No more administrative hassles for small businesses thanks to BuddeeHR

By Amy van de Wiel

Personnel matters are generally managed very well in large companies. There is enough budget as well as interest from outside parties to work on behalf of these companies. It is often a different case for small companies. The administration might made up of a single Excel sheet, or a lot of time is lost that could be spent more efficiently.

Rob Toonen himself once ran into similar problems. He founded BuddeeHR and now wants to become the collective portal in Europe for all HR matters. The start-up already has approximately 300 clients. In this instalment of Start-up of the day, Toonen tells us more about it.

What does BuddeeHR do exactly?

“We offer small businesses an all-in-one platform that allows them to put their personnel and payroll records in order. Such as personnel files, assessments, leave requests and absenteeism records. You can also prepare your payroll info for your payroll administrator to process or outsource it to the professional payroll administrators of BuddeeHR. Because we offer a combination of HR and payroll services, you only have to fill in your payroll info once for the payroll administration.”

“For employees, a portal and mobile app is available where they can view all the data themselves, such as their employment contract and pay slips, and modify them if necessary. They can also submit requests and claims there and upload documents themselves. What’s more, you can create, assign or automate tasks and receive reminders. And you’ll receive automated reports, which give you insight into the number of overtime hours you’ve worked, for one thing.”

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What can we expect from BuddeeHR in the short term?

“When it comes to privacy laws, it is considered very safe to use as few different platforms as possible. So we are busy working on building even more connections so that we can deliver even greater value. For example, we want to start offering fringe benefits next year to employees, so you can get a gym membership or a company bicycle, for instance. We also want to optimize our contract generator so that employment contracts that are provided are all legally correct and can be signed automatically. We also want to integrate health and safety services for absenteeism processes.”

Who is your ideal client?

“We can provide the most added value to growing companies ranging from ten to two hundred employees. Our client base now includes fast-growing companies like Daily Paper, Parfumado and Natuurhuisje. At the same time, we also have a few clients that don’t fit that bill, such as Intersport and the Jumbo jigsaw puzzle brand from Jan van Haasteren puzzles. Jumbo is over a hundred and fifty years old. I expect they’ve now got a young HR manager who said: ‘Everyone, this can’t go on like this.’ So I think our clients are mainly clients who have a slightly progressive work culture. That’s why we aren’t focusing on any particular sector for the time being.”

How did you come up with the idea?

“About five years ago, I was office manager of an international accounting firm in America. There were around six of us there and we were expanding the team. We noticed that local candidates wanted health insurance and pension plans, but that was not an option. There was no pension provider or health insurance company offering that for a staff of just six. When I was one of the first employees to help set up an office in the Netherlands, I ran into exactly the same problem -we were too small to make use of HR software and to handle all matters concerning fringe benefits in the right way.”

How did that work out?

“I wanted to develop a tool that would allow me to get HR and payroll services up to scratch and offer fringe benefits to my employees all at once. I found that America is more innovative than Europe in this regard. The idea of setting up my own company and developing a tool for small businesses remained stuck in my head. Eventually I assembled a team around me to further explore the possibilities and that’s when we founded BuddeeHR. We have now adapted our proposition to cater to the Dutch market and needs. We plan to do that for other European countries as well.”

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What was it like to secure funding?

“Very rewarding, but it took an awful lot of time. We have an excellent external network, which meant that the team was able to approach a lot of people. So, we know most of the investors via via through our contacts. We took a very close look at the investors’ backgrounds and asked ourselves what they could help us with. So far it hasn’t been so difficult to attract investment because the people in our network understand exactly what we are doing it for. Many have a background in an SME or have been entrepreneurs themselves. The best part was that one of our clients called us up unexpectedly and said: ‘We understand what you are doing so we would like to join.” They believe in us so much that they were willing to invest money in us of their own free will!”