SMS System vs BrightHR — UK Sponsor Licence Compliance
BrightHR is one of the UK's best-known HR platforms. It is excellent at generic HR: absence, rotas, documents, employment records, employee self-service. It is not built for UK sponsor licence compliance — and it does not claim to be. If your business holds a Skilled Worker sponsor licence, the gap matters: a UKVI inspector's questions map to obligations BrightHR has no concept of.
“Finally a centralised system that covers everything end to end. I switched from BrightHR, Excel, Dropbox and Jira — now I use only SMS System.”
The four things a generic HR platform cannot do
- Certificate of Sponsorship tracking. BrightHR has no CoS entity — no use-by date, no assigned/used state, no link between a worker's visa validity and their record. SMS System tracks every CoS through its full lifecycle.
- SW 14.3B salary threshold maths. The Skilled Worker threshold is the higher of the route minimum (£41,700 in 2026) and the SOC code going rate — checked across a rolling 3-month window. Generic HR checks salary against a company pay band, not against Home Office SOC-specific rates.
- 10-working-day UKVI reporting clock. A salary change on 1 June is reportable by 15 June. BrightHR records the change; it does not start a compliance countdown, escalate at day 7, or lock the record for audit at day 10.
- Appendix D evidence packs. UKVI expects structured evidence per worker — right-to-work checks, CoS copies, contact history, payslip summary, absence records. Generic HR holds pieces of this in separate modules; it does not assemble an audit-ready pack on demand.
At-a-glance comparison
| Capability | BrightHR | SMS System |
|---|---|---|
| Employment records, absence, rotas | ✅ | ✅ |
| Certificate of Sponsorship lifecycle | ❌ | ✅ |
| SOC-code salary threshold engine | ❌ | ✅ |
| SW 14.3B rolling 3-month window | ❌ | ✅ |
| 10-day UKVI reporting clock | ❌ | ✅ |
| Appendix D evidence pack (on demand) | ❌ | ✅ |
| CQC-aware care-sector eligibility (SOC 6135/6136) | ❌ | ✅ |
| Sponsor register lookup (141,956 sponsors) | ❌ | ✅ |
Who this comparison is for
HR managers, compliance leads, and directors who currently run BrightHR and are asking a specific question: is our HR platform actually covering our sponsor duties, or are we one Home Office visit away from finding out it isn't? If you cannot produce an Appendix D-structured pack for any sponsored worker in under 5 minutes, the answer is the second one.
Running both, or replacing
Two paths work. Keep BrightHR for generic HR and add SMS System as the compliance layer — the pattern most sponsors start with. Or, like Simon, consolidate onto SMS System when the overlap between systems creates more work than it saves. SMS System covers workers, documents, timesheets, leave, HR reports and full compliance in one place.
Pricing
SMS System is £39.99/month base plus £5 per active sponsored worker per month — first worker free. Pricing scales with sponsored headcount, not total headcount. Free to start, no card required.