Best for
Best for UK security guarding companies that want rota, officer compliance records and billing in one system priced per worked officer.
Shift Scheduling Comparison
BOOK ON vs. Findmyshift
At a glance
At a glance
Best for
Best for teams scheduled by one or a few managers that want a spreadsheet-like rota with a free time clock and a flat price per team.
Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.
Full Comparison
| Criterion | BOOK ON | Findmyshift |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From £2.95 / worked officer / month One rate with all platform features included. Each officer who worked at least one shift in the calendar month is counted once; controllers, managers and office users are not counted. No VAT is added while the vendor is not VAT registered. | Free plan; Starter from 27 US dollars / team / month Flat price per team, billed monthly, or 286 US dollars a year billed yearly. Business is 43 US dollars a month and Enterprise 85 US dollars a month per team; teams above 300 members are quoted on request. Text messages cost extra as credits. |
| Free trial | First partial calendar month free, no credit card required; the next complete calendar month is the first chargeable one | 3-month free trial of all features for up to 300 employees, no credit card required; free plan for teams of up to 5 employees |
| API | Not stated | Developer API with API key or OAuth 2.0 on the Enterprise plan |
| Hosting | Not stated | Cloud, in the browser, with Android and iOS apps |
| Made in | United Kingdom | Not stated |
| Shift planning and templates | Shifts added per client, site and day with start and end times; Copy Roster carries a whole week forward and Copy Shifts repeats a pattern across days, and an existing rota can be imported from Excel | Spreadsheet-style editor with drag and drop of shifts, employees, facilities and comments, multi-cell editing across up to 140 days, overnight shifts, and reusable templates of repeating shift patterns from the Starter plan; forward planning runs from 1 week on the free plan to 3 years on Enterprise |
| Shift swaps and open shifts | Counters show unassigned and unconfirmed shifts; the planner fills them through the Near By Officers search by postcode and radius, and a no-show shift is reassigned to a replacement and confirmed | Employees request shifts, submit cancellations and swap shifts from their schedule, with notifications to managers for each request; self-scheduling, where employees add and edit their own shifts, is on Business and Enterprise |
| Availability and time off | Leave requests are queued for HR with the number of days and whether they are paid, then approved or rejected; leave policies are applied per employee with a simultaneous-leave limit and carry-over setting, approved leave is visible when the roster is built, and unplanned absence is recorded on an Absentees screen | Time off from the Starter plan, shown on the schedule with a warning when it overlaps a shift, with custom categories, recurring unavailability, allowances as days, hours or a percentage of hours worked, privacy controls and delegation to assistants; Enterprise imports time off from other systems through iCal feeds |
| Time clock and attendance | Yes, book on and book off from the officer app with time and position recorded against the rostered shift, or by the control room from the roster; those records become the timesheet, with planned hours shown next to hours worked | Time clock on every plan through the app, mobile site, website or a shared time clock station with PIN, password and optional photo, with auto clock-out, IP whitelisting, alerts for early, late or missed clock-ins and timesheets approved by a manager; Enterprise adds geofencing and location reporting |
| Labour cost and forecasting | Each shift carries its pay rate and charge rate, Change Rate sets night, weekend or bank holiday rates for one shift, planned hours sit next to actual hours, and a finance dashboard shows revenue, cost, profit and margin by contract | Real-time reporting from the Starter plan showing shifts, scheduled hours and estimated pay on the schedule, a reports dashboard with more than 40 charts, and a schedule versus timesheets report of expected and actual costs |
| Breaks, overtime and labour rules | A seven-day consecutive-work alert on the manager dashboard lists officers who have worked every day of the past week, the officer roster flags double-booking and rest-period problems, and the vendor lists overtime detection and cost alerts | Break rules that deduct unpaid breaks automatically, overtime and holiday rates, and pay rate exceptions by day, time, facility or the employee's age; Enterprise adds data locks so historical reports cannot be changed |
| Payroll export and integration | Payroll is generated in BOOK ON Accounts from approved shifts for a chosen period and frequency, with payslips; statutory calculations and HMRC submissions stay with your payroll software or bureau, and how the output is passed to them is agreed during onboarding | Payroll calculation on Business and Enterprise from hourly rates, rate exceptions, day rates and salaries, with payroll data exported; approved timesheets feed the reports, and an integration with Xero is listed |
| Team messaging and notifications | Confirmed shifts appear in the officer app, which also carries employer notifications and a news feed; the control room works with handover tickets | Automatic shift reminders up to 30 days ahead, change notifications and group messages by email, push notification, Slack or paid SMS, and a team notice board from the Starter plan |
| Platforms and mobile app | Officer app for iOS and Android, free on the App Store and Google Play, which needs a connection to send a book-on, check call or report; the office side runs as a cloud web platform | Website, mobile website, Android and iOS apps for employees and managers, a browser-based time clock station, and calendar integration for the roster |
| Integrations and API | Excel import for existing rotas; exports to accounting and payroll packages are confirmed during onboarding for the packages a firm uses | Developer API on the Enterprise plan with API key or OAuth 2.0 authentication and rate limiting, covering facilities, staff, teams, time clock, time off and reports such as hours, budget and schedule versus timesheets; integrations with Xero, Slack, Lightspeed, Vend, Square, BambooHR, CakeHR, Google Workspace, monday.com and People HR |
| Deployment | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based |
| Support | Phone, Email helpdesk | more entries Email helpdesk, Chat, Phone |
| Onboarding | Guided onboarding | more entries Documentation and knowledge base, Video tutorials, Live online demos and webinars |
| Integrations | Not stated | Xero, Slack, Lightspeed, Vend, Square, BambooHR, CakeHR, Google Workspace, monday.com, People HR |
Add a tool
Adds a column to the table, from the tools in this category.
Row where the values differ The small markers point at the lower number, the longer list or the stated feature. They describe the data, they are not a verdict.
The short version
Key Differences
- Starting price BOOK ON From £2.95 / worked officer / month Findmyshift Free plan; Starter from 27 US dollars / team / month
- Free trial BOOK ON First partial calendar month free, no credit card required; the next complete calendar month is the first chargeable one Findmyshift 3-month free trial of all features for up to 300 employees, no credit card required; free plan for teams of up to 5 employees
- Support BOOK ON Phone, Email helpdesk Findmyshift Email helpdesk, Chat, Phone
- Shift planning and templates BOOK ON Shifts added per client, site and day with start and end times; Copy Roster carries a whole week forward and Copy Shifts repeats a pattern across days, and an existing rota can be imported from Excel Findmyshift Spreadsheet-style editor with drag and drop of shifts, employees, facilities and comments, multi-cell editing across up to 140 days, overnight shifts, and reusable templates of repeating shift patterns from the Starter plan; forward planning runs from 1 week on the free plan to 3 years on Enterprise
- Shift swaps and open shifts BOOK ON Counters show unassigned and unconfirmed shifts; the planner fills them through the Near By Officers search by postcode and radius, and a no-show shift is reassigned to a replacement and confirmed Findmyshift Employees request shifts, submit cancellations and swap shifts from their schedule, with notifications to managers for each request; self-scheduling, where employees add and edit their own shifts, is on Business and Enterprise
Every line is one datapoint from the table above, picked automatically. Nothing here is written text.
The trade-offs
Strengths and Limitations
BOOK ON
Strengths
- One published rate of £2.95 per worked officer, with all platform features included
- Controllers, managers and office users are not counted towards the bill
- Approved shifts feed timesheets, payroll and client invoices from the same record
- SIA licence, BS 7858 vetting and right-to-work records held against each officer
- Officer app for iOS and Android for booking on, check calls, patrols and incident reports
Limitations
- Licensing and vetting records are built around UK security rules (SIA, BS 7858, ACS)
- Exports to accounting and payroll packages are confirmed per package during onboarding rather than listed
- Minimums, setup and contract length are set in each company's commercial agreement, not on the pricing page
- The vendor states its records support SIA, ACS, BS 7858 and ISO work but do not award certification or guarantee compliance
Findmyshift
Strengths
- Free plan for teams of up to 5 employees
- Three-month free trial of every feature, no credit card required
- Flat price per team rather than per employee
- Time clock and timesheets included on every plan, the free one too
- 25% discount for charities and volunteer groups with turnover under 1 million US dollars
Limitations
- Starter and the free plan allow only one manager per team
- Geofencing, activity logs and the developer API are limited to Enterprise
- Payroll calculation starts on the Business plan
- Text message notifications are charged as credits on top of the plan
Plans
Pricing
BOOK ON
- Subscription £2.95 Per qualifying worked officer per month, with Operate, Compliance and Accounts included and no feature tiers. Subcontractor billing is subject to client approval.
Findmyshift
- Free 0 US dollars / team / month 5 team members, 1 manager, 1 week of historical data and 1 week of forward planning.
- Starter 27 US dollars / team / month Billed monthly, or 286 US dollars a year billed yearly. 20 team members, 1 manager, 1 year of history, 3 months of forward planning, templates, time off and real-time reporting.
- Business 43 US dollars / team / month Billed monthly, or 459 US dollars a year billed yearly. 100 team members and 100 managers, 5 years of history, 1 year of forward planning, self-scheduling and payroll calculation.
- Enterprise 85 US dollars / team / month Billed monthly, or 904 US dollars a year billed yearly. 300 team members and 300 managers, 10 years of history, 3 years of forward planning, geofencing, activity logs, developer API and telephone support.
What users say
Review Scores · opens after launch
BOOK ON
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Nothing has been published here yet, and no score is shown. How a review is checked before it appears is described below.
Findmyshift
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Nothing has been published here yet, and no score is shown. How a review is checked before it appears is described below.
How we check reviews
Before sending, the author has to confirm three things: that they have used the product themselves, that they work neither for the vendor nor for a competitor, and that nobody is paying them for the review. We also ask whether the vendor invited them to write it. That answer is required, either answer is accepted, and it stays with the review.
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Where this comes from
Where this comes from
BOOK ON https://bookonsolutions.com/ · checked against the official source on 2026-11-04
Findmyshift https://www.findmyshift.com/ · checked against the official source on 2026-11-06
This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.