Best payroll and rostering software for 30 Australian employees

Compare seven Australian payroll systems

Who this shortlist is for

This is a software purchase for an Australian employer with about 30 staff, including hourly workers, and a person responsible for payroll. It assumes the business knows which awards or agreements apply. A vendor demonstration cannot settle employee classification on your behalf.

The first three deserve consideration when replacing rostering and payroll together. Xero, MYOB and Reckon become stronger choices when pay rules are already controlled and the goal is a smaller change. ClockOn offers a separate route to managed processing if operating payroll is the problem. These are editorial invitations based on published evidence checked on 2 October 2026, not measured accuracy or support scores.

1. Tanda: payroll and rostering with managed award templates

Tanda bundles workforce management, payroll and HR. Start here if you need to turn rosters and approved hours into payroll, and its award templates cover your employees.

The important limit is in its award-update documentation: an overriding hourly rate remains the entered rate after a template update. The employer must review it. Custom allowances also require their STP category to be assigned manually.

Our verdict: start with Tanda for this 30-person shift workforce, then test rate changes, allowances and failed payments. Ask the payroll operator to identify every override before switching. Have your payroll adviser confirm any custom pay rules before they are configured.

2. Employment Hero: HR and payroll, with rostering priced separately

Employment Hero’s current help catalogue lists 70 prebuilt award options and names the relevant payroll plans. Check that the quoted edition supports your awards, employee classifications and work types.

The current pricing page lists payroll separately from HR and lists rostering/time attendance as an upgrade. It also uses contractual user minimums. Include the time-and-attendance upgrade in the quote if you need it.

Our verdict: choose it over Tanda if you also need its HR tools. Require the quote to identify payroll edition, award setup, time capture, HR modules, minimum billable users and who maintains customised rules.

3. Microkeeper: HR, rostering and payroll at a published per-user price

Microkeeper Standard includes HR, rostering, timesheets and payroll at AUD 6 per active user per month before GST, with a AUD 60 minimum and a 100-user maximum. This puts the software at AUD 180 monthly for 30 chargeable users, before GST. Its October 2026 pricing update brings legacy Standard customers to that rate at their October billing cycle.

Our verdict: compare Microkeeper if you want HR, rostering and payroll in one lower-cost package. Ask the supplier to calculate a shift with your actual allowance and overtime rules. Count active managers and administrators in the bill. Its pricing FAQ says report access stops after cancellation unless billing restarts. Export the records you need before leaving.

4. Xero: keep a working payroll and accounting setup

Xero’s Australian plans include different payroll capacities, with Ultimate options up to 200 people. A 30-person comparison must use an appropriate capacity, not the prominently advertised Ultimate 10 price.

Xero’s bulk-rate documentation says the tool applies entered changes without selecting the correct award, classification or rate. It also says an existing draft pay run must be reset to pick up a new rate.

Our verdict: keep Xero if your bookkeeper already runs payroll reliably and checks the pay rates. Compare the savings from switching with the cost of moving records and retraining staff.

If staff work shifts, include the cost of rostering and time tracking. Test that approved hours reach Xero correctly before each pay run.

5. MYOB: payroll alongside your existing accounts

MYOB Business Pro charges separately per payroll employee; AccountRight Plus includes unlimited payroll. Payroll Only stops at four employees and Lite at two, so neither is the baseline for this 30-person purchase.

MYOB’s setup guide describes configurable pay items and the reporting categories assigned to them. Your payroll operator still needs to assign the correct treatment to each pay item.

Our verdict: keep MYOB in the comparison if finance already uses it. Have the operator show an allowance, a leave payment and a correction in the proposed edition. Do not transfer features from MYOB’s separate enterprise workforce products into a Business Pro comparison. The brand name covers different products.

6. Reckon: standalone payroll with unlimited employees

Reckon offers standalone payroll, a Premium tier with unlimited employees and a SuperStream payment workflow. For paid subscriptions, its migration offer covers one historical year plus year-to-date.

Our verdict: compare Reckon if you need payroll processing and your team already checks the input rates. Keep a separate archive for any history beyond the migration offer.

We have not established that the proposed package will reproduce your roster and award rules. Test those before replacing your current process. Request the full recurring price, GST treatment and price after any introductory promotion.

7. ClockOn: decide whether you need software or an operator

ClockOn Standard covers payroll, award interpretation and time tracking; Pro adds the broader roster and HR workflow. Its outsourced service is billed per payslip with a monthly minimum, while Pro and additional services are separately priced.

Our verdict: consider ClockOn’s outsourced service if you need someone to run payroll. Compare a managed proposal against the software plus internal work it replaces, using your actual pay frequency.

For software alone, compare what Standard and Pro include. The free Starter conditions limit STP submissions to 27 or one year; ongoing free calculation does not mean indefinite free filing.

Tanda and Microkeeper: subscription costs for 30 users

Assume 30 chargeable users, unchanged for twelve months, with no additional administrators or project services. These are Australian subscription illustrations checked on 2 October 2026, not equivalent implementation quotes.

Sources: Tanda bundle rate and Microkeeper Standard. Confirm contractual minimums and chargeable-user definitions. Adding two separately active administrative accounts to the Microkeeper example makes it AUD 192 monthly before GST.

Tanda costs AUD 204 more a month before GST in this example. At an assumed staff cost of AUD 60 an hour, it would need to save 3.4 hours a month to offset that difference through staff time alone. We have not measured that saving; compare the products using your own payroll work.

Both examples exclude retained accounting, implementation, data cleanup, hardware, parallel runs and payroll labour. Include these costs in every quote. For the other five finalists, also confirm the edition, employee limit, included services and tax treatment.

An exported bank file does not confirm payment

Tanda’s PayTo documentation describes a failed-payment recovery step that exports an ABA bank file and automatically marks those lines “Paid Manually”. The operator must still upload the file to the bank. Check the bank’s payment confirmation before recording the wages as paid. The feature is described as gradually rolling out, so availability must be confirmed for the actual account.

The same documentation separates settlement of a super PayTo debit from Beam’s distribution notifications. Moving money out of the employer’s account is an intermediate step.

Ask the operator to demonstrate a failed payment, upload the replacement bank file in a test environment and show how they would confirm payment without paying anyone twice. Use the same test for each supplier.

Check when super contributions reach the fund

The ATO’s published Payday Super guidance says contributions must be paid with wages and generally received by the fund within seven business days, with extended timeframes in some cases. The rule started on 1 July 2026; Fair Work’s notice also identifies the receipt requirement and exceptions.

Confirm when the fund received the contribution. A submission acknowledgement alone does not establish receipt.

Ask who monitors rejected or returned contributions, how the operator sees the affected person and deadline, and what evidence establishes distribution and receipt. Have the payroll adviser determine the applicable deadline for the test case. A general “Payday Super ready” badge does not answer those operational questions.

Run these four cases before changing systems

Use fictional employees and a demonstration environment. Your Australian payroll specialist supplies the approved classifications, rates, statutory treatment and deadlines. Do not send real bank payments or statutory filings during a sales test.

Record the case, observed result, supporting record, recurring manual step and owner. A documented workaround can pass when it is demonstrated and the person doing the work accepts it. An unexplained difference, an unowned rejection or a payment status nobody can substantiate keeps the purchase on hold.

Which two suppliers should you test?

For an hourly workforce replacing rostering and payroll, put Tanda and Microkeeper through the four cases. Include Employment Hero if you also need its HR tools. For a business with a working Xero or MYOB process, make the incumbent demonstrate the same cases before assuming replacement is necessary.

Choose only after the operator can show correct pay, completed payments and a way to find and fix failures. Include that person’s workload when comparing costs.

Questions buyers ask