30 Best Employee Scheduling Software For Small Businesses In 2024

Connecteam’s scheduling software is simple to use and scalable, so you can add more features when you need them. It supports drag-and-drop scheduling, as well as features like repeating shifts, flags for periods of unavailability, and a warning so workers won’t exceed their weekly overtime cap.

To ensure employees perform their jobs accurately, managers can also attach additional information to shift assignments such as location details, photos, forms, or checklists. Another useful feature is the ability to define specific qualifications needed per shift, such as specific safety training or other certifications or skills. This helps managers ensure they're only assigning qualified employees to a specific shift per compliance requirements.

To help with shift scheduling, employees submit their availability through the Connecteam app, making it easier for managers to create schedules that work for everyone, providing a better employee experience. The platform also allows employees to claim open shifts, make simple shift swaps themselves, or reject a shift if they aren’t able to attend it.

Beyond their scheduling features, Connecteam also offers communication and engagement tools such as team and company-wide chat channels, links to digital forms and knowledge repositories, a mobile-friendly organizational directory, and a news feed for internal company updates. Managers can also track which employees have read key updates, and send push notifications to any employees that missed it.

Connecteam also supports task management, including descriptive task lists with the ability to add sub-tasks and attachments to further clarify tasks. And they recently added an auto-scheduling feature, which automatically aligns with availability and time off, provides equal shift distribution among all employees, and assigns jobs based on qualifications for proper staffing

Available on mobile, desktop, or as a kiosk app for tablets, Connecteam was built for deskless and remote teams. It’s a popular choice in many industries including retail, restaurants, manufacturing, construction, field services, and healthcare.

Integrations include Paychex, Xero, Gusto, QuickBooks Payroll (online + desktop), Zapier, Google Calendar, API access, and others.

The Homebase team scheduling software is mainly used by small businesses such as small stores, beauty salons or fitness facilities, and other service providers. The platform provides an exhaustive set of features that let you run your HR tasks from start to finish, including hiring and onboarding, scheduling, time tracking, team communication, and more.

Homebase allows you to create work rosters easily from schedule templates, and then make changes on the fly as required. You can build smart work schedules and forecast your labor costs.

Employees can always get their up-to-date work schedule using the free mobile apps, or they can get the information via text or email. Homebase’s scheduler automatically calculates overtime, subtracts breaks, and alerts you to schedule conflicts.

You can also integrate your sales data and forecasts, so you can build your schedule around your labor targets.

Homebase has a free plan you can use with an unlimited number of employees but fewer advanced features. This replaces a free trial. Their paid plans start at $20/month/location.

TimeClock Plus is a time tracking and attendance software that covers everything from time tracking to leave management and employee scheduling. It has powerful features that will help your small business work efficiently and smoothly.

And what better way to help a small business than with templates that you can quickly use. These templates support a wide range of pre-configured rotations, including 24/48, 48/96, Panama rotation, and California rotation. The views available in this tool will help you see your resources, the shifts they have been assigned, and if there is over or under-allocation at different times throughout the day.

This tool is great at giving employees freedom when working their shifts. The platform is designed to allow users to offer their shifts to others, pick up available shifts, swap with teammates and view upcoming shifts without any managerial intervention. Additionally, users can set their weeks or weekdays to availability presets like preferred, available, or unavailable.

Finally, if you are worried about payments - don't. The system integrates with over a hundred payroll solutions, including ADP, BAI, Ascentis, Accra, Casamba, Cayenne, Ceridian, and Epicure. Also Quickbooks, Paychex, or even payroll modules from ERP systems like SAP, Sage, and NetSuite.

Calendly is a free scheduling software for small businesses that helps you manage your staff schedule. The software is both mobile (iOS and Android) and browser-based, meaning you can book appointments anywhere you have access to the internet. With Calendly, you can create a calendar and share it with clients. You can customize your availability to any time-of-day or day-of-the-week (or remove available slots to show that you are a busy person!).

Overall, Calendly is simple to use and implement with no feature bloating. With the free version, you can schedule unlimited one-on-one appointments. The pro plan comes with additional features like appointment reminders. Customer support for the pro plan is available via email.

Calendly integrates with Gmail, Zoom, Slack, Salesforce, Microsoft Teams, HubSpot, Paypal, Intercom, Stripe, GoToMeeting, Google Analytics, Mailchimp, Active Campaign, Drip, ClickSend SMS, Twilio, and dozens of other apps. You can also integrate with hundreds more tools using a paid plan through Zapier.

Calendly is free to use for 1 calendar. Paid plans cost from $10/seat/month and come with a 14-day free trial. They also offer a freemium plan with limited features too.

ClockShark is an employee scheduling software with timesheets and time tracking for field services and construction businesses. Employees can clock in and clock out from their smartphones and all job costing data is recorded within the app so you can access it for simple payroll and invoice processing. You have multiple options for employees to access ClockShark: by web browser, mobile app, or even a ClockShark 'kiosk' using a tablet device. You can leverage facial recognition tools and individual PINs to ensure the utmost security no matter how you choose to access the software. 

Crew management is simple with ClockShark's work scheduling calendar. You can create and assign shifts, color-code entries, and drag-and-drop items to make changes quickly. Notifications will prompt affected parties in real-time if their shift is altered in any way (canceled, shortened, swapped, etc.). ClockShark also has GPS and geofencing capabilities baked in so you can see where and when people are checking in.

Overall, ClockShark is a must-have employee scheduling software for field service or construction businesses to streamline their timesheet-to-payroll workflows.

ClockShark integrates with QuickBooks, Sage 100 Contractor, Xero, ADP, Paychex, and other apps.

ClockShark costs from $7/user/month plus a $16/month base fee. They also offer a 14-day free trial.

Zoho People is a cloud-based scheduling solution. It includes time tracking and project management tools. It’s easy to use with customizable dashboards and drag-and-drop functionality. It automates and simplifies all the tedious and repetitive HR tasks that can bog down a small business owner. The product allows you to streamline the hiring process from a single location.

You can collect and consolidate attendance data from multiple sources and cut down mistakes due to manual entries. You have the ability to fully customize schedules, conduct leave management by leave types, and create timesheets with ease. There is also a feature for employee queries that can be used to better integrate employees with the project at hand. The product has automated mail alerts and intelligent workflow configuration built-in. The product integrates with AdobeSign, Zapier, QuickBooks, and more. Support is by email and chat. There is also an extensive knowledge base available.

Zoho People costs from $1.25/user/month and comes with a 30-day free trial.

Hubstaff is a time tracker that allows you to see how many hours your employees are working. It also lets you keep a track of how much of your time is spent on various projects. All this data is analyzed through reports on Hubstaff’s dashboard. This product is best suited for small business owners with its pocket-friendly pricing.

Hubstaff also includes screenshots and activity levels. It tracks employees’ time spent on projects, tasks, and meetings, thus letting managers see where time lags are happening in real-time. Hubstaff integrates with QuickBooks, Xero, and payroll software like ADP and Gusto. Support is available via email, chat, and a quick start guide.

Pricing starts at $7 per month for their basic plan and comes with a 14-day free trial.

When I Work is a software that helps small business owners stay on top of their schedule. It has a wide variety of features, such as a calendar to track your appointments and a task list for managing your to-dos. There is a press-to-start time clock integrated that allows you to manage your team members and track their hours. The employees can easily collaborate on shift trades, manage their availability, and also submit time-off requests. The dashboard is simple and tailor-made for quick actions. You can also customize the dashboard according to your needs.

When I Work has an option for easy bulk upload of the company directory for quick onboarding. You can send messages to employees with reminders and updates. When I Work works out of the box with Calendly, Acuity Scheduling, TSheets, and more. Support is available via email and chat. There is also an extensive knowledge base with training videos and templates to support the onboarding journey.

Paid plans start at $2.50 per user with an option for a 14-day free trial.

Skedulo is a cloud-based software with modules for scheduling and dispatching, shift management, communication including virtual meetings, and reporting. Their smart optimization engine can automate schedule building by comparing shift requirements to employee availability, required skill sets or job qualifications, and even travel time.

Skedulo lets you add recurring or unique events in a simple calendar interface. The calendar also gives you the ability to view by project, client, or project type. You can also set up an alarm for a specific time. Skedulo integrates with Quickbooks, Xero, and other major accounting providers. It also integrates with Google Drive and DropBox. Support is available via email and chat.

Skedulo offers customized pricing upon request.

EZClocker is a scheduling and employee time tracking software that allows small business owners to manage staff. The product has several features designed to simplify the day-to-day operations of a small business owner. The system features time tracking with GPS-enabled location verification.

Employees can easily clock in from their phone while business owners can verify their clock-in location with the help of the GPS location feature. The interface is simple and straightforward. EZClocker integrates with Google Calendar, Google Sheets, and Trello.

Pricing starts at $10 per user per month and comes with a 30-day free trial.