Number of fields per employee-more the fields better and more powerful will be your HRIS

More than 350 fields for query purposes making Employee related decision making process quite fast . Thereby savings lots of money also

Less than 220 fields so if you want to add more fields, it will push up customization costs. HRIS is thus at least 50% less effective compared to HRMantra.

Does the software have an inbuilt report designer?

Yes provided free of cost

Mostly No. You might have to purchase a 3rd party report designer like Seagate crystal report ( which costs Rs 3.50 lakhs)

Is the HR & Payroll software completely web based?

Yes thereby giving tremendous benefits and cost benefits. Thus there is no headache on client PCs. No reloading of exes when the package is updated

Payroll module is not web based limiting the usability of the software

Is the software available on  a monthly pay per use basis from an ISO 27001 datacenter?

Yes reducing your cost of I T setup to virtually zero giving you peace of mind since you do not have to worry about backup and viruses and it can be used 24*7*365. You also do not have to worry about power cutoffs in your head office  affecting the software usage across the country-so business continuity is assured

Not available

Can you send SMS from the software to your employees?

Yes vastly improving reporting times thereby reducing time required for business decisions

No

Can you do instant chatting with employees who are online

Yes thereby reducing the cost of communication

Mostly not available

Are the workflows email driven

Yes. For e.g. a user receives an email in his inbox and in case ofleave approval required there is a hyperlink in the body of that email-so when the user clicks on that link, it will direct him to the HRMantra login page and after he gives the user name and password, he will be automatically taken to the leave approval page.

No

How easy is it to go to your desired form?

You are able to reach your form within 2 clicks -a dream for any web based software. Of course you can also click on your commonly used forms from the main page using favorites link

It takes a lot of time to find the form going through a series of menus, sub menus and tabs

Is the vendor comfortable in adding features and is it added in the same software for all the clients ?

HRMantra willingly accepts requests to add features since it makes the client's work that much more automated. New features asked by a client are added in the same software which are then given to the existing clients thereby giving more value for money-it is like paying for a maruti and over a period of time exchanging it for a Mercedes

They prefer to dish out what is available in the existing package and do not encourage more features. New features if at all agreed to be added are done separately for each client i.e. it is customized. So if the different client wishes to add some feature which they have already developed for a different client and since each such installation is a customized one, you will have to  keep paying the vendor for every small new feature-so your meter is always on.

Simplicity and accuracy of import and export of processed and unprocessed data in batch mode

Yes. Templates cannot be manipulated by the branches and data gets collected in a very organized manner in a user friendly excel interface

Not up to the mark

Is the Employee / Manager   self service available from just 1 main page

Yes thereby making the task of approvals quite fast without bothering to go into multiple pages

Not user friendly. One has to go in multiple pages for approvals.

Security features

Over 20 important features making your system quite secure including a powerful audit trail

Quite less features making your sensitive employee data vulnerable and easily poachable

Formula builders

Very simple to use & quite in depth and capable of handling any kind of complicated  conditions

Very complex to use

Leave rules depth

Global leave structure with over 45 conditions with the help of  formula builder also

Very limited leave conditions can only be set ( less than 50 % of HRMantra's depth)

Does it have a workflow administrator

Yes to be able to configure any type of work flow with auto timed escalations

Mostly not available

Rules setting based on employee groups. Rules setting remapping is easy?

Grouping can be done on 13 activities like payroll, leave, attendance, salary etc. Remapping can be done in seconds

grouping can be done only in fewer modules like payroll and leave. Mapping is rigid

Is the appraisal system fully present? (360 degree / KRA's / Competencies / TCD / BSC etc) and is entirely flexible?

Yes. any system of performance evaluation is possible

The depth is not there

Does the appraisal module have options of giving scientific ratings to the total competency group / individual / final and overall basis?

Yes

No

TDS calculation

Accurate and easy to do with proper FRV calculation

Not up to the mark and handled with  difficulty

Leave accounting year

You have the flexibility of setting it differently for different employees for every leave type

You cannot set it upto individual employee level

Number of free reports provided

200 editable reports. Users can change reports themselves without extra cost.

100 reports. If  you want changes in the reports you will have to tell them to change and they will charge you extra for the same

Org charts based on direct & indirect reporting as also on employee reporting to. Plus tree structure also -all based on queries

Available. Dual reporting also possible.

Either not available at all or if available it is not  in  depth

All statutory reports and challans of PF, ESIC, Income tax available with E-TDS integration?

All available and fully integrated with e-TDS

A lot of such statutory forms not available and clients will have to do the e-TDS integration

Number of options that are given per HOP

There are over 20 options per pay head e.g. whether HRA is to be included in arrears, increments, FFS, FCP, CTC etc

Quite limited options available limiting your flexibility

Late / Early / OT calculation

Quite in-depth rules

Sketchy

PF Trust, superannuation and gratuity management

Available

Mostly not available

Flexible Pay changeable by employees online

Yes

Mostly not available

Can payroll processing be done from many locations using a centralized database server ?

Yes since payroll module is fully integrated and fully web based and locationwise employees payroll can be done

Not possible increasing the headaches of collating processed data from different regions. It also results in many errors due to manual entries and even simple headcount reports may not tally as distributed databases are created by different people and are updated at different times. Such data is always discounted by the top management and they have to always factor in some errors in their MIS projections due to such issues.

Is there a maker checker facility?

Yes thereby reducing data entry job of the HRD

Mostly missing which increases a lot of HR mundane workload

Claim management

Very complicated issues of exempted and carry forwardable claim heads based on monthly & yearly calculations can be easily done

Cannot handle complicated cases

Can it handle complicated Increment & Union agreement calculations?

Yes. Slab wise increment available

Mostly not available

Claim  management depth

One can create a basket of reimbursement heads and can pay off in any of the pay head in any month with bill entry provision to be split across multiple months

Mostly not available

Salary processing steps

In very easy 3 steps as it is highly automated

Quite rigid spread across many steps with lots of manual data entries

Full & final settlement

Accurate, in-depth, fully automated and online

Not up to the mark and offline.

Can a list of employees be automatically assigned to a user for e.g. can a head of a dept see only his subordinates data?

This facility is available and is very critical

Mostly not available

Escalation in workflows

Present in appraisals, OD, leave, claims, training, investment, FCP, staffing etc based on auto timers

Present in lesser modules

Is succession planning module available?

Yes using the color band theory

Mostly not available

Does the staffing module have comparison of salaries with existing employees and salary fitments?

Yes

Mostly not available

My task, opinion poll, suggestion box, contacts, jokes, home page message, discussion board etc

Yes-handled from the main portal page

Mostly not available

Date triggers on the main portal page?

Over 15 different types of date triggers like birthday / wedding anniversary / retirement / confirmation dates etc

Very limited triggers if at all

Customized thoughts of the day and other events greeting cards available

Yes we have specially developed 100s of thoughts of the day and greeting cards keeping in mind the HR department

Mostly not available

Does it have detailed project management module

Yes

Mostly No

Is Income Tax Estimation affected by Govt Budgets?

Not at all. It is fully parameterized

Yes

Are all the salary recoveries & adjustment in payroll automatic or has to be done manually module wise?

Fully automated increasing the speed of payroll processing, saving your time and money and removing errors caused due to manual data entries.

You have to do all the adjustments manually increasing your drudgery

Can arrears payment be done in salary or outside the salary?

Yes both methods possible

Thru salary only

Can you work on multiple accounting years 

Yes you can keep shifting between different accounting years in a same window. A user can also work on multiple accounting years at a time

No. You can see only 1 year's data at a time.

Masters based on date of effect?

Yes

Mostly not available

Are workflow steps easy to follow

Yes very easy steps on the menu as also explained fully in the package

Workflow is very difficult to understand

Amount of work spent in developing the software

Over 200 man years giving us a strong domain expertise

Quite less

VRS scheme

Available and fully parameterized

Mostly not available

Method of attendance reading

Any method of attendance can be captured including online attendance

Lesser methods available

Is 31 hour day concept available?

Yes

Mostly not available

Induction module designer

Available and fully parameterized

Mostly not available

Can leave encashment be done on an online basis?

Yes

Mostly not available

Can arrears calculations be done on an online basis?

Yes

Mostly not available

Any kind of HR Psychometric tests available?

Yes. 3 readymade tests available ( ego state scale, role efficacy test and climate survey test). More tests can be added by the client

Mostly not available

Is the sales team management module linked with the HR software

Yes we have developed a powerful sales & travel management software integrated with HR

Most do not sales software

Is the vendor developing complete ERP Software to reduce your total cost of operations

Yes we have started working on accounts, finance & inventory management modules

Most have no such plans

Context sensitive help on every page with detailed transaction steps  explained in the manual

Yes

Help not up to the mark

Does it have the facility of an intranet mail server

Yes. You can avoid the cost of purchasing a third party mail servers in an intranet environment which is not connected to the internet

Mostly missing

Can it pick up attendance data from a swipe card system automatically on realtime online basis from all locations?

Yes giving you instant analysis as to who has come at what time.

Not possible increasing the headaches of collating attendance data from different regions.

Skin Editor to change the look and feel of the package

Available and is very user friendly

Rigid

Interface with other ERP / CRM / accounting software's possible

Interface with an accounting software is done by creating a JV file. Interface with any ERP / CRM software's can be done by exporting data in an XML format

Lots of such features not possible

Candidate data import from jobsites like naukri.com, monster.com, timesjobs.com

Yes and from any other such jobsites as well giving you a great bang for money

Mostly not possible

Dashboards in every module with easy to configure layouts

Quite powerful with graphical reports helping in instant decision making

Mostly not present

Employees can themselves fill up the attendance record and submit to their HOD for approval

Very much possible

Mostly not present

Has the vendor also developed a sales CRM software

Yes HRMantra has a very userfriendly and powerful sales CRM software with enquiries linked to your website

Mostly not present

Still looking for differences?….why even think of a  half baked solution from others having dangerous limitations. Keep yourself secured by buying a fully web based, scalable and fully parametrised world class HRMantra software which gives you savings over 10 times it cost. You are going to be buying such an HR software just once for your company across the country and thus it is very critical that you opt for the most comprehensive and user friendly HR, Payroll and administration management software. If you do not want to opt for modules like payroll or sales immediately you can do so as it is modular in nature-you cal always add such modules later on if required. In case you buy a featureless HR software, you will not be able to tell the management later on, that you took such a HR software  just to save couple of lakhs of rupees because the management will expect the entire HR & Payroll department automation for faster decision making. 

Outsource all your HR & Payroll software requirements to HRMantra and  your HR department focus on transformation activities like increasing employee morale, solving employee grievances to reduce attrition, employer brand building, introducing tranperancy to fasten business decision making and satisfying your internal clients-your employees-which are one of the 3 most important stakeholders of your firm for its growth. So why become a guinea pig buying featureless packages. Be right the first time by buying HRMantra and get peace of mind.