10 Best Employee Scheduling Software For Small Business (2023)

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. 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, internal quiz tools, and an organizational directory and linked org chart. They also have features to support task management, including descriptive tasks lists with the ability to add sub-tasks and attachments.

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.

Pricing for Connecteam starts at a flat rate of $39/month. They also offer a free 14-day trial. A freemium plan with limited features is also available too.

Justworks is an all-inclusive HR software that offers employee time management solutions to help businesses efficiently track and manage employee work hours. With its user-friendly interface and robust features, Justworks can simplify the process of scheduling and tracking time, making it a valuable tool for businesses of all sizes.

The software offers an intuitive interface, which makes it easy for employers to create and manage employee shift schedules, track time, and review time logs and locations. The platform offers a range of features to streamline time tracking and ensure accurate record-keeping of employee data. It caters to the needs of businesses across different industries and sizes, providing flexibility, scalability, and the comfort of 24/7 support from a team of HR experts.

Features include comprehensive time tracking capabilities, allowing employers to accurately record and monitor employee work hours. It provides various methods for time entry, such as manual input, digital clock-in/out, and integration with compatible time clocks. This feature enables employers to track employee attendance, calculate overtime, and generate accurate payroll reports.

The platform also sends notifications and reminders to employers and employees on the mobile and desktop apps, ensuring everyone is informed about time logs, time-off requests, or geo-changes. Users can also sync Justworks' scheduling data with Google Calendar, enabling users to track time off, payroll, and holidays.

Integrations include Google Calendar, QuickBooks, Greenhouse, Xero, Slack, Vanguard, Fidelity, Citi Bike, and E-Verify.

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.

monday.com’s flexible Work OS system makes it easy for users to organize and track any process through their customized data dashboards. Their system comes with 200+ templates, including a weekly work schedule template, that can be adapted to your business needs. All of their data dashboards can also be visualized in a variety of formats with just one click, including a calendar view or Gantt chart format.

Monday.com is a straightforward and low-cost way to streamline your scheduling process. You can even include automation to notify your staff as soon as a new schedule is posted. Another helpful feature is the ability to share the schedule in “read-only” mode, so you can ensure no alterations are made. You can also search schedules for unique details or employee names, add customized labels, or break schedules down into as many groups and subgroups as you need.

To further enhance your planning processes, monday integrates with a wide range of other communication and productivity tools including Excel, Google Calendar, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Outlook, Zapier, and others.

Pricing for monday.com starts at $8 user/month. They also offer a 14-day free trial, as well as a free forever plan with limited features for a maximum of two users.

eResource Scheduler is an employee scheduling software that can be used to plan, allocate, and manage resources both human and otherwise. Companies can assign resources to projects and tasks based on the type of resource, availability, and custom fields they can configure in the software. This helps maximize how people, time, and tools are used at a small business.

Drag-and-drop scheduling allows managers to move people from one task to another and get an overview of time off and everyone's workloads. Schedules can be saved and adjusted as needed, reducing manual errors and staffing issues. Employees can track their attendance and time using the software's timesheets, and past data can be used for predictive insights for more effective and proactive scheduling.

The software also has reporting tools that provide insights into under and over utilized resources and other key performance metrics. Planned vs. actual reports give an overview of the reality of the time, people, and budgets necessary for various projects.

Paid plans start from $5/resource/month, and a 14-day free trial is available.

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.

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.

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 per user with an option for 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.