, so that we could manipulate the format a little bit more. But its still quite strong. Also, sometimes the communication between our POS and Homebase has issues. Not too often, but it would be so, so nice if they spoke to each other and updated more smoothly.