Guide / what BSimple covers
Looking for small business HR software? An honest answer
BSimple does not do HR or payroll — and we will not pretend otherwise. But if you run a product business, here is what BSimple does cover, and how it sits alongside your HR tools.
The straight answer first
If you searched for HR management software, you need tools for hiring, rosters, leave, timesheets and payroll. BSimple does none of those, and a page that pretended otherwise would waste your time. Dedicated HR platforms (and your accountant's payroll tool) are the right category for that.
What BSimple does run is the operational side of a product business: inventory, customer orders, purchasing, invoicing and a customer ordering portal — on one live record, with accounting handed off to Xero, MYOB or (rolling out) US accounting systems.
- 01The straight answer first
- 02Where HR software and BSimple overlap in real businesses
- 03What the two systems hand to each other
- 04How to choose, practically
Where HR software and BSimple overlap in real businesses
In a wholesale, manufacturing or trade business, staff touch the operational system every day, and that is where the two categories sit side by side:
- Staff access without passwords. Team members can work in BSimple through simple role-based access, with an audit trail of who did what — no shared logins.
- Ordering portals instead of phone orders. Regular customers order through their own link, which removes the "someone has to take the order" dependency on specific staff.
- Training that sticks. Because inventory, purchasing and invoicing follow one flow, new staff learn one system — not a spreadsheet plus three inboxes.
- Accountability you can evidence. Every transaction is recorded, so turnover in staff does not mean turnover in records.
What the two systems hand to each other
HR owns the people record; BSimple owns the product record. The handovers between them are small but real. Staff names and roles set up access in BSimple are managed by whoever administers the system — there is no sync from the HR platform. Hours worked never appear in BSimple at all: payroll time belongs in the HR tool, while the operations side shows only the actions themselves — orders approved, stock counted, invoices sent — each timestamped against the person who did them by the audit trail. Keeping that boundary clean stops the operations system turning into a second, worse HR database, and it is why the two categories sit alongside rather than against each other.
How to choose, practically
Run the two categories in parallel: an HR platform for people (contracts, rosters, leave, payroll compliance), and BSimple for product operations (stock, orders, purchasing, invoicing, customer portal). They solve different problems, and small product businesses typically need both once staff numbers grow past a handful.
If the operational side is the part hurting right now — oversold stock, re-keyed orders, unknown quantities — that is exactly what BSimple manages, and the free trial is the fastest way to see it on your own products. The free end of both categories gets the same audit treatment: free task management for small business and free employee management software — the full inventory system shows where this page sits in the whole.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does BSimple include payroll or rostering?
No. Payroll and rostering belong to your HR or payroll platform, and your accountant will usually have a preference. BSimple focuses on inventory, orders, purchasing and invoicing.
Can staff use BSimple?
Yes. Staff work in the system with role-based access, and every action is recorded. Customers can also order themselves through their own portal link, without staff involvement.
We are a small team — do we need both HR software and BSimple?
Eventually, most product businesses need both: HR for people compliance, BSimple for operational accuracy. The free trial is the low-commitment way to test whether the operational half is your current bottleneck — see what BSimple covers.
BSimple