BambooHR thinks you have 40 employees, but you onboard 60 freelancers per production and they all churn at wrap
Custom HR (Human Resources) software for a Wellington studio or freelance-heavy firm runs NZD 70,000 to 250,000 over 4 to 8 months. Build custom when your workforce is contingent: dozens of freelance crew onboarded per production, NZ contractor compliance, and a permanent core team in the same system. BambooHR and Gusto are built for stable headcount. They buckle when a Wellington production onboards 60 freelancers in a fortnight and offboards them all at wrap.
Your Wellington studio has a small permanent core and a contingent workforce that explodes with each production: 60 freelance crew onboarded over a fortnight, each needing contracts, rates, health-and-safety inductions, IRD and bank details, and then offboarded when the shoot wraps. BambooHR assumes a stable roster of employees with annual reviews. It has no good answer for a colourist who's a contractor on three productions a year with different rates each time.
So onboarding lives in a folder of PDFs and a spreadsheet, the same person re-enters their details every production, contractor-versus-employee compliance is a manual judgement call, and when the screen-sector union or IRD asks who worked what and how they were classified, the answer is a week of archaeology.
Why the usual tools struggle in Wellington
- Onboarding 60 freelancers per production drowns a tool built for stable headcount
- Contractor-versus-employee classification under NZ law is a manual call with real risk
- The same crew re-enter the same details every production because nothing remembers them
- Health-and-safety inductions and right-to-work checks live in PDFs, not a trackable system
What a custom hr build changes
Custom HR software treats the freelance crew as first-class: a returning contractor's details, rates, and induction status persist between productions, onboarding 60 people becomes a workflow not a folder of PDFs, and contractor classification is captured with the evidence NZ compliance needs. The permanent core team and the contingent crew live in one system instead of two incompatible worlds.
The features that matter for Wellington
Wellington HR: the full scope
The engagements Wellington teams bring us most often: leave management, performance management software, custom HR software, HRIS development, payroll software, employee onboarding system and time and attendance.
- You onboard dozens of freelancers per production and offboard them at wrap
- Contractor classification under NZ law is a recurring compliance risk
- Returning crew re-enter details every production
- Permanent staff and contingent crew need to live in one system
- Your team is mostly permanent with stable headcount
- Freelance intake is occasional and small
- BambooHR or Gusto's contractor handling is good enough
- You can't fund ownership of HR software and NZ-law updates
HR pricing in Wellington: the real numbers
| Project scope | Typical cost | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Freelance onboarding and crew database | $70k to $120k | 4 to 5 months |
| With compliance and induction tracking | $120k to $190k | 5 to 7 months |
| Full HR with payroll and ERP integration | $190k to $250k | 6 to 8 months |
From kickoff to launch: the schedule
Exactly what you get
An HR system that finally fits a screen studio: bulk onboarding for a 60-person production intake, persistent crew profiles so returning contractors don't re-enter everything, and contractor classification captured with the evidence NZ compliance needs. Permanent staff and contingent crew live together, and the data flows into ERP payroll, IRD filing, and project management software instead of a PDF folder.
How to choose a developer in Wellington
Pick a team that understands contingent, freelance-heavy workforces and NZ contractor law, not just standard HR. Ask them to model your busiest production's onboarding and how they'd classify a contractor who works three jobs a year. Wellington's screen sector runs on freelancers, so a developer who only knows permanent-headcount HR will get the hard part wrong.
- Bulk onboarding workflows that handle 60 freelancers in a fortnight without chaos
- Persistent crew profiles, so returning contractors don't re-enter everything each production
- Contractor-versus-employee classification captured with evidence for NZ compliance
- Health-and-safety inductions and right-to-work checks tracked, not buried in PDFs
- One system for permanent staff and contingent crew, feeding ERP payroll and project tools
- You give up BambooHR's polished employee self-service unless you rebuild it
- NZ employment and contractor law changes become your maintenance, not a vendor's update
- A freelance-heavy data model is complex and a weak build will mishandle edge cases
- A studio with a mostly-permanent team may not need this over a tuned Gusto setup
- !They demo employee self-service without asking about freelancers. Ask them to model a 60-person production intake.
- !No grasp of NZ contractor-versus-employee law. Ask how they'd capture classification evidence.
- !They ignore returning crew. Ask how a contractor's details persist across productions.
- !No induction or right-to-work tracking. Ask how health-and-safety compliance is recorded.
- !They quote before understanding your intake pattern. Ask what they need to learn first.
Teams investing in hr in Wellington usually scope it next to pos, warehouse management, helpdesk & ticketing, since these systems share data and budgets.
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 does BambooHR struggle with a screen studio?
It assumes stable headcount and annual reviews. A Wellington production onboards 60 freelancers in a fortnight and offboards them at wrap, with contractor classification and inductions to track. Custom HR software treats the freelance crew as first-class instead of bolting them onto an employee model.
How does it handle returning crew?
A persistent crew database keeps each contractor's details, rate history, and induction status between productions, so a colourist on their fourth job this year doesn't re-enter everything. That alone removes a huge amount of repeated admin.
Does it help with contractor compliance?
Yes. It captures contractor-versus-employee classification with supporting evidence for NZ law, and tracks right-to-work and health-and-safety inductions with expiry reminders, so an IRD or union query isn't a week of archaeology.