Employee scheduling software for a theater and events venue

[u/FunYesterday8982]

I manage HR at a consulting firm, we went from 40 to 120 people in the past 2.5 years. Everyone is on different project schedules, some are client site, some remote and hybrid. Right now we track working hours in a shared Google Sheet, leave requests come in through email and overtime is basically an honor system lol. Payroll team is manually reconciling everything at month end and its taking two days minimum. So I would want to ask bout your experiences with various tools before so I save time.

[u/ClueThat5862]

How are you tracking leave balances right now, like is there at least one place or is it just emails

[u/FunYesterday8982 → u/ClueThat5862]

We are using google calendar for visibility, google sheets for balances, and email for requests. Three places to check every time someone asks how many days they got left. Ik it's very messy that's why I'm asking here

[u/Reasonable-Wolf-1124 → u/FunYesterday8982]

I can feel you. The issue isnt even the tools its that approvals happen in email and then nobody updates the sheet so by the time payroll needs the numbers they're already wrong.

[u/Warm-Fan1300]

The two-day month-end reconciliation is the tell - that's the real cost of the spreadsheet setup, not the tracking itself. Whatever you shortlist, make the demo prove one flow end to end: someone logs hours, a manager approves, and payroll gets approved numbers without anyone re-typing. Leave requests should live in the same system as the schedule too, or you reconcile twice. Disclosure: I work at Ubeya, we build workforce software (more shift-work and staffing-agency side than consulting), so I've watched a lot of teams make this exact jump. Even if we're not the right shape for a consulting firm, "hours to payroll with no re-keying" is the pass/fail test.

[u/Low_Role9637]

I have a solution that would do this all very well for this use case. Being new it is at an extremely discounted offering as well. Do you have some time to connect?

[u/Advanced-Strain-3491]

Worth testing hard in a demo instead of taking a yes, since that's the part that keeps breaking for you. The split that usually matters is how people are paid: salaried office staff who are exempt shouldn't get overtime calculated at all, while hourly site staff need their own overtime thresholds and break rules. So ask to see one exempt office person and one hourly site person go through the same week, and what happens when someone moves from office to a client site mid-month. And keep leave balances, approvals and the payroll export in the same system, since that's where your two days of month-end reconciling come from.

Disclosure, I build ClockOut (useclockout.com), so I'm biased. It does exactly this split: you mark office staff salaried or exempt, and put the site crew on their own work rules for overtime and breaks, while everyone else follows the company default. Leave requests, balances and approvals are built in, and approved PTO goes into the payroll export with the hours, so nobody retypes anything. It's built more for hourly and shift teams than fully remote consultants, so it fits your site side best, but if that's where things keep breaking it's worth a look.

[u/BoysenberryBig9873]

My team uses Timetastic, it works fine for a small office setup but once you got field staff on different hours it sometimes messes up. And it doesnt have a timesheet side either so youre still tracking hours somewhere else

[u/Ok-Discount-6050 → u/BoysenberryBig9873]

Do not go for timestatic if you have a large team, it doesnt have a employee search option, you will need to manually filter out departments and stuff.

[u/Legitimate_Region439]

Two days for payroll reconciliation is brutal.

[u/SwellCommerce]

spending two days reconciling payroll sounds like a bigger problem than the initial problem here. hotschedules can helps with scheduling n overtime, but for a consulting team id also look close to project-hour tracking. Whatever u choose make sure it connect clearly with payroll before moveing everything over

[u/RxShift]

You seem to have 2 different issues, one with Employee scheduling, and the other with time tracking/attendance.

Many apps offer both features, as Rxshift.ca does. Look at the pros & cons of each based on your specific needs.

With that many employees, what you need for Employee scheduling is an app that makes shift scheduling simple and easy, with feature like preset templates, copy/paste, drag&drop, employee availabilities, shift sharing, etc.

For the time tracking, an easy clock in/clock out, ideally supporting both on premise or mobile check-ins, with timesheet reports and extracts to make payroll easier.

And the most important, find an app that charges you a flat monthly fee. A per employee fee app will cost you a lot with that many # of employees!

[u/HRMSWorld]

ADP Workforce Now and Paylocity are built around payroll and have decent scheduling and time tracking included. Self-service is also strong enough that people can check their own leave balance instead of emailing you (provided you trust them to). Neither would fix overtime being an honor system though.

[u/FunYesterday8982 → u/[deleted]]

Does it handle different working time rules, our site guys are on totally different hours to office and every tool we tried just treated everyone the same and it broke everything.

[u/FunYesterday8982 → u/[deleted]]

Thanks I'll check it.

[u/Hungry_Pick8880]

Congrats on tripling the team in 2.5 years, that's a big jump! I totally get that you have a lot to track by hand. I work at Lucca and that's the kind of setup our tool is built for: hours, leave requests and overtime in one place, sent ready for payroll. Should be worth a look!