BerniePortal vs SumTotal

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Our analysts compared BerniePortal vs SumTotal based on data from our 400+ point analysis of HR Management Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

BerniePortal Software Tool
SumTotal Software Tool

Product Basics

BerniePortal is a cloud-based solution for all talent acquisition, onboarding and management related needs. It helps with applicant tracking, employee onboarding, benefits administration, PTO tracking, time and attendance, compliance, performance management, COBRA administration and 1095-C reporting.

Small and mid-sized enterprises can use it to optimize human resources, enhance employee experience and productivity, and spend time on essential tasks. It also provides payroll integration that enables employers to integrate with several payroll offerings and employee benefits data in payroll. A network of healthcare advisors and brokers nationwide are available for integration.
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SumTotal is a cloud-based HR Management software catering to mid-sized to large organizations. It packs a comprehensive suite of features covering talent acquisition, learning & development, workforce management, and performance management. Users praise its robust reporting & analytics, rich learning library, and mobile-friendly accessibility. However, the extensive customization options and powerful tools come with a steeper learning curve for administrators. Additionally, SumTotal's potential for high integration costs and higher price point compared to basic solutions make it less suitable for smaller companies. While some users struggle with complex content creation tools and limited instructor-led options, SumTotal shines in its ability to scale and adapt to dynamic needs, making it a strong contender for organizations seeking a feature-rich, customizable HR management platform, especially those with substantial training requirements and a dispersed workforce.

Pros
  • Comprehensive learning library
  • Robust reporting & analytics
  • Scalable for large organizations
  • Mobile-friendly learning
  • Customizable user experience
Cons
  • Steep learning curve for admins
  • Limited instructor-led options
  • Complex content creation tools
  • Potentially high integration costs
  • Pricey for smaller companies
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Small
Medium
Large
Small
Medium
Large
Windows
Mac
Linux
Android
Chromebook
Windows
Mac
Linux
Android
Chromebook
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile

Product Assistance

Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support

Product Insights

  • Less Paperwork: BerniePortal eliminates unnecessary paperwork by letting users access and manage the entire lifecycle of employees on a single portal. 
  • Streamlined Hiring Process: The software provides easy applicant organization throughout the hiring process. This enables users to focus on recruiting top talent and creating a better candidate experience. 
  • Easy Applicant Management: Hiring managers can manage the entire hiring process with ease via applicant tracking pipelines that let them track, filter, move and manage candidates. 
  • Collaborative Decisions: The solution allows users to share internal feedback that leads to better communication and improved collaboration during hiring decisions. 
  • Custom Hiring Stages: Hiring managers and influencers can customize all hiring stages for every job posting of applicants. As a result, applicants can remain informed about unique processes and the company can build a better brand image. 
  • 360-Degree Dashboard: Recruiters gain quick, easy access to all recruiting analytics from any place, anytime, including open jobs and applicant count at every hiring stage. 
  • Increased Visibility: The system centralizes open positions in a company with job board connectivity, making it easy for users to stay informed. It also lets users share feedback and tackle tasks across several channels. 
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  • Employee Retention: Provide tools for employee development, management and learning practices that encourage employee retention. 
  • Enhanced Productivity: Talent managers can continuously onboarding to speed up overall productivity. 
  • Organizational Stability: Learning-centered employee development builds an agile workforce that is adaptable to changing business environments. 
  • Learning Ecosystem: Invest in research and development on the latest learning trends, which managers can leverage to enhance employees' learning experience. 
  • Talent Engagement: Engage top talent while moving through the recruitment process, understand the workforce, identify the best talent and build a seamless experience for candidates as well as hiring teams. 
  • Enhanced Candidate Experience: Offer smartphone-optimized sites with intelligent and automated interview tools, candidate matching, and an easy-to-use mobile app interface. Keep applicants informed about upcoming interview details via a user dashboard. 
  • Accelerated Time-to-Performance: Seamless onboarding training helps new hires get up to speed quickly. Provide unique company policies and work culture for them to become familiar with the company. 
  • Smooth Role Switch: Access onboarding plans for new roles that include defined goals, new teams and KPI’s that ensure a more seamless transition to new responsibilities. 
  • Robust Manager and Admin Capabilities: Managers and administrators can easily view, schedule, filter, mark up and share reports from a mobile dashboard. Leverage reporting tools, advanced reports and dashboards at a single click. 
  • Informed Compensation Plans: Create smart, data-driven compensation plans according to preset or custom parameters. Real-time performance insights and budget modeling make compensation informed, fair and cost-effective. 
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  • Applicant Tracking: The feature enables hiring managers to access candidate information and email notifications, save time with pre-created templates, collaborate and more, from a single dashboard. 
  • Employee Onboarding: The intuitive platform enables seamless employee onboarding that helps save time, improves employee engagement and retention, and enhances team productivity. It offers automatic email reminders, e-signatures and intuitive self-service to accomplish this. 
  • Benefits Administration: It enables talent managers to attract quality applicants, as well as hire and retain productive employees. Hiring managers can make informed enrollment decisions regarding employee benefits, improve compliance, and perform custom payroll and enrollment reporting. 
  • PTO Tracking: Users can take action on leave requests and paid time off, make custom policies and receive company-wide visibility at a single click. 
  • Time and Attendance: Digital tracking of hours worked leads to improved timesheet accuracy. The feature offers detailed reporting, streamlined time edits and mobile as well as online time tracking. 
  • Compliance: The software helps drive human resource compliance by letting users access important notices, e-sign and compliance documents. They can check requests and reminders and create custom recipient lists. 
  • Performance Management: This feature facilitates enhanced employee engagement. Managers can handle performance related tasks and promote improved employee performance through ongoing communication and feedback, through tools such as a two-way central messaging hub, real-time documentation and reporting. 
  • IRS Reporting: The application helps to generate 1095-C and 1094-C forms to file with the IRS. Users can also import and export data with improved operational accuracy. 
  • Integrations: Major payroll systems and insurance providers offer seamless and efficient integration with the platform at little or no expense. 
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  • Talent Development: Provides combined functionality of talent onboarding, talent management and learning management solutions to cater to talent development requirements. 
  • Talent Acquisition: Helps create a streamlined hiring cycle, hire the right talent, engage fresh recruits and drive productivity from day one. 
  • Learning Management:  
    •  Helps provide a customized, personalized and engaging learning experience tailored to the skill and competency of individuals rather than the whole team. 
    •  Ease of access on all devices, along with an offline mode, ensures seamless and consistent access to content and courses. 
  • Talent Management: Personalized and intuitive tools help employees pursue career growth and development. Capabilities include performance management, 360-degree feedback, succession planning and compensation management. 
  • Performance Management: Provides comprehensive feedback and tools that make feedback actionable, constructive and insightful. Measures workforce productivity, progress and priorities in real time. 
  • Succession Planning: Enables talent managers to identify and assess skill gaps, build agile talent pools, and align employee success with business goals and objectives. 
  • Compensation Management: Simplifies and streamline compensation plans, and helps build competitive packages to attract and retain top recruits. Workflow automation and compensation management tools aid compliance with complex global policies. 
  • Workforce Management: Bundled payroll, benefits and expense management minimize time, cost and efforts while maximizing accuracy. Features include automated scheduling, time and attendance, absence management, and compliance. 
  • Applicant Tracking System: Includes real-time alerts and notifications for offer approvals, a unique dashboard and reports widgets, customizable requisitions, and a consolidated requisition workspace. 
  • Mobility: Provides access to tools and reporting capabilities at all times and from any location. The dashboard can be operated using a tablet, desktop, mobile app or a phone browser. 
  • Growth Edition: Caters to the needs of fast-growing small and medium-sized businesses. Includes webinars, instructor-led training, approvals, and additional learning resources that users can access and configure anytime. 
  • Extended Enterprise: Helps build a brand image, accelerate growth and drive new sources of potential revenue. Facilitates an enriched and optimized learning experience for distributors, partners and customers. 
  • Gamified and Collaborative Learning: Helps: 
    •  Assess and accelerate learning with gamification capabilities that include leaderboards, points, levels and badges. 
    •  Enhance employee engagement by identifying and rewarding the right learning behaviors. 
    •  Enrich the knowledge of new hires with collaborative learning, up-to-date content, feedback and social ratings. 
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Product Ranking

#151

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HR Management Software

#23

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HR Management Software

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User Sentiment Summary

Great User Sentiment 264 reviews
Fair User Sentiment 132 reviews
86%
of users recommend this product

BerniePortal has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 86% when considering 264 user reviews from 4 recognized software review sites.

69%
of users recommend this product

SumTotal has a 'fair' User Satisfaction Rating of 69% when considering 132 user reviews from 4 recognized software review sites.

3.2 (5)
3.2 (39)
4.3 (125)
2.7 (7)
4.3 (132)
n/a
n/a
4.0 (56)
4.5 (2)
2.9 (30)

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Streamlined Onboarding: BerniePortal makes it easy for new hires to complete paperwork online before their start date, eliminating the need for manual forms and ensuring a smooth transition into the company.
Centralized PTO Tracking: Employees can easily view their PTO balances, submit time-off requests, and managers can approve requests, all within a unified system.
User-Friendly Interface: BerniePortal is designed with an intuitive layout, making it easy for both HR professionals and employees to navigate and access the features they need.
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Robust Tools: All reviews on this feature suggest that SumTotal provides a robust set of talent development and management, payroll, and workforce management solutions.
Effective Tracking: According to 80% of reviews on tracking, the software optimizes talent management by tracking development and career growth.
Self-Service: Managers and employees can access and complete training courses at their convenience, according to all reviews on self-service.
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Manual Data Entry: While BerniePortal collects data, it may require manual entry on the benefit provider's side, potentially causing delays and negating efficiency gains.
Limited Mobile App Functionality: The mobile app has limitations, such as restricted sick day entry and integration issues with other portals, hindering accessibility and convenience.
Integration Challenges: BerniePortal may face limitations in integrating with certain insurance carriers, potentially causing inconvenience and requiring workarounds.
Reporting Limitations: Users have reported difficulties with reporting functions, citing a lack of filters, limited sorting options, and unhelpful formats, making it challenging to extract meaningful insights.
Lack of Passive Enrollment: The absence of passive enrollment features can increase administrative burden, especially for larger employers with frequent enrollment needs.
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Outdated Course Content: About 70% of reviews on course content reported that some modules aren’t frequently updated, resulting in an outdated learning experience.
Non-Intuitive Functions: Most features and functions aren’t intuitive, making it difficult to navigate, according to all reviews on this aspect.
Access to Reports: Accessing and pulling reports is extremely tedious and slow, according to 100% of reviews on reporting.
Customer Service: All reviews on customer support suggest that customer service is very slow and unresponsive.
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User reviews from the past year paint a generally positive picture of BerniePortal, particularly for small and mid-sized businesses. Users rave about its user-friendly interface, with one reviewer stating, "The program is very simple to use and easy to navigate." This ease of use is a key differentiator for BerniePortal, as many competing HR software solutions are often criticized for being clunky and cumbersome. Another strength highlighted by users is BerniePortal's comprehensive suite of features, covering everything from applicant tracking and onboarding to payroll and benefits administration. This all-in-one approach simplifies HR management for businesses and eliminates the need for multiple software solutions. However, some users have reported limitations with the mobile app's functionality and occasional difficulties integrating with other platforms. While BerniePortal excels in many areas, it's essential to acknowledge these drawbacks. Overall, BerniePortal appears to be a good fit for small and mid-sized businesses looking for an intuitive and feature-rich HR software solution that streamlines HR processes without breaking the bank.

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SumTotal users paint a mixed picture, praising its robust functionality and mobile accessibility while critiquing its clunky interface and steep learning curve. Many laud its comprehensive suite, encompassing everything from onboarding to performance management, finding it a one-stop shop for HR needs. One user gushes, "It's like having a whole HR department in the cloud!" However, ease of use seems to be a major sticking point. Comments like "The interface feels outdated and unintuitive" and "Learning curve is a mountain, not a hill" pop up frequently. This is often contrasted with praise for competitors like Workday, lauded for its sleek design and user-friendliness. One user sums it up: "SumTotal has the depth, Workday has the polish." Mobile accessibility shines as a bright spot, with users appreciating the ability to manage tasks on the go. This stands out compared to some competitors, making SumTotal a good fit for companies with a mobile workforce. Ultimately, SumTotal seems to be a powerful tool for organizations willing to invest the time and effort in mastering its complexities. As one user puts it, "It's not perfect, but it's incredibly versatile. If you can handle the initial climb, the view from the top is pretty good."

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