Ascend HR Onboarding vs HollyHR

Ascend HR Onboarding has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.

HollyHR is core HR software for small UK teams, bringing people records, working patterns, leave, documents, starter processes and reports together. Teams can manage leave requests and approvals, balances, sickness records and UK public holidays, with a shared Who’s Away calendar. Reusable onboarding packs create individual journeys with due dates and owners; private files, right-to-work evidence and policy acknowledgements stay with employee records. Built-in headcount, turnover and time-off reports export as CSV or PDF. Organisation export includes CSV data, available uploaded files and a manifest. HollyHR connects with services including Zapier, Make, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Claude, Google Calendar, Outlook and Xero Payroll UK, with differing capabilities and availability. Approved leave can be sent to Xero after employees and leave types are matched, but salary, tax, bank, pay-run and employee-creation data do not sync. API reads and signed webhooks are available on every plan; creating records through the API or integrations requires Standard and System Admin permission. A free plan covers up to 10 active employees; Standard starts at £2/user/mo. The service runs on web and through an API.