Breathe (also known as Breathe HR/BreatheHR) is a UK HR platform, founded in 2012, for small and medium-sized businesses. It brings people records, leave, documents, performance, reporting and compliance into one place, replacing scattered spreadsheets and disconnected tools.
What's included
Core HR: secure central employee records and documents, holiday and leave requests, sickness and absence tracking, self-service, e-signatures, performance management (goals, feedback, one-to-ones, reviews), reporting and analytics.
Optional modules:
- e-Learning: training management, UK-specific courses, completion tracking
- Health and Safety: risk assessments, incident reports, certifications, compliance evidence
- Recruitment: hiring workflows, job ads, candidate tracking - Expenses: claims, receipts, manager approval, spend tracking
- Rota, Time and Attendance: shifts, availability, hours, attendance
In development: an AI Assistant answering HR and policy questions from company information. Payroll planned for late 2026.
Problems solved
- Scattered data → one accurate central record
- Chasing approvals → self-service, e-signatures, shared workflows
- Lean HR teams → start with Core HR, add modules as needs grow
Result: less duplicate entry and chasing, clearer visibility, more manager and employee involvement.
Who it's for
Best fit: UK SMEs with up to 200 employees moving HR off spreadsheets, e.g. start-ups, charities, healthcare, retail, education and professional services, especially with lean or shared HR roles.
Evaluate carefully: 200+ employees, or needs for multinational payroll, complex global compliance, extensive custom workflows or enterprise workforce planning. Not a global enterprise HCM suite.
Why Breathe
- 17,000+ businesses; 1,000+ UK HR consultancies
- From £24/month per organisation, no long-term contracts or hidden fees
- Free 14-day trial, no obligation
- UK-based support from setup onwards
- ISO 27001 and ISO 42001 accredited; GDPR-conscious; UK data centres, encryption, access controls
Bottom line: a flexible, self-service way for UK SMEs to organise HR and cut admin, with room to grow into recruitment, learning, safety, expenses, rotas and payroll (late 2026).
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Folks is a Canadian-owned HR platform built for SMBs, combining three seamlessly integrated products to help you hire, manage, and pay your team — all in one place. Trusted by 1,200+ Canadian organizations managing over 125,000 employee records.
With Folks HRIS, centralize employee records, onboarding, time tracking, absence management, and compliance — configured for Canadian employment standards across all provinces. Folks ATS streamlines recruitment with AI-powered candidate matching, job board integrations (Indeed, LinkedIn, Jobillico, Talent.com), and applicant tracking — built on the Glow Talents acquisition (2024). Folks Payroll handles CRA remittances, T4/RL-1 generation, ROE filing, CPP/QPP/CPP2, EI, multi-province tax calculations, WSIB/WCB, and direct deposit — no third-party payroll provider needed.
SOC 2 Type 2 certified. All data hosted in Canada. Fully bilingual (English/French). Plans start at $6/employee/month.
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Workex
Whether you have to track staff attendance, manage employee leaves, calculate staff salary, run payroll, maintain employee register, provide employee payslips or hire employees, you can do it all with the Workex HRMS app! Our advanced attendance & payroll HR software is intuitive and automated, leaving no dependencies on excel sheets, clunky attendance or payroll processes for the HR Managers. Workex HRMS app attendance manager solves for both manual attendance registers & biometric attendance through an attendance app that gives you accurate & verified staff attendance. With the HRMS app Attendance Manager, your employees will be able to mark attendance, request leaves, track salary, download payslip and check attendance history, overtime & payroll breakup. Automatic staff salary calculator (based on inputs of attendance, leaves, overtime etc).
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