Best payroll software for 100 employees in Japan

Compare seven Japanese payroll systems

The limitations below come from each provider’s documentation. Do not select a product that cannot calculate your pay rules or transfer the required data in a demonstration.

Who should use this shortlist?

This is for an employer with a Japanese entity, roughly 100 employees and someone who can operate Japanese payroll. The software must calculate pay, distribute payslips and support the year-end process. An international HR director can use this English guide with the local payroll operator; English-language service is not assumed.

We rank the first three as starting points for different operating choices. Positions four to seven become better choices when their stated condition applies. These are editorial recommendations from published product and support evidence, not measured usability or payroll-accuracy scores. A software subscription does not buy a payroll operator.

1. freee: Starter for payroll and employee year-end submissions

freee Starter supports employee-entered year-end information and variable allowances.

Our verdict: start with Starter if employees will submit their year-end information in the same system you use for payroll. If managers must approve attendance inside freee, price Standard from the outset. Test whether employees can submit and correct their year-end information themselves.

2. Jobcan: connect payroll to existing attendance

Jobcan documents pay-rule groups, configurable calculations and a connection to its attendance product. Its plan matrix permits year-end adjustment with paid payroll even without a paid HR account; connecting other Jobcan services requires those services to be paid too.

Email functions require a request to support, and activation can be refused even on a paid plan. The restriction covers automatic notifications, bulk payslip sending and year-end messages. Jobcan does not lift these email restrictions for trial plans.

Our verdict: put Jobcan first if you already use its attendance service and it passes your pay rules. Make activation, or an acceptable demonstrated alternative delivery process, a written condition before committing to a paperless rollout.

3. PCA: complex formulas with a trained payroll operator

PCA describes multiple payroll structures, configurable formulas, up to 100 freely configured payroll items and retroactive calculations. Consider it if your current payroll depends on custom formulas or many separate pay items.

PCA points buyers to the separate PCA Hub service for electronic year-end collection and payslip delivery.

Its published payroll-only example is JPY 16,200 a month before tax for one simultaneous user, combining software and server licensing. It is not a complete 100-employee portal quote.

PCA’s operator environment specifies Windows 11 and excludes ARM PCs; the browser-based Hub has different requirements.

Our verdict: third on the shortlist for rule-heavy payroll with a trained operator and suitable IT support. Demonstrate your hardest formula and a corrected prior period. PCA requires supported Windows computers for payroll operators. Include any second operator and employee services in the quote.

4. Money Forward: for employers keeping KING OF TIME

Money Forward lists an API connection between KING OF TIME and Cloud Payroll. Compare it if you want to keep KING OF TIME. Test the transferred fields, error handling and payroll cut-off in your own setup.

The 51-plus-employee offer has fixed fees for agreed usage, excess charges and possible initial fees. We have not extrapolated the smaller-business web plan into a 100-person price. Request payroll, year-end adjustment and any other service as named quote lines.

Our verdict: put Money Forward first if you want to keep KING OF TIME and a test transfer preserves the correct hours, pay categories and employee records. Include the cost of retaining or replacing attendance when comparing the payroll quotes.

5. OBC: specify the operator licences and the year-end products

OBC’s iB base covers up to 100 employees with one user licence and one specialist licence. It uses an annual contract per entity. The specialist licence is not evidence of a second ordinary payroll operator licence.

The published operating environment is Japanese Windows 11 with supported Edge or Chrome; cloud hosting does not establish Mac support.

For year-end work, OBC illustrates declaration collection, payroll calculation and statutory-report submission through three named products. Ask for the precise combination your team will use.

Our verdict: a strong alternative when a payroll department wants defined capacity and an adviser working in the same system. A 100-person employer close to hiring again should quote both 100 and 101 employees. Select on the full configuration, including the second operator and required collection/submission products.

6. jinjer: HR, attendance and payroll together

jinjer Payroll documents retroactive calculations, year-end calculations and attendance-data transfer from jinjer Attendance. Employee year-end declaration collection is a separate HR option that passes information to payroll. Price both products if you need employees to submit their declarations.

Our verdict: move jinjer up when replacing HR, attendance and payroll together has an agreed business case. If you only need payroll, compare it with a system that can use your existing HR and attendance records.

Request one plan and total price for the selected products. Agree who investigates an employee change that reaches HR but is missing from attendance or payroll. No comparable complete 100-person price was established in this review.

7. Yayoi: lower-cost payroll for an operator who can handle setup

Yayoi’s Basic Light includes year-end calculation; Entry does not. Basic Light also permits custom pay-item formulas, but the pricing page explicitly excludes operational support for creating those formulas. Its introduction and operation support belongs to Basic and Basic Plus.

Our verdict: compare Basic Light if your payroll operator can configure formulas and retain existing attendance. Ask that operator to build the hardest formula during evaluation. Choose a different support package if the business expects the vendor to configure it. Basic Light excludes that setup support.

Four subscription calculations for 100 employees

Use a fictional stable population of 100 employees, all paid and all receiving web payslips every month, with no extra administrators. Keep existing attendance. These are public subscription illustrations in JPY before tax, checked on 1 October 2026. They exclude migration, internal payroll labour, retained attendance and other services; they are not equivalent complete quotes.

Sources: Jobcan’s chargeable-user definition, freee’s billing table, Yayoi’s selected plan and PCA’s one-user example.

Check who counts towards each bill:

• Jobcan: anyone active or on leave during the month.
• freee: extra contracted employees with positive payslip or bonus finalisations, subject to specified exceptions. Zero pay does not itself establish a right to reduce an annual commitment.
• Yayoi: distinct employees actually receiving covered web documents during the month, not every registered employee. Multiple document types for the same person count once. A former employee receiving a tax certificate can therefore count towards that month’s bill.

Annual billing saves JPY 10,800 at 100 employees. This compares freee Starter’s annual illustration with twelve monthly payments of JPY 60,900. The extra-person rate is unchanged. Decide whether that saving warrants the commitment.

Run these four cases in the payroll demo

Run these fictional records in a demonstration environment. Your Japanese payroll operator supplies the correct tax treatment and expected statutory output; the numbers below test workflow and reconciliation, not Japanese tax law. Keep an evidence sheet with case ID, expected result, observed result, unresolved step and owner.

Reject a finalist if an essential case remains unresolved. A workaround can be acceptable when the operator demonstrates it, the owner accepts its recurring time cost and the contract includes any required module. A presentation slide is not that demonstration.

Choose two finalists and price a complete year

Choose two providers that pass your payroll examples and support the attendance system you intend to keep.

Give the finalists the same twelve-month population schedule and request:

• People and licences: separate counts for paid employees, people on leave, web-document recipients, simultaneous operators and the specialist/adviser account.
• Services and setup: year-end collection, calculation, submission, implementation, training, parallel runs and retained software.
• Renewal and exit: the renewal price and the data export available when leaving.

Include every required item in the total.

Approve the purchase only when the operator can reconcile both a normal run and a correction. Keep internal review and bank-release responsibility explicit. If you do not have a payroll operator, compare managed payroll services.

Questions buyers ask