Branch vs Shiftbase

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Our analysts compared Branch vs Shiftbase based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Employee Scheduling Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Product Basics

The Branch app is a mobile-first solution that connects employees working on an hourly basis with enterprises. Employees can pick up available shifts within minutes rather than wasting valuable time in search of available shifts. Employees can earn more by working available shifts, collect advance paychecks and plan their finances.

It offers modules that bridge the communication gap between hourly workers and companies. Employees can find convenient shifts and can swap shifts in case of an emergency. Its seamless interface reduces absenteeism, saves time and cuts costs.
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Shiftbase is workforce management software that helps businesses with frontline workers manage employee schedules, track time, monitor attendance, handle time-off requests and maintain employee profiles. It offers a comprehensive set of features to streamline HR processes and optimize shift and task management.

Its scheduling feature helps you easily create, modify and share employee schedules. The platform supports shift templates, recurring shifts, drag-and-drop scheduling and flex teams for efficient workforce allocation. It also considers employee availability and absences to ensure optimal scheduling. Additionally, you can manage personnel costs, track wage costs and create schedules based on work hours or budgeted labor costs.

For time tracking and PTO management, Shiftbase can track worked hours, manage time-off requests and ensure compliance with labor regulations. Employees can view their schedules, request time off and track their hours through the mobile app. Also, managers can approve or deny time-off requests and monitor employee attendance.

The human resource management module includes tools for creating and managing employee profiles, storing important documents and managing employee communications. The software also offers compliance management tools to help businesses adhere to labor laws and regulations. This includes features for tracking overtime hours, managing minimum wage and Working Hours Act (ATW) compliance, and generating audit reports.

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$5 Monthly, Freemium
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Tailored to your specific needs
$3.50/Employee, Monthly
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Tailored to your specific needs
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Product Assistance

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Product Insights

  • Automatic Notifications: Sends notifications automatically to employees about new messages, upcoming shifts, shift approvals or rejections. Its chat feature facilitates messaging between employees without having to share personal information. 
  • Improves Workers’ Finances: Provides various budgeting tools that help employees enhance their financial health. Employees can instantly access earned wages to pay their bills, unexpected expenses or emergencies ahead of the payroll period of two weeks. 
  • Boosts Earnings: Helps employees enhance their shift coverage and boost their earnings by picking up more shifts. 
  • Reduces Absenteeism Up to 43%: Offers a flexible platform for hourly employees to swap their shifts when their availability changes. This feature simplifies the scheduling process for shift managers and reduces employee absenteeism by as much as 43%. 
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  • Start Scheduling For Free: The starter plan lets you manage up to 75 employees in one location across five teams for free. You can manage employee profiles, create schedules, assign tasks and set role-based permissions. Employees can also track time manually via the mobile app.
  • Streamline PTO Management: Shiftbase's time and attendance management tools, highly rated with a 91 score by our analysts, offer a streamlined PTO management process. Employees can easily request and track time off, while managers can efficiently approve or deny requests and monitor attendance. This not only reduces administrative burden but also ensures accurate payroll calculations and compliance with labor regulations.
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  • Self-Service Design: Offers a self-service platform to employees so that they can swap shifts as per their availability. This functionality eliminates administrative hassles and drastically reduces the time spent on scheduling. 
  • AI Chatbots: Designed with artificial intelligence chatbots to facilitate the onboarding of the staff, training, engagement and learning. 
  • Mobile Application: A native mobile application helps employees manage their shift coverage, earnings, leaves, overtime and attendance. 
  • Communication Tools: Offers numerous features that strengthen communications within businesses and boosts coordination. Shift managers can broadcast important updates and announcements to ensure everyone is informed, and important tasks are finished within deadlines. 
  • Reporting and Dashboards: Offers automated reporting tools and dashboards to report survey results in real time. Businesses can generate various customizable reports that can aid their improvement and help with employee performance reviews. 
  • Performance Benchmarking: Compare survey results with industry benchmarks and discover the areas that need improvement. It can be used to improve the performance of an employee or shake up things high up the ladder. 
  • Integrations: Seamlessly integrate with various third-party applications like Zapier, Box, Salesforce and SAP. Connect with the company’s external systems to complete team workflows. 
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  • Employee Scheduling: Create and publish work schedules with an overview of expected costs. Repeat standard shifts by dragging and dropping into upcoming schedules while building custom templates. Get employee availability reminders when creating schedules while sending automated shift reminders. Invite employees to pick open shifts.
  • Time Tracking: Prevent errors while recording employee work hours using an online time tracking module. Employees can clock in via mobile apps or desktops based on GPS locations. Copy work hours from timesheets to time registration automatically while saving manual effort and errors.
  • Absence Registration: Automate absence management processes while tracking vacation hours and employee leave requests. Employees can create leave requests while forwarding them automatically for supervisor approval. Get a real-time overview of accumulated vacation hours while entering balance hours for new employees.
  • Resource Management: Manage vacation balances, employment contracts, employee work hours and information from one place. Process employment contract modifications while calculating overtime hours accurately. Set employee birthday and anniversary notifications.
  • HRM: Build personnel files with employee notes, automatic leave accrual, contract reminders, notifications for anniversaries and birthdays, and automatic calculation of plus/minus hours. You can track employee competencies and certificates, monitor employee well-being through overtime and absence tracking, and receive alerts when documents expire.
  • Reporting: Get an accurate picture of worked, scheduled and approved employee working hours. Gain in-depth insights into labor costs compared to revenue, worked hours per department or a team and more. Generate customized exportable reports containing crucial operational data.
  • Mobile App: Manage workforce schedules, absences and availability on the go using Android and iOS apps. Monitor employee work hours while posting important announcements and messages from anywhere. Receive push notifications about timesheets and availability changes.
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Product Ranking

#85

among all
Employee Scheduling Software

#103

among all
Employee Scheduling Software

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Analyst Rating Summary

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Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

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Collaboration Employee Management Leave And Absence Management Mobile Capabilities Platform Capabilities Reporting And Analytics Schedule Management Security And Compliance Shift Management Time And Attendance Management 52 62 91 83 63 81 84 67 79 74 0 25 50 75 100
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User Sentiment Summary

Excellent User Sentiment 1616 reviews
Excellent User Sentiment 421 reviews
91%
of users recommend this product

Branch has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 91% when considering 1616 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

90%
of users recommend this product

Shiftbase has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 90% when considering 421 user reviews from 2 recognized software review sites.

4.5 (14)
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4.4 (219)
4.6 (225)
4.58 (679)
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4.6 (675)
4.4 (196)
3.9 (29)
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Awards

Branch stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award

Shiftbase stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Ease of Use: All users who referred to ease of use said that the system is straightforward, making it easy to learn, use and navigate.
Communication: Provides an easy way to communicate with teams and includes supervision for more efficient workflows, as noted by all reviewers who referred to communication.
Management: All users who specified management said it streamlines managing and tracking of schedules, shifts, finances and more.
Advance Paycheck: All users who mentioned advance paychecks liked the ability to take paycheck advances or loans when needed.
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Increased Flexibility: Users appreciate the ability to assign different roles and create flexible rosters, making the platform suitable for self-rostering and cross-team visibility. It offers color coding to differentiate users and tasks, improving visual clarity.
Ease of Use: The software is user-friendly and requires minimal training. It simplifies scheduling and time tracking, especially when compared to manual or Excel-based methods.
Time-Saving: Shiftbase significantly reduces the time spent on administrative tasks like calculating hours and scheduling, with users reporting substantial time savings.
Responsive Support and Help Resources: Users consistently highlight the excellent customer service for its quick responses and effective issue resolutions.
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Performance: All users who referred to performance said that the system can be slow, glitchy and also crash at times.
Integration: It doesn’t link with all banks or applications, as observed by 86% of users who mentioned linking.
Customer Support: All users who talked about customer support wished that support would be available online via 24/7 chat and phone.
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Lengthy Setup Process: Transitioning to Shiftbase from other systems requires a time investment. Users mention that setup can take two to three days, but the platform is highly efficient once it’s operational.
Challenging User Interface: While Shiftbase is functional, users mention that its presentation, particularly in areas like team rosters and part-time employee scheduling, could be more refined with color-coded visual representations.
Limited Advanced Features: The platform has limited functionalities, such as no custom fields, rigid reporting templates and a lack of customizable graphical representations for tracking specific tasks or plotting work hours.
Clocking Issues: The system doesn’t automatically log out employees based on their physical location. Users have complained about spending time manually adjusting or verifying clock-in and clock-out times when employees forget to log their hours properly.
Lack of Detailed Change Logs: There are no clear records of who removed or altered shifts, which limits accountability and tracking.
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Branch is a cloud-based solution for time and productivity tracking for companies managing multiple shifts. It provides the capability to monitor work hours, view schedules, assign tasks, plan shifts and communicate with employees. Provides visibility on employee availability both in real time and in the future to help managers plan resources and workflows. A self-service mobile app enables employees to track everyday schedules and budgets, message colleagues, take advance paychecks and earn more money by taking shifts that are available. Some reviewers mentioned that it doesn’t link with all the banks and applications, preventing them from using the cash advance feature. The system can be glitchy, slow and crash at times. Users wished that customer support would be made available online via 24/7 options, which would be more pragmatic and reliable.

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Shiftbase is a workforce management and scheduling platform that offers one of the best starter plans for free. You can start managing employee databases and schedule shifts of up to 75 employees in one location across five teams.In my experience, Shiftbase was easy to onboard if you’re not migrating from other scheduling platforms. However, the process is more cumbersome when you’re looking to migrate employee and scheduling data from an external platform. Unlike its competitors, Shiftbase cannot automatically set up your account using a CSV and Excel file containing your business data.One of the things I like most about Shiftbase is how easy it is to create flexible schedules, factoring in staff costs, revenue and budgets. Managers can track working hours through the website, mobile app or clock terminal. This gives insights into attendance and wage costs, allowing for better decision-making and optimized staffing. Additionally, it’s easy to manage employee leave and absences with Shiftbase, making it ideal for businesses with flexible or part-time staff.The platform can connect directly with payroll systems, reducing manual data entry and ensuring accurate, on-time payments. Shiftbase also offers basic reporting tools that help businesses understand budget allocation and staff work hours.Based on my experience and the feedback from other users, Shiftbase is a great option for businesses that need a simple and efficient way to manage their workforce. However, it lacks many advanced features that may be essential for larger enterprises with bigger teams. For example, it doesn't offer built-in AI for conflict alerts, seasonal demand analysis or workforce optimization based on seasonal trends.Overall, Shiftbase is a suitable choice for small to medium-sized businesses seeking a user-friendly and affordable workforce management solution. Its ease of use and focus on core scheduling and time-tracking features make it a good option for businesses with straightforward scheduling needs. However, larger enterprises with complex requirements, such as advanced analytics, AI-powered optimization or integration with multiple systems, might find Shiftbase's feature set limited.

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