HRMS guides
HRMS Buying Checklist & Comparison Scorecard
Most HRMS buying decisions are made from three demos, each of which was excellent, followed by a spreadsheet built at the last minute. This is the requirements list to work through before the first demo, and a scorecard with three empty columns to fill in afterwards — while you can still remember which one did what.
Who it is for
- Founders and HR managers evaluating HR software for the first time
- Anyone who has been asked to compare three vendors and report back
- Operations or finance leads signing off the spend
- Teams replacing a system that did not work out
What it helps with
- Decide what you need before a demo tells you what to want
- Ask the questions vendors are not volunteering
- Compare three vendors on the same criteria rather than on impressions
- Get the commercial and exit terms straight before signing
How to use the scorecard
Two passes. Do the first one before you speak to anybody.
Mark your must-haves first, alone
Go down the requirement list and tick only what you genuinely cannot run without. Do this before any demo — after one, everything looks essential.Cut the must-haves down
If more than about twenty rows are must-haves, they are not must-haves. A long list stops discriminating between vendors, which is the entire job of the list.Score each vendor out of 2
2 = does this properly today. 1 = partly, or on the roadmap. 0 = no. Roadmap is a 1, never a 2, however convincing the demo was.Score during the demo, not after
Memory of three demos merges within about a week, and the most recent one wins for reasons that have nothing to do with fit.Fail anyone missing a must-have
Before comparing totals. A high total with a missing must-have is a system you will be working around every month.Then compare the totals
And take a reference call with a company of your size before signing anything.
The requirements
Tick the must-have column as you go, then score three vendors out of 2 in the blank columns. The downloadable spreadsheet has the same rows with room to type.
| Requirement | Must have | Vendor 1 | Vendor 2 | Vendor 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core HR | ||||
| One employee record per person, with the fields you actually use | ||||
| Employee self-service: their own profile, documents and details | ||||
| Document storage against the employee, with access control | ||||
| Bulk import of your existing employee data | ||||
| Org chart and reporting lines that update when people move | ||||
| History — what a record used to say, and when it changed | ||||
| Attendance and leave | ||||
| Attendance capture that fits how your people actually work | ||||
| Shifts, week-offs and holiday calendars, per location if you need it | ||||
| Leave types with your own accrual, carry-forward and lapse rules | ||||
| Employees can see their own balance without asking | ||||
| Approval workflows with a named approver and a fallback | ||||
| Regularisation for missed punches, with an audit trail | ||||
| A monthly close that can be locked | ||||
| Recruitment | ||||
| Job openings with a defined stage pipeline | ||||
| Candidate tracking, with status visible without asking | ||||
| Interview scheduling and feedback captured against the candidate | ||||
| Offer tracking through to acceptance | ||||
| A path from accepted candidate into an employee record without retyping | ||||
| Performance | ||||
| Goals recorded against an employee and visible to their manager | ||||
| Review cycles you can run on your own schedule | ||||
| Feedback captured and retrievable later | ||||
| Probation and confirmation tracking with dates | ||||
| Payroll interface | ||||
| Attendance, leave and LOP available as clean payroll inputs | ||||
| Salary structures and revision history with effective dates | ||||
| Works with your payroll provider, or replaces it — be clear which you are buying | ||||
| Payslip access for employees | ||||
| Statutory handling that your CA or provider has actually reviewed | ||||
| Reporting | ||||
| Headcount, joiners, leavers and attrition without building anything | ||||
| Attendance and leave reports for a chosen period | ||||
| People cost by team or location | ||||
| Export to CSV or Excel — every report, not just some | ||||
| Scheduled reports to the people who need them | ||||
| Technology and security | ||||
| Somebody non-technical can do everyday tasks unaided | ||||
| Works on a phone for the things employees do on a phone | ||||
| Role-based permissions with sensible defaults | ||||
| Salary and identity data encrypted at rest | ||||
| An audit trail of who changed what, and who looked | ||||
| Your data is in a region you are comfortable with | ||||
| Single sign-on, if you use it | ||||
| An API or integrations for whatever else you run | ||||
| A stated backup and recovery position | ||||
| Vendor and commercials | ||||
| Pricing you can predict twelve months out, including at your projected headcount | ||||
| What is included versus charged separately — modules, support, implementation | ||||
| Implementation: who does it, how long, and what it costs | ||||
| Data migration from your current spreadsheets, and who does the cleaning | ||||
| Training for HR and for employees | ||||
| Support hours, channels and a stated response time | ||||
| A written exit path: full data export, in a usable format, on demand | ||||
| Contract length, notice period and what happens to your data afterwards | ||||
| Reference customers of about your size and shape | ||||
Questions worth asking that vendors rarely volunteer
The last one is the most useful question on this page. A vendor who cannot name a failure either has not had one, which is unlikely, or is not going to be straight with you when you have one.
How to use it
- Fill in the must-have column on your own, before booking a single demo. What you need should not be defined by what you have just been shown.
- Take the spreadsheet into each demo and score as you go. Three demos blur together within a week.
- Score roadmap promises as 1, never 2, and note the date you were promised.
- Eliminate anyone missing a must-have before you look at the totals.
- Fill in the price rows at your current headcount and at double it. Per-employee pricing changes the ranking more often than the feature scores do.
Questions people ask
Three is the number this scorecard is built for and it is usually right. Two gives you no calibration; five means nobody finishes the evaluation and the decision gets made on whoever followed up most persistently.
No — keep it separate, which is why it sits in its own block at the bottom of the spreadsheet. Mixing price into a capability score hides the trade-off you are actually making.
That is a real result and usually means your must-have list is too long, or that what you need is a process rather than a product. Both are worth knowing before you spend money.
Where to go next
Flabido keeps the everyday HR work of a growing Indian company in one place — people records, leave, attendance, payroll inputs, hiring and letters. See what it does or ask for a free trial.