Your Burnaby crew is union on Monday and freelance on Thursday, and BambooHR can't tell the difference
Custom HR (Human Resources) software for a Burnaby production company, studio, or multi-entity employer runs $70,000 to $160,000 over 5 to 9 months. BambooHR, Workday, Gusto, and ADP are built for salaried, full-time staff on a steady payroll. A Burnaby film and post operation runs on union crew under IATSE or DGC rates, per-project freelancers who churn between productions, and BC-specific labour and overtime rules that a US-centric HR product handles badly. Custom HR software models the workforce you actually have: a mix of union, freelance, and staff that changes every show.
You bought BambooHR or Gusto to get HR off spreadsheets, and for your office staff it's fine. For production it's useless: it can't represent a gaffer who's union on one show and a non-union day-player on the next, it doesn't know IATSE or DGC rate structures, and it can't handle the surge-and-vanish pattern of crew who onboard for a shoot and offboard at wrap. So production payroll and crewing run on a parallel spreadsheet, and the HR system covers maybe a third of your people.
That's the structural mismatch. Workday and ADP assume an employee is a long-term, full-time entity on a predictable payroll. A Burnaby production workforce is project-based, multi-rate, and constantly turning over, governed by union agreements and BC employment standards that differ from the US defaults these tools ship with. When the HR system can't model union-versus-freelance status and per-project hires, it simply isn't the system of record for most of your workforce.
The fix: hr built for Burnaby, not rented
You go custom on HR when your workforce doesn't fit the salaried-employee model. A build for a Burnaby production company models union and freelance status per engagement, encodes IATSE and DGC rate logic and BC labour rules, and handles per-project onboarding at the speed crews actually turn over. The case is coverage and compliance: instead of an HR system that serves a third of your people, you get one that's the real system of record for crew, freelancers, and staff alike, with the union and provincial rules built in.
The capability list that earns its budget
HR services we deliver in Burnaby
The engagements Burnaby teams bring us most often: leave management, performance management software, custom HR software, HRIS development and payroll software.
What hr costs in Burnaby
| Project scope | Typical cost | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Crew and freelance HR module with union rate logic | $70k to $105k | 5 to 7 months |
| Full HR platform (crew, freelance, staff, BC compliance) | $115k to $160k | 7 to 9 months |
| Union and project-payroll layer over existing HR | $45k to $75k | 3 to 5 months |
How long it takes, phase by phase
Exactly what you get
HR software that models a real production workforce: per-engagement union and freelance status, IATSE and DGC rate logic, BC labour rules, and fast per-project onboarding. It integrates with a payroll processor, the accounting software closing the books, and the production-cost ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) tracking shoot-day labour, so crew costs reconcile instead of living in a parallel spreadsheet that covers only the office staff.
How to choose a developer in Burnaby
Hire a team that understands payroll compliance and isn't cavalier about it, because a wrong union rate or a botched overtime calculation has legal weight. Ask how they'd model a worker who's union on one show and freelance the next, and how BC employment standards are handled. Burnaby's film-industry depth means you can find developers who've worked near production payroll, not just generic HR. Confirm they integrate with a real payroll processor rather than reinventing tax remittance.
- Union and freelance status modelled per engagement, so the same person is handled correctly on each show
- IATSE and DGC rate structures and union rules encoded once, ending the production payroll spreadsheet
- Fast per-project onboarding and offboarding tuned to crews that surge and vanish
- BC employment standards, overtime, and statutory rules handled natively, not bolted onto US defaults
- One system of record covering crew, freelancers, and office staff instead of a third of the workforce
- Payroll and HR compliance is high-stakes; owning the logic means owning the legal risk of getting it wrong
- You lose automatic statutory and tax-table updates that Gusto and ADP ship, so compliance is your maintenance line
- Integrating with a payroll-processing provider still requires careful, ongoing work
- If your workforce is mostly salaried and stable, a standard HR product would serve you far cheaper
- !They've only deployed BambooHR or Gusto; ask how they'd model a union-then-freelance crew member
- !No knowledge of IATSE or DGC rates; ask how union rules reach payroll
- !They assume US labour defaults; ask how BC overtime and statutory rules are handled
- !No plan for per-project onboarding; ask how a surging crew is brought on at wrap speed
- !They underestimate payroll compliance risk; ask who owns the legal exposure if a rate is wrong
Most Burnaby teams pricing hr end up comparing notes on pos, warehouse management, helpdesk & ticketing too; the systems share one data spine.
Rohan advises mid-market and enterprise teams on ERP, CRM and custom software, and has led delivery on dozens of business-software builds.
Writes for Digital Heroes, shipping business software for 2,000+ brands across 55+ countries since 2017.
Frequently asked questions
Why can't BambooHR or Gusto handle our film crew?
They're built for salaried, full-time staff on a steady payroll. They can't represent a crew member who's union on one show and freelance on the next, don't know IATSE or DGC rate structures, and assume US labour defaults rather than BC rules. So production payroll ends up on a spreadsheet and the HR tool covers only your office staff, which is exactly the gap custom closes.
How does custom HR software handle union rates?
It encodes IATSE and DGC rate structures, dues, and agreement rules directly into the payroll logic, applied per engagement based on the worker's status on that show. That replaces the manual rate spreadsheet production teams keep, and it keeps the union calculations consistent and auditable across every crew member and every show.
Isn't owning payroll compliance risky?
It carries real risk, which is why you integrate with a licensed payroll processor for tax remittance rather than reinventing it, and why you budget for ongoing compliance maintenance. The custom system owns the union and per-project logic that off-the-shelf tools can't do; the processor owns the statutory remittance. A serious developer is clear about that division of risk.