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All-in-one HR platform · v2.0
14-day free trial · No credit cardhello@HrMagix.com
All-in-one HR platform · v2.0
14-day free trial · No credit cardhello@HrMagix.com
Three ways of running HR, compared on the structural properties that decide how each behaves, not on feature counts. Spreadsheets win a row outright and are the right answer for a small team; the comparison says so, because one that found against them everywhere would not be a comparison.
No product is named here but ours. We have not evaluated other vendors’ software, so we do not score it. What follows compares approaches, and every claim about an approach is one you can test against your own setup rather than take on trust.
Ten properties. Each is explained underneath, in the same order.
| Property | Spreadsheets | Point tools | Integrated HRMS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where the employee record lives | WeakIn several files, none authoritative | DependsOnce per tool, synchronised by export | StrongOnce, read by every workflow |
| How attendance reaches payroll | WeakManual reconciliation each month | DependsA monthly file, prepared under deadline | StrongIt is already an input |
| Statutory calculation | WeakFormulas maintained by hand | DependsHandled, if the wage base arrives correctly | StrongDerived from the structure on the record |
| Cost of adding an employee | DependsA row, plus every other sheet | WeakCreated in each tool separately | StrongCreated once |
| Answering a question about a past date | WeakThe file has been edited in place | DependsPer tool, if each retained history | StrongOne history, effective-dated |
| Employee self-service | WeakEvery request is a person | DependsSeveral logins, several places | StrongOne login, own record |
| Reporting across domains | WeakCollation, then reconciliation | WeakExports that disagree by timing | StrongA read on live data |
| Setup effort and immediate cost | StrongNone, it already exists | DependsPer tool, and they accumulate | DependsOne configuration exercise |
| Fit for a very small team | StrongEntirely adequate under about ten | DependsOften more tool than the problem | DependsWorth it once statute applies |
| Behaviour when you become two entities | WeakThe file set doubles | DependsDepends entirely on the tool | StrongEntity is a field on the record |
This is the property everything else follows from. With spreadsheets there is no single record, there is a joining sheet, a leave tracker and a payroll file, and each is authoritative for its own purpose until they disagree.
Point tools improve on this by giving each domain a proper system, but the employee now exists three times. Keeping the copies in step becomes a monthly task, and the export is where errors enter.
An integrated HRMS holds one record that attendance, leave, payroll and performance all read from. Nothing is re-keyed because there is nowhere to re-key it to.
Paid days decide the salary, the provident fund wage and in some cases the ESI contribution, so the handover from attendance to payroll is the highest-consequence data movement in the month.
It is also the one done under the most time pressure, in the same week the run has to close. That combination is why it is the most common source of payroll error regardless of company size.
A payroll tool can compute EPF, ESI and TDS perfectly well on its own. What it cannot do is verify the wage base it was given, and the wage base is where these calculations actually go wrong.
In a spreadsheet the risk is different in kind: the formula is correct until somebody copies a row, and nothing announces that it has stopped being correct.
This is the row where point tools do worst and it is worth being explicit about why: each system needs the person, and the person is only onboarded when the slowest of them has them.
It is also the row that grows fastest. The work per joiner is constant, so it grows exactly in step with hiring.
An inspection, a dispute or a diligence exercise asks what the position was on a specific date, not what it is now. That is a different question, and only a system that records when a change took effect can answer it.
A spreadsheet edited in place cannot answer it at all, not because the data is gone, but because the file only knows its current state.
Most of what an HR team is asked in a week is a request for access to information the company already holds about the person asking: a payslip, a balance, a Form 16, a salary certificate.
Splitting those across several portals technically provides self-service and practically does not, because the employee has to know which system holds what.
The questions leadership asks tend to cross domains: overtime cost against attrition risk in the same department, payroll variance attributable to joiners versus revisions.
Those are straightforward when both figures come from one record and hard when they arrive as two exports taken at different moments.
This is the row where spreadsheets win, and it is why almost every company starts there. There is no procurement, no configuration and no licence.
It is a real advantage for a real period. The question is not whether spreadsheets are wrong in principle, it is when the cost of the reconciliation exceeds the cost of the system.
Below roughly ten people, with no statutory registrations and everyone visible to everyone, a spreadsheet is not a compromise. It is the proportionate answer.
What changes the calculation is not headcount as such but the arrival of obligations with dates attached: professional tax registration, ESI coverage, provident fund. Those do not care how small you are.
A second legal entity brings its own provident fund code, its own professional tax registrations and its own returns, while people continue to move between the two.
The property that matters is whether a transfer preserves continuity of service. Recreating somebody in a second system means that, on paper, they started again, and gratuity eligibility and leave accrual both count from the original date of joining.
Most companies describe themselves as one thing and operate as another. Four questions settle it faster than an audit.
Count the places their details have to be entered before their first payslip is correct. One is an integrated system. Three or four is a point-tool estate, whatever the licences say.
If the answer is a named person in the last week of the month, that reconciliation is the system, and it is being performed by someone who could be doing something else.
Specifically: what was this person’s salary structure, reporting line and leave balance on a named date. If the true answer is “whatever the file says now”, the records are not effective-dated, and a diligence exercise will find that out before you do.
If the answer involves asking a person, the self-service exists in name only. This is the cheapest of the four questions to fix and the one that most reliably indicates how the rest of the estate is arranged.
Under about ten people, with no statutory registrations yet and everyone visible to everyone, the reconciliation cost is lower than the cost of running a system. Move when obligations with fixed dates arrive, not because a spreadsheet is embarrassing.
The published rates are on the pricing page and the trial includes every module, so the comparison above can be checked rather than accepted. Bring the awkward month.
Whichever system you choose, the reasons companies abandon one are remarkably consistent, and the stated reason is rarely the real one.
Real cause: The system was never fully set up, so its value was never experienced.
What prevents it: Get to the first live payroll quickly; cost is judged against value delivered.
Real cause: It was configured by one person, alone, without guidance.
What prevents it: Plan setup with the vendor, and work through it in order.
Real cause: Sometimes true, often the feature exists and was never found.
What prevents it: Ask the vendor directly before deciding it is missing.
Real cause: Only one administrator ever knew how it worked.
What prevents it: Name at least two administrators from the start.
Real cause: Employees never adopted self-service, so HR kept doing it by hand.
What prevents it: Plan the self-service launch, with managers on board.
Real cause: Nobody noticed the account had stopped being used.
What prevents it: Check usage in the first months, not at renewal.
No. It compares three approaches, spreadsheets, point tools and an integrated HRMS, and names no product other than HRMagix, because other vendors' software has not been evaluated.
Under about ten people, with no statutory registrations yet and everyone visible to everyone, a spreadsheet is the proportionate answer. Move when obligations with fixed dates arrive.
The employee exists once per tool, so keeping copies in step becomes a monthly export task, and the export is where errors enter. Adding an employee means creating them in each tool separately.
Paid days decide the salary, the PF wage and sometimes the ESI contribution, and the handover happens under the most time pressure, making it the most common source of payroll error.
Inspections, disputes and diligence ask what the position was on a specific date. Only a system that records when a change took effect can answer that; a spreadsheet edited in place cannot.
In an integrated HRMS the entity is a field on the record, so transfers preserve continuity. Recreating someone in a second system can make them appear to start again, affecting gratuity and leave accrual.
Count how many places a new joiner's details must be entered, ask who reconciles attendance to payroll and when, and ask for a past date's position rather than a past file.
Usually because setup was never completed, one person configured it alone, only one administrator knew it, or employees never adopted self-service.
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