The honest comparison
HumanR vs the workbook
Excel got your operation this far — ours too. This page isn't a takedown of the workbook; it's a workflow-by-workflow account of where a system starts paying for itself, and an honest section about when Excel is still the right call.
| The job | In the workbook | In HumanR |
|---|---|---|
| Payday | Rebuilt by hand every month; last month's numbers overwritten forever | A run generated in minutes — packages, overtime, loans and holds included — with every month kept |
| Permit & document expiries | Checked by eye, when someone remembers to look | Dashboards turn amber and red weeks ahead; nothing expires silently |
| Who is on which site today | Last week's roster, probably — and no way to reconstruct last March | A live deployment board, reconstructable for any past date |
| Overtime | Claimed from remote sites on trust, argued over at every payday | Punches stream in from biometric terminals; rules do the math |
| Approvals | A WhatsApp thread and somebody's memory | Routed by role or reporting line, every decision permanently recorded |
| History & audit | Whatever state the last person left the file in | A full audit trail — who changed what, and when, across the system |
| Many hands, one truth | One workbook, one editor at a time, versions quietly forking | Everyone works in the same system, seeing exactly what their role allows |
And the switch itself? We handle the migration as part of initial setup — your workbook is imported for you, not retyped. <Link href="/sw/case-studies" className="font-medium text-blue-700 dark:text-blue-400 hover:underline">Read how our own 26-sheet workbook made the trip →</Link>
When Excel is honestly enough
We moved our own operation out of a workbook, so we'll say plainly what most vendors won't: sometimes the workbook is the right tool.
- A few dozen staff on a single site, all hired locally
- No work permits, visas or contracts with hard expiry dates to track
- One person owns the whole process end to end — and isn't drowning
If that's you, keep the workbook. Genuinely. Bookmark this page for the month one of those three stops being true.
The three signs the workbook is done
- Payday takes days, and the first question every month is "which copy is current?"
- An expiry — a permit, a visa, a contract — caught you out after the fact
- There are sheets nobody dares touch because only one person understands them
Two out of three? The demo takes minutes and uses realistic data — see what the other side of the migration looks like before you decide anything.
Keep every Excel reflex, lose the workbook
Filter, sort, export — HumanR keeps the habits your team already has, on top of data that can't silently drift. Demo access in minutes.
Hakuna kadi ya mkopo. Hakuna simu ya mauzo. Akaunti halisi ya kuingia, inayotumwa kwa barua pepe.