3 Best TrackSmart Alternative Software

Time to freshen up your leave management solutions?

Today, we’ll present you with three best alternatives to TrackSmart: 

1. Vacation Tracker;
2. BambooHR;
3. Timetastic.

These work great to streamline PTO tracking, but nuances will ultimately decide which suits you best. 

Below you’ll find the best use cases for each tool, which integrations make them easy to incorporate into your current tool stack, and how well they scale to fit your organization’s size and needs.

#1 Vacation Tracker

• Pros: Generous and cost-effective Core plan

• Cons: Monthly minimums for Core ($25) and Complete ($75) plan

• Pricing: $1 per user/month for the Core plan; $3 per user/month for the Complete plan; automation add-ons cost $0.50 per user/month each

Vacation Tracker is a fully furnished and completely hassle-free leave management tool. We built Vacation Tracker to scale to any business size, with two plans that cover everything an HR might need to manage time off with ease:

• Core — Our essential plan contains extensive PTO and user management, 

• Complete — All Core features + leave accrual, hourly PTO tracking, shared calendar, team labels with filters, unlimited company configuration, report scheduling, priority support, and training. 

The Automation Toolkit lets you pick and fully customize automations, so they match the unique needs of your workplace. Each add-on costs $0.50 per user/month, and you can choose:

• Seniority Entitlements — Tenure-based leave benefits that award additional time off for employees that stick with you longer.

• Entitlements by Role — Role-based leave perks; much like Seniority Entitlements, you can give more days off to specific roles within the company.

• Blackout Periods — You can automatically restrict taking time off for certain periods when work gets busy, or enough staff members have already taken time off. Here’s what it looks like on the admin side:

Notable Features & Pros

With Vacation Tracker, convenience comes first, for both employees and admins/ managers.

These are the strongest Vacation Tracker features that amount to our 4.9/5 Captrerra rating:

• Every minute is accounted for — Vacation Tracker allows full-day, half-day, and hourly leave requests, in case employees need to make a quick run to the bank.

• Well-defined roles — Administrators are in charge, Approvers act on leave requests from their team members, and Users can access their leave information and request time off from their higher-ups with Approver roles.

• Expert-level reporting within a click or two —  It takes a couple of seconds to define, generate, and download specific PTO-related reports.

• Custom notifications — Daily, weekly, or at a moment’s notice: pick a cadence and specific triggers to let you know who’s requesting time off, when, and for how long.

• Location and department-specific leave policies for compliance — Vacation Tracker is used and loved worldwide! Create custom leave policies for each employee location and corresponding labor laws, and the system will automatically comply.

• PTO accrual automation — No manual calculations: choose accrual frequency, type, and date range, and Vacation Tracker will always return the precise number of employees’ accrued PTO.

• Brought Forward policies — Employees can transfer their PTO leftovers to the subsequent year, while you can set the maximum number of days they can transfer, and pick the expiration date by which they can use these days.

• App and Calendar Integrations — If you use Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Google Workplace, you don’t even need to open the dashboard: you can approve, deny, or request time off within. Vacation Tracker also integrates with external calendars such as iCal, Google Calendar, or Outlook, for a complete view.

There’s more to love — try Vacation Tracker for free and test the world of possibilities with our 7-day trial. 

Cons

Vacation Tracker has a minimum monthly price of $25 for the Core plan, and a $75 minimum for the Complete plan. This amounts to a 25-user count for both plans. The Complete plan also has notably richer customization options.

If you have a really small team (less than 25 staff members), you still need to pay the minimum price, making the pricing structure somewhat inflexible. 

#2 BambooHR

• Pros: Covers complete employee lifecycle, 300+ integrations

• Cons: Payroll&Benefits admin only for US-based companies; overwhelming amount of features if you only need PTO tracking; best features cost extra (add-ons and Pro plan) 

• Pricing: Custom for both plans; add-ons cost extra

BambooHR is a well-known, robust HRIS (Human Resources Information System) that covers everything staff-related, from hiring to employee departure. 

It is best suited for small to medium businesses and organizations, with two plans to match:

• Core — Good for small companies and has HR data and reporting, hiring, and onboarding features, loads of integrations, and customer support;

• Pro — Better for larger businesses; Core + performance management, employee experience and rewards, and employee community features.

Additional capabilities are available with separate add-ons for payroll, benefits administration, and time tracking.

Notable Features & Pros

BambooHR has vast possibilities and plenty of features that support the HRs, making the workload easier.

To source, hire, and onboard new staff members, BambooHR has:

• ATS (Applicant Tracking System);

• Mobile hiring app — Handy and streamlined version for quick access on the go, with chat;

• Electronic signatures — Eliminating paper hoards in favor of faster and more cost-effective digital solutions;

• Onboarding and offboarding automation — Set-ups and templates for fast and useful employee welcome and goodbyes: introductions, paperwork, checklists, and everything in between.

BambooHR has rich HR data collection and reporting capabilities. 

Neatly storing and organizing employee data eliminates the risk of double-entry. 

Self-service employee data entry eases the workload and simultaneously keeps the information secure.

You can build custom HR workflows and create efficient decision-making and approval processes. 

Time tracking works as a digital “punch-in” tool that lets employees track their work time, and managers approve timesheets. 

With PTO management tools, employees create a request, managers check the calendar, and approve the request; system notifications let both sides know about the changes instantly.

Cons

The tool itself is pretty easy to set up and use, but it has an initial learning curve users need to get through — a built-in walkthrough helps greatly with the first steps. 

The number of features and configurations, and all the data users have to manage may be overwhelming; as it turns out, you can have too much of the good thing. 

Although well-made, payroll and benefits administration features only work for US-based companies. You’ll need something else if you hire staff from other countries.

#3 Timetastic

• Pros: Generous, month-long free trial; lots of great reviews; supports global public holidays

• Cons: Very minimal essential plan 

• Pricing: $1.50 per user/month for Timetastic, $2.50 per user/month for Timetastic Pro

Timetastic is one of the leading apps for PTO tracking, with glowing reviews and a simplified tool that saves tons of time for HRs. You can choose one of these plans:

• Timetastic — Unlimited users and departments, PTO approvals and allowance record, shared calendar, mobile and desktop app - the essentials;

• Timetastic Pro — Essentials + burnout alerts, insights and reports, enhanced user profiles, integrations, and SSO.

Notable Features & Pros

Timetastic provides each user with a calendar view that displays spent days off, remaining PTO allowance, holidays, and other leave types. Similarly to Vacation Tracker, the Timetastic calendar can sync with a calendar of choice: Gmail, Outlook, and Apple.

On the other end, admins work with an interactive wall chart that displays different users and departments. 

Timetastic has good customization capabilities for:

• Departments — Group staff members, choose a person responsible for the team, and set the maximum absent number to prevent PTO clashes and understaffed locations.

• Leave types — Create a category for any leave type, from bereavement to seasonal, parental leave, and sabbaticals.

• Public holidays — Timetastic supports 3.000+ regions and their public holidays!

• Works schedule — The schedules account for daily breaks and display who’s on duty and when.

App and email notifications help the leave managers approve or reject time off requests ASAP.

Cons

The essential plan only contains the bare minimum and leaves it at that, not even SSO and integrations are available for non-pro users.

Overall, Timetastic is less advanced than Vacation Tracker and BambooHR, making it better for small teams with a simplified PTO structure.

Conclusion

Vacation Tracker and Timetastic support the modern, global workforce and offer everything you need regarding leave management. Both are wonderfully easy to use, fast to deploy, and have similar use cases and integrations. 

The biggest differences are in essential plans: ultimately, Vacation Tracker offers more features in total, advanced automation add-ons, and more precise customization. The essential plan also provides more for less. However, Timetastic has a longer free trial, Apple integration, and mobile apps for Android and iPhone — with more flexible pricing options, better for small businesses.

BambooHR is a better option for companies that hire exclusively in the US. It has an impressive array of features, making it suitable for businesses that need an entire HRIS, not just leave management. However, PTO management options and configurations pale in comparison to Vacation Tracker and Timetastic — as these are dedicated leave management tools, after all.

Anja Milovanovic

A journalist turned content writer – Anja uses her investigative skills to produce high-quality SaaS, Marketing, and HR content.