Xero Payroll now available to Kiwi businesses

Kiwi accounting software firm Xero has released its all-in-one cloud accounting and payroll solution to its New Zealand customers.

By building on top of its existing online accounting solution, Xero says it is able to do for payroll what it has already done for accounting.

Xero NZ managing director Victoria Crone says the introduction of payroll in Xero means the company is now able to offer each of our 120,000+ small business customers in New Zealand an innovative solution within Xero that enables 'more capability than any of [its] competitors'. Payroll is built as a feature of the current Xero accounting solution.

"With the introduction of payroll in Xero, we're really making Xero a single platform for small businesses to manage and grow their business simply and seamlessly," Crone says.

"For the business owner, running a business is much easier when you combine two of the most critical back office tasks: accounting and payroll," he says. "Now small businesses can have time and money by getting exactly what they need in this all-in-one, easy-to-use, seamless accounting and payroll solution.

Crone says, "With payroll in Xero, small business owners and their employees can manage leave, view payment information and more – from any device, at any time.

"Not only does it reduce complexity and eliminate payroll compliance pain with automatically generated, Inland Revenue compliant reports, payroll in Xero also saves time in manual data entry and answering queries with the online and mobile employee app," he adds.

PAYE, KiwiSaver, and Student Loan calculations are all taken care of within the payroll feature, Xero says. The information is then automatically updated in a Xero account, with no duplication of data-entry, "giving business owners more time to focus on running their business."

Payroll in Xero allows small businesses to remain in control of their cashflow by providing them with the necessary bank files to pay employees and Inland Revenue.

The employee app can save the business owner time processing payroll and managing leave requests. It centralises information in one place, reducing double handling by allowing employees to apply for leave and view pay history.

Crone says, "Payroll is typically a costly, dry and time-consuming aspect of running a business, but we've built a platform that makes it quick and simple for people to undertake once mundane, manual tasks. And the cost is included within your Xero subscription.

"This is just the start of a new wave of innovation we have planned as we further leverage our powerful small business platform as an engine for small business productivity," he adds.

Xero's small business customers had access to Payroll in Xero to set up their employee and business details from 4 March. Pay runs can be processed from 1 April 2015.