Choosing HR software when you are too big for a spreadsheet and too small for an enterprise suite
HR software for small firms is a crowded category with an unusual property: almost all of it is good, and most of it solves a problem you do not have. Below five hundred people the work is not performance frameworks and succession planning. It is leave that has a balance, attendance that survives site work, letters that take five minutes instead of two days, and payroll that agrees with all three.
01Leave with a real balance and a recorded approver
02Attendance for people who are not at a desk
03Offer, experience and warning letters generated from the record
04A disciplinary and performance history that exists before it is needed
05Payroll that comes off the roster rather than a re-typed spreadsheet
06Onboarding and exit that survive the person who normally does them being away
The two-rosters problem
The most common failure is not choosing badly — it is choosing a good HR platform that becomes a second roster. Operations knows who is on site; HR knows who is employed; payroll knows who to pay; and the three disagree at the edges, which is exactly where new joiners, leavers and transfers live. Whatever you buy, decide first which system owns the roster.
Attendance is where site businesses break
Office attendance is a solved problem. Attendance for people on sites, without company email addresses, on personal phones, in bad light, is not — and it is the requirement most demos quietly skip. Test it with an actual site worker before you sign anything.
Where Ofivio fits, and where it does not
Ofivio People includes the roster, leave and attendance in every product for free, because everything else in the system needs to know who works here; payroll and the document trail are the paid part. It is the right answer if labour cost has to reach the project. It is the wrong answer if you need statutory e-filing we do not support, an applicant tracking system, or a full HRIS with compensation modelling — and in those cases one of the categories above is the better buy. See HR and payroll.
The categories that actually exist
Categories rather than a ranked list of vendors: a category is still true next year, and a ranked list with prices is wrong within a quarter. Named products are examples of the category, not endorsements, and we quote nobody else’s pricing because it changes without notice.
Spreadsheets and a shared drive
Excel, Google Sheets, a folder of Word templates
Optimises for
Free, flexible, and genuinely sufficient below about ten people
Where it stops
No balance is authoritative, no approval is recorded, and reconstructing dates for a letter takes an afternoon
Fits
Firms under ten people with low turnover
Dedicated HR platforms
The standalone HR and people platforms sold to SMEs
Optimises for
Deep on the HR job itself — onboarding, engagement, performance, document management
Where it stops
An island. The roster they hold is not the roster your operational software or payroll uses, so it gets maintained twice
Fits
Office-based firms where HR is a real function with its own owner
Payroll-first providers
Payroll bureaux and payroll software with HR modules attached
Optimises for
Payroll and statutory compliance done properly, which is the part with legal consequences
Where it stops
HR features are usually thin, and project cost allocation is rarely there at all
Fits
Firms whose main risk is getting payroll and filing right
Business systems with HR inside
Ofivio, and ERPs with an HR module
Optimises for
One roster the whole business reads — payroll can post cost to projects, because the roster already knows who was on what
Where it stops
Less deep than a dedicated HR platform on engagement, surveys and performance frameworks
Fits
Project businesses where labour cost has to reach the project P&L
Who this is not for
If you are on this list, Ofivio is the wrong purchase and we would rather you know now than in month three.
×Firms under about five employees
×Recruitment-led businesses needing applicant tracking as the core product
×Companies requiring statutory payroll filing in a jurisdiction we do not support
×Enterprises needing succession planning and compensation modelling
Usually not for HR's sake. You need it when leave disputes start happening, or when someone asks for a letter and it takes two days to produce.
Should HR and payroll be the same system?+
If labour is a major cost and moves between projects, yes — the alternative is maintaining the roster twice and reconciling the difference every month.
Is free HR software good enough?+
Free tiers are genuinely fine for a roster and leave. They stop being fine at payroll, letters and anything with a legal consequence.
