The 5 Best Payroll Software in NZ

By Leo Williams

Payrolls are complicated to prepare. Each worker has a different salary, withholding history, deductions, leave balances, and absences to take into account.

To help record these variables correctly and streamline your payroll process, we’ve collated the very best payroll software in NZ for you!

We’ll also guide you through the basics of buying payroll software. After that, we will show you our top product recommendations.

What to Know When Buying Payroll Software

You should first consider what your organisation needs in payroll software. Think about your payroll budget, company size, employee benefits, and so on.

That will give a good idea of where your business stands. You can then use this information to narrow down your choices of payroll software.

In addition to that, there are several things you have to consider when buying payroll software. Let’s take a closer look at each of them:

1. Cost

Payroll software can cost from $20 to more than $100 per month. You have to check if the price includes or excludes the Goods and Services Tax (GST) too.

Additionally, you may have to pay fees for the extra features, depending on the company you’re buying them from.

Some companies offer a lower price if you get the annual plan as opposed to the monthly plan, so the former are usually better-value.

2. Compliance

Your payroll software has to comply with NZ legislation on salaries, taxes, and the like. Otherwise, you will pay a hefty sum that can shake up your company’s earnings.

Also by complying with the law, you can rest easy knowing that you’re paying your workers the right amount of salary or wages every time.

3. Features

The features of payroll software vary from product to product. These can either be built into the software already or added in if you want.

Let’s enumerate some of the features and define them:

• Direct deposit – This allows you to pay your employees by transferring their salaries directly into their account, saving time and effort compared to paying by check.

• Tax filing – This is an extremely useful feature that generates and files federal and state taxes automatically through the payroll. No need to do it manually!

• Self-service -Lets your customers access their payroll information, including pay history, time-out balances, tax forms, deductions, and others.

• Integrations – Having integrations streamlines your process and presents you with analytics that provide real-time and accurate business data.

• Security – Since payroll data is sensitive and confidential, it’s crucial to have security features that will guard against other users with bad intentions.

• Notifications – Notifications help you become more efficient in managing the payroll. These include reminders, push notifications, and email and text alerts.

4. Ease of Use

You also need something easy to use. Aside from that, the software application has to look and feel tidy.

Furthermore, you have to look for payroll software that supports a mobile app so that you can use it on both your desktop and smartphone to save you time and effort.

5. Support

Finally, it’s crucial to have customer support to back you whenever you’ve stumbled upon a technical issue or need to set up your new payroll software for your company.

The Best Payroll Software in NZ

Having gone through the fundamentals, we now present to you the top payroll software in NZ!

1)   SmoothPay

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SmoothPay’s goPayroll is simple online payroll software featuring automatic reporting and integrations with accounting systems like MYOB, Xero, Reckon, and MoneyWorks.

The software also has a self-service functionality that gives your employees access to their attendance, pay history, and number of leaves.

Additionally, it complies with the NZ Holidays and Parental Leave Act, so you don’t have to manually set it for everyone in the workplace.

The monthly plan is competitive starting from $22.95. However, there’s not much of a difference in price (only 4 cents less per month) if you purchase the yearly plan.

2)   FlexiTime

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With the FlexiTime PayHero, It’s a lot easier to manage your payroll. It will save you a tremendous amount of time, effort, and resources.

Recording leaves, tracking time, streamlining expense claims, and working on the go are some of the features that will cut your working hours when you get PayHero.

Don’t worry, it’s compliant with Holiday and tax laws too. This ensures that your employees will get the right entitlements and payments, even those that work in different shifts.

Along with that, deductions like PAYE, ACC, KiwiSaver, and loans are accurately calculated for employees.

Customer Reviews

Flexitime shines in both their payroll product and service. A lot of customers praised the stress-free software and excellent support staff ready to help them when needed.

One user, Susan, posted this comment of the payroll software:

“Massive “Fan of FlexiTime”! Only payroll system I know of that not only has the power of the rosters and timesheet function but can run payrolls for “variable” pay cycles, makes paying KiwiSaver Employer Contributions inclusive in Salary a breeze! And links with Xero so fantastically (including being much easier to customise to each individual Xero COA -probably better than Xero’s own payroll does!!). The name says it all as it is so flexible for payrolls where you have different staff doing different things and paid in different ways, yet you want the one solution. Brilliant – wouldn’t use anything else!”

Also, Marc wrote this feedback:

“As a payroll intermediary for 30+ Businesses, Flexitime has to be the best payroll and employee time management solution I’ve come across both in terms of their product and their dedicated support team.

Flexitime has managed to handle everyone of our client’s varying payroll needs. From casual employees, expense reimbursement and variable pays to GST contractors and complex commissions. We haven’t found a payroll situation yet that Flexitime hasn’t been able to facilitate.

Client feedback has been centred around ease of use, time savings and a general reduction in stress around payroll. Features like roster templates, warnings for timesheet overlaps, automated public holidays and the obvious Xero integration have been big pluses for them.

Personally, it’s the friendly and helpful support team at Flexitime that gains my full endorsement. Being able to call and speak to someone at Flexitime support directly is a huge bonus as well as their great email support and online knowledge base.

Flexitime has simple, affordable pricing plans and migrating from your existing payroll solution is a breeze.”

3)   MYOB

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As the company grows, payroll becomes harder to manage. But not with the MYOB payroll software, as it automates your payroll regardless of how many employees you have.

It has a Pay Centre, which has a neat and clean interface where you can review pay slips, start a pay run, view employee information, and others.

As it’s compliant with Internal Revenue regulations, the deductions for KiwiSaver and PAYE are sent to them without the slightest bit of a hassle.

With the MYOB YourPay app, you can also conveniently work on your payroll at the office, home, or your local coffee shop. They also offer a free 30-day trial for the Essentials Payroll and the comprehensive Accounting + Payroll plans.

4)   SmartPayroll

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SmartPayroll seriously lives up to its name. It’s smart because it does all the things you need in payroll software.

For instance, it can make payments to the IR, KiwiSaver, PAYE, and your employees. You can also use the auto-pay feature to give your staff the same pay for each week.

Then it lets you see the payroll analytics of the company at a glance, including the hours workers have spent on the field and how much that is equivalent to.

There are two mobile apps for SmartPayroll—one for your employee and one for yourself. On their end they can see their timesheet and view and request leave, which you can approve via your employer app.

Not only that, but you get full support from the team and they will help you set up your new software.

5)   Crystal Payroll

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Another of the best payroll software options in NZ, Crystal Payroll seamlessly integrates with MYOB, Xero, and Reckon accounting software to conduct your payroll work.

It has robust security to protect the payroll information. It also allows you to download time sheets and reports in PDF or excel format to send to the staff.

With regard to the payments, the software can ace the numbers game. It can accurately compute the payroll for multiple staff with differing rates.

And on top of that, Crystal Payroll is cloud-powered, meaning you can access your payroll from any place and any time through Wi-Fi-capable devices.

Customer Reviews

According to clients, the staff here have been helpful and patient. Amelia from French Revolver Studio left this review:

“Hey just wanted to say your staff have been amazing when I’ve called. You have been one of the easiest companies to deal with during this period and you implemented the covid wage subsidy code so promptly. The guy I spoke to was super helpful.

Thank you so much, so glad to have Crystal Payroll in our lives!!”

Also, Tony Cox from Peplers Fine Foods wrote this review:

“We’ve been using Crystal Payroll for over 5 years now, and it’s never missed a beat. Questions I think are hard are answered quickly and clearly, and they’re happy to talk me through stuff I don’t understand. It dovetails into Xero nicely. It is simple to keep payroll records up to date.”

FAQS about the Top Payroll Software in NZ

And that wraps up our list of the top payroll software in NZ. With them, your payroll will be clear and compliant, making it easy-peasy to pay your employees.

Do you have any questions at all about our picks? If you have one, kindly let us know by messaging us, and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.

Need accounting software? You can also check out our list of the best accounting software in NZ to record your company’s finances every day without any hassle.