Three Security Companies, One Question: Why Belfry?
At Belfry's 2026 customer summit, we sat down with owners and operators from three security companies for an unscripted panel conversation. No script, no talking points; just real answers about what changed once they moved their business onto Belfry. Here's what they told us.
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Law Security Investigations
Eric Toohey, HR Director, & Sadie Garcia, Systems Integration Manager
Operations in California, Texas, and Florida
Before Belfry, the company was running on four different platforms just to manage its workforce: When I Work for scheduling, Paychex for timekeeping, BambooHR for onboarding and officer profiles, and a separate tool for field operations.
"Prior to Belfry, we used to use four different apps. [Now] everything gets taken care of by Belfry." — Sadie Garcia
What made the decision easy wasn't just consolidation… it was that Belfry was built for their industry in the first place.
"Nothing we were using for the most part was security-based… So the fact that y'all are security-based; you speak our language. It just made everything exponentially easier." — Sadie Garcia
That fit showed up fastest in compliance. As the person responsible for keeping every officer's licensing current, Sadie doesn't have to go looking for problems; Belfry surfaces them the moment she logs in.
"The fact that I know when every one of my guards' licenses are coming up is huge. It's massive. It's the first thing I see when I log in: warning, warning, warning, expired, expired... That one little beautiful button can be activated. [And] that guy is not to be deployed until that's fixed." — Sadie Garcia
And when it came time to evaluate costs for the business and where they could reduce the amount of vendors they were paying for, there was no question that they’d be keeping Belfry.
"It was like, ‘you don't need to worry about Belfry. We're not changing’... We're not going with anybody else." — Sadie Garcia
Bullock Protection LLC
Mike Bullock, Owner
Based in Longview, Texas
Mike spent 23 years with the Longview Police Department before building Bullock Protection into a 65-employee company. His previous workforce software promised a lot and delivered little.
"My previous system, they had all the bells and whistles, but I didn't know how to use half of them. I never could get the billing to work. And since they didn’t have a very good app, I couldn't work away from my office." — Mike Bullock
Timekeeping and payroll (his biggest daily time sink) became a non-issue.
"No comparison. I've got 65 employees and I can go in here to the payroll section in Belfry for about three minutes and take care of all of it." — Mike Bullock
Belfry also changed how he manages coverage day to day. The dashboard showing who's clocked in and who isn't means problems get caught before they become crises.
"I love that there's the tab on the main page where it shows either ‘clocked in’, ‘not clocked in’. If I look at shift change time and there's nobody that's ‘not clocked in’, I'm like ‘woohoo’... because I can go back to whatever it is I was doing on that Saturday. And I'm happy." — Mike Bullock
Mike's company also serves school districts, where state auditors inspect officer reporting closely. Belfry's reporting makes those inspections straightforward instead of stressful.
"The state comes in and inspects all of our reports; especially checking to see if we’re hitting the doors and the fences and making sure things are locked. Belfry’s reports have really helped the school districts out. And of course it helps us because it's all easy to put it together." — Mike Bullock
Asked what the switch was worth to him:
"Once I saw it for myself, it wasn't a hard decision to make. In fact, because I was using so many different tools and systems altogether... I save $25,000 a year switching to y'all too." — Mike Bullock
Scout Security Group
CJ, President, and Leroy Henry, Operations Manager
Based in Austin, Texas
CJ built Scout Security Group in 2023 after a career as an Army Special Operations soldier and FBI special agent. Before Belfry, the company's biggest frustration wasn't the software itself… it was getting anyone on the other end to respond.
"Even when we canceled with the other company we used [before Belfry], they replied back, 'Hey, has your ticket been filled?' We replied back, large text, red, bold: CANCELING. That just highlighted the problem." — CJ
The contrast with Belfry was immediate, and it's the reason CJ points to first when explaining the switch.
"The highlight is the communication. Whether it's the ability to communicate with my own team, or the communication I could get from Belfry… You guys are very responsive, and that makes a world of difference." — CJ
For Leroy, who trains officers on the platform day to day, the win is how little training it actually takes.
"The reality of it is, it's a lot easier to use; the user interface, how intuitive the software is. There's four buttons. Here's what these four buttons do. Here's how you clock in. Here's the marketplace. Because the design is elegant and simple, it makes training officers really easy. The adoption was simple because it’s a better system than what we were using before." — Leroy Henry
Scheduling (the thing that used to keep Leroy up at night) is now the feature he brags about.
"Pre-Belfry, it was the Wild West. After Belfry, with the Shift Marketplace, somebody calls out, you just click a few buttons, and you can send the open shift out. 95% of the time that you put it out in the marketplace, somebody already wants it." — Leroy Henry
Today, incident reporting and analytics are part of how Scout wins new clients, not just how they run existing ones.
"The ability to distribute reports to our clients in real-time has been massive. I don't think we had that ability with our previous software. That's an easy sell to clients, and we also appreciate all the analytics we get on the backend." — Leroy Henry
CJ sums up what the switch has meant for the business as a whole:
"The whole point of having systems is so that you have the ability to scale. You can't scale with paper logs and post-it notes and endless calendar apps. Belfry really does give you the ability to scale and grow the company… because it's simple." — CJ
The Common Thread
Three companies. Three different operations. Three very different paths into the security guard services industry. But when asked why they chose Belfry (and why they've stayed) the answers kept landing in the same places:
- Built for security, not retrofitted from another industry. Companies stop stitching together generic HR and scheduling tools and get software that already speaks their language.
- One platform instead of four. Scheduling, timekeeping, onboarding, and reporting live in one place instead of scattered across disconnected apps.
- Compliance that surfaces problems before they become audits. License expirations, location & geo-fence reporting, and officer performance documentation are all visible at a glance.
- A marketplace that fills shifts without the phone tree. Open shifts get covered in minutes, not after a dozen calls.
- Support that doesn't disappear after the contract is signed. Every company on this panel compared Belfry's responsiveness directly to a previous vendor who went quiet.
