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Best Payroll Software and ERP Payroll for Australian Businesses (2026)
Australian payroll is the hardest localisation problem in business software: 120-plus modern awards, STP Phase 2’s reporting taxonomy, SuperStream, and underpayment scandals that turned payroll compliance into a board-level risk. Which is why the first question isn’t “which payroll software” but “who interprets the award: the software, or a human hoping the spreadsheet is right?”
The short answer
For award-heavy workforces (hospitality, retail, care, manufacturing shifts), shortlist platforms with genuine award interpretation engines: Employment Hero Payroll (the former KeyPay engine) and Tanda/Workforce.com-style time-and-attendance pairings. For salaried professional teams under ~50 staff, Xero Payroll or MYOB is usually enough. At enterprise scale, ADP and managed payroll take over. And if you’re buying an ERP anyway, the native-vs-add-on payroll question (MYOB Acumatica and Wiise native; Business Central and NetSuite via connected payroll) can decide the ERP shortlist, which is why we cover it in the compliance matrix.
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Australian payroll platforms at a glance
| Platform | Best for | AUD pricing (ex GST) | Award interpretation | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Employment Hero Payroll | Award-heavy SMB/mid-market | AEmployment Hero Payroll | Award-heavy SMB/mid-market | 0/employee/mo published; custom bundles above | Yes — rules engine |
| Xero Payroll | Salaried small teams on Xero | Bundled/low per-employee | Basic (pay items, not awards) | ||
| MYOB (Business/PayGlobal) | MYOB-ecosystem SMB to enterprise | Tiered | Varies by product | ||
| ADP | Large employers, managed payroll | Quote-only | Via service + engine | ||
| Tanda / Workforce.com | Rostered workforces (T&A + interpretation) | Per employee/mo | Yes — paired with payroll | ||
| ERP-native (MYOB Acumatica, Wiise) | One system, ledger to payslip | Within ERP subscription | Engine-dependent | ||
| ERP add-on route (BC, NetSuite) | ERP buyers pairing certified payroll | Add-on licence + integration | Depends on the add-on |
What users report
| Product | Rating · volume | Counted themes |
|---|---|---|
| Employment Hero | 4.4/5 · 3,612 G2 reviews | Ease of use leads pros (495 mentions); support appears on both sides — 251 pro vs 143 con mentions |
| Employment Hero Payroll (ex-KeyPay) | 4.4/5 · 26 Capterra reviews (small sample) | Award interpreter praised; slow ticket resolution criticised |
| Xero Payroll (within Xero) | 4.4/5 · 3,316 Capterra reviews | Support sub-score (4.0) trails ease of use (4.4) |
| MYOB | 3.9/5 · 148 Capterra reviews | Support is the lowest sub-score (3.4); hold times the leading complaint |
- Employment Hero’s split support record is the finding: G2’s tallies log “fast attentive support” in 251 reviews and “poor customer support” in 143 — experiences genuinely vary, and Trustpilot’s dominant negative theme is the difficulty of reaching a human (chat-only support). On the Xero App Store, reviewers praise rostering-to-payroll automation and criticise leave-accrual recalculation for variable shift patterns.
- Payroll-day support matters most: Capterra reviewers of Employment Hero specifically cite slow responses “on the day payroll is being processed” — test support SLAs before committing, whatever you pick.
Verified 7 August 2026. Product names in this category churn. KeyPay became Employment Hero Payroll; confirm current branding and plans before citing.
Why award interpretation decides this category
An award interpretation engine turns “Saturday, 6.5 hours, casual, hospitality award, split shift” into the legally correct gross pay, automatically, every pay run. Without one, a human encodes the award into pay items and hopes. Most of the wage-underpayment cases that made national news started exactly that way, then scaled.
The test I’d run in any demo: hand the vendor your three ugliest real rosters — the public-holiday-plus-overtime one, the higher-duties one, the terminated-mid-week one — and watch the engine compute them live. If the answer involves “you’d set up a pay item for that”, you’re buying hope.
Standalone payroll vs payroll inside the ERP
Choose standalone (Employment Hero, ADP) when payroll complexity outruns your ERP’s engine, when HR/onboarding matters as much as pay, or when you want payroll upgrades decoupled from ERP release cycles. Choose ERP-native (MYOB Acumatica, Wiise) when you want costed labour flowing straight to jobs and the GL with no integration to babysit; that matters most in manufacturing and field service. The add-on route (Business Central or NetSuite plus certified AU payroll) works well and is chosen constantly. Just price the connector, testing and dual-support reality as first-class scope, and get one throat to choke in writing. The usual failure mode is the Thursday 4pm pay-event error that each vendor says is the other’s problem.
HOW WE RESEARCHED THIS
Published pricing was checked on each vendor’s Australian site on 7–8 August 2026 (Employment Hero’s A$10/employee/month payroll plan is its published rate; enterprise bundles are quote-only). STP Phase 2 and awards-engine capability comes from vendor documentation and the ATO’s published material. Review figures were counted on G2, Capterra, Trustpilot and the Xero App Store on 8 August 2026. No vendor sponsored or reviewed this page.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best payroll software in Australia?
Employment Hero Payroll for award-heavy workforces, Xero or MYOB for small salaried teams, ADP for enterprise and managed payroll, and ERP-native payroll (MYOB Acumatica, Wiise) when you want payroll inside the business system. The deciding question is whether you need award interpretation built into the engine.
What is STP Phase 2?
The ATO’s expanded Single Touch Payroll reporting: pay data disaggregated into income types, itemised allowances and cessation details, reported every pay event. Every legitimate AU payroll product now supports it; the differences are in how much manual classification they leave to you.
Does Xero handle awards?
Xero Payroll handles pay items, leave and STP well for straightforward teams, but it is not an award interpretation engine, so rostered, award-heavy workforces typically pair it with a specialist platform or move payroll out of Xero entirely.
Should payroll live inside our ERP?
If labour costing to jobs and the GL matters (manufacturing, field service) and your ERP has a credible AU engine, yes. If your complexity is award interpretation and HR workflow, a specialist platform integrated to the ERP usually serves better. Our compliance matrix shows which ERPs are native vs add-on.