Payroll updates for Australia
Xero has really taken off in Australia since we included full-blown payroll for Australian users in May. Since then we’ve had more than 7,000 businesses take advantage of it. There are a few little gems in this release based on feedback from our growing user base.
Multiple draft Pay Runs
If you’re using multiple payroll calendars you can now have a draft pay run open for each of them at the same time. This is perfect for those of you who have staff paid on different time frequencies.

Multiple draft Pay Runs
Updates to Payslips
We’ve taken the first step towards making Payslips more configurable by letting you decide whether employment basis and annual salary details appear. This is currently at an organization level and we’re working on letting you configure them per employee.
New superannuation contribution type
We’ve also added a new Employer Contribution (RESC) superannuation type that lets you provide a contribution in addition to the employee’s earnings without having to first increase their earnings – much easier! There are now 4 superannuation contribution types.
- Superannuation Guarantee Contribution (SGC) – abbreviated as “SGC”
- Additional Employer Contribution (RESC) – abbreviated as “Employer Additional”
- Pre-Tax Voluntary Contribution (RESC) – abbreviated as “Salary Sacrifice”
- Post-Tax Voluntary Contribution (Employee) – abbreviated as “Employee”
Coming up
We’re now working hard on timesheets for employees along with a new reporting framework that will give you a bunch more payroll reports. Better still, they’ll look just like the beautiful reports you know and love in the rest of Xero.
As always, love to hear what you think of these updates either here or over on Xero Community.
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28 comments
We switched to Xero about a month ago from MYOB and we’re really impressed by the layout and user friendliness of Xero. Well done for developing such a great product.
We’ve been passing it on to fellow business people and have noticed that 5 or 6 of the people we’ve told have switched over already. Cheers, Simon
@Stuart thanks for the update.
I’m sure we aren’t the only ones hanging out for timesheets!
Multiple Pay Runs is a nice touch too.
On fields shown on a payslip, is there any chance we will just be able to edit fields, labels and whether or not they are shown in the future?
Hope you’re enjoying San Francisco!
- G
Hi Team
Im just wondering if there is or is going to be a “clock in, clock out” (bundy clock) facility within the payroll system? Currently we are paying another online company for the use of this facility and would love to see it incorporated within Xero so that all payroll aspects are together.
Regards
Lorna
Timesheets will great!
Timesheets and expenses allocated to jobs and all the usual reports with profit and loss for each job.
Need the xero program to display item descriptions in drop down box like the app does,
Standard access level for employees does not yet allow invoicing, so my workers can see the bank accounts
Hi Stu – thanks for adding the feature Employer Additional Super noticed this over the weekend awesome team. For those late lodgements of Annual Payment Summaries Xero Payroll’s “EMPDUPE” file works perfectly thru 3rd Party. Quick, slick and beautiful payroll. Could not be happier
Great progress!
We have jumped onto deputy to feed timesheets, I would like the ability to lock them but still show employees – i.e allow the API and admin’s to feed the timesheet from Deputy and the employees have to go back and fix/query in Deputy so we only have one single point of entry.
I would love to still put say 100 char description in the period box – see my community feature request
Any eta on API access for Pay Roll?
Looking forward to be able to display who’s on leave and who’s coming up for leave on our Intranet!
It would be a lot easier and save a few extra steps if we could process the pay run and create the draft payable invoices in one click please
i agree, a ‘payslip sent’ feature would be helpful!
looking forward to improved timesheets!
Gillian Rossouw mentions EMDUPE file works through third party?
I’d love more information on how to do this – is third party an add on – I can’t figure out how to create an emdupe file in Xero.
Multiple payruns is a great idea!
Would also like to see a “clock in, clock out” (bundy clock) facility.
the fact that employees with lower access privedges can still see the payroll (invoices) amounts are still a concern, this needs attention fast before we can even use the payroll facility.
@Nick Riley: Payroll API timeframe is first quarter next year. Be sure to vote here so you get notified when we progress this further: http://xero.uservoice.com/forums/5528-xero-api/suggestions/2903377-payroll-api
@Greg thanks for that feedback too, Deputy’s integration should be improved when we build out the new payroll API functionality.
I love Payroll but as a previous user of Payrun, there is one area where the software has gone backwards. I pay my staff individually by bank transfer. When using Payrun, finalising a payrun resulted in individual payments being transferred to the accounts payable queue. Now I have to enter the part payments manually in order to reconcile. Can this be improved please.
@Olivia Burton: You can download your EMPDUPE file by going to Payroll > Employees > Payment Summaries > Export. As of today, Xero Payroll’s financial year has been rolled forward to 2013. If you need your 2012 EMPDUPE file, send a request to payroll@xero.com, and we can produce the file for you.
We would love to be able to have employees enter their timesheets directly for approval- is there a timeframe for this feature? Are there any add on partners at the moment that allow timesheets to be automatically fed through to Xero
Payroll?
@Olivia re EMPDUPE files send me your email will forward you details
I would love to see the ability for all employees to automatically come up in each pay run rather then going into each employees tab and selecting the pay period.
In the pay run you could just merely select the employees you want included.
Time sheets would be great
I would really love it if Posting the payrun – it went straight through into the accounts – no Draft Invoice to be Approved and Paid
@Margaret – Me too! The whole approval thing is a little frustrating. Especially in a program targeted at small business – which usually means only 1 to 3 office staff. This feature would more lend itself to a larger corporation where you require approvals as an everyday feature in order to keep track of what’s being paid and invoiced etc
I too would love to see the payroll invoice go straight to invoice & employees have the ability to enter their timesheets.
Also would like to see ability to print remittance advices for cheques & eft payments
Really missing that feature from other accounting packages
I really do not understand why an invoice is created for payroll – it is very strange
Need to have an option there to know who has their payslips emailed and to print out.