Free Payroll Software for New Zealand

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pcheroes

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#110376 8-Oct-2012 16:08

I recently went through the rig moral of employing staff - and one things for sure - payroll software is expensive when you consider the costs over an entire year.

I found the cheapest way of managing less than 5 employees to be on a plain old simple Excel Spreadsheet.

Using Online resource provided by the IRD - you can calculate exactly how much tax someone should be paying and just update the spreadsheet each week.

You can calculate holiday pay as a simple percentage of their Gross Pay (8%).

Would love to hear some of the home brew methods people use for managing payrolls.

kingjj

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#698016 8-Oct-2012 16:57

A while ago I researched different pay roll kits for my old employer when she was looking at upgrading from pen and paper (everything was done on a ledger, even with 20+ employees). The best cheap option I found was Ace Payroll. It costs one-off $250 to support unlimited employees with updates. Once its set up it makes everything very efficient and easy care. Even my old boss can work it and her skills are limited to emailing chain letters. Not free I know but well worth the small outlay for a well supported and established system.

billgates

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#698041 8-Oct-2012 17:27

+1 for Ace Payroll. Did cost me $250 for the first time and with any major updates that I really need to have cost me $120/year. only buy the upgrades If I really have to like income tax rate going up or down if government decides to.

Do whatever you want to do man.

nate

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#699097 10-Oct-2012 14:08

Not free I know but we (the cafe) opted for SmartPayroll. Online, hosted solution, and due to high volatility of hours from week to week, we load in the hours against each employee and it does all the calculations for us.

The things I like about it are:

- They extract all the wages from our bank account, and transfer the money to each employee, and transfer the PAYE part to the IRD
- They file the correct paperwork with the IRD on our behalf
- They email out payslips

When staff go on holiday/sick leave/bereavement leave, it takes it out of what they've accrued so far.

Free 0800 support, who are very happy to help, especially when you've got curly questions about pay.

Considering the complexities of fluctuating hours, paye, kiwisaver, they've saved us hours. We pay a base rate of around $30 a month, then $1 per pay per employee.

billgates

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#699106 10-Oct-2012 14:20

@nate SmartPayroll looks really good. It's hosted at Datacom and they manage the backups which sounds good to me as well from data security point of view. Their website states

$16/month base fees and $1/per pay per employee but you mentioned $30/month base rate for your cafe which I cannot seem to find?

If it's $16/month base price and $1/pay/employee then I will change from AcePay. AcePay is good, but I love the 'cloud' and I can do payroll from anywhere without me going to the dedicated shop PC week. I also like the features they offer.

Do they let you print IR345 and IR348 form from the website?

http://www.smartpayroll.co.nz/the-benefits/#pricing

Do whatever you want to do man.

pcheroes

52 posts

Master Geek

#699108 10-Oct-2012 14:25

Smart Payroll is expensive.

$1 per day per employee. This means if you have 5 employees it will cost you roughly $150 + $16 per month???

Or do you mean $1 per employee, per pay run.

Otherwise Ace sounds like a far better option.

I guess no one knows of any other free and/or home brew methods?

cyril7

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#699111 10-Oct-2012 14:31

Hi, its $1/pay/employee

Cyril

trig42

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#699112 10-Oct-2012 14:33

AcePay is easy, and they have really good support (they will even give advice if there is a dispute over holiday pay etc.)

Smart Payroll looks awesome too, I like that is it cloud based so you don't have to be at the PC with your payroll software installed on it, and that they will do all the bank transfers for you.

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pcheroes

52 posts

Master Geek

#699116 10-Oct-2012 14:37

Oh wow so they even have some banking api's in there. Nice.

No wonder its expensive. I've been down the banking API route before with Accounting Software I developed and the banks charge a mint for any sort of official API.

thestokes

39 posts

Geek

#699172 10-Oct-2012 16:05

Smart payroll utilize a service we offer at ASB which allows debiting and crediting of any domestic NZ account regardless of domicilied bank same day. If the payroll is over 10k and your bank is not ASB then we would require a letter of credit to process. PM me if you want more details.

Zeon

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#699181 10-Oct-2012 16:13

I use flexitime, it costs $27.60 a month and integrates with Xero. Works well. The costs of time with the auto integration with Xero alone make it a no brainer.

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stevenz

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#699723 11-Oct-2012 15:02

Ace Payroll is pretty good. It's the only commercial option I've ever looked at though.

I wrote my own "application" in Excel. It served me well for about 3 years. Plug in the hours and other required details, and it spat out more information than you could hope for, it was pretty easy.

I had to rewrite chunks of it every time the IRD changed anything though which was a bit of a nuisance.

@KnightNZ