Comparison of payroll features in major accounting software

If you are looking for accounting software with payroll, you may want to review my comparison table below before making the big purchase. As the saying goes, “oils ain’t oils” and the same goes for payroll features offered by software companies. Basically, some features are great and others, well, not so great. Our comparison table reviews some payroll features offered by Saasu, Xero, QuickBooks Online and MYOB Essentials. I won’t be favouring one platform over the other in this blog, that’s your job; I will simply be presenting the facts which will hopefully make your choice a little easier.

The comparison table below presents some popular payroll features that you may be looking for in terms of your business’ needs via four popular online accounting software packages.

Payroll Features Comparison

PAYROLL FEATURE	SAASU	XERO	INTUIT QUICKBOOKS ONLINE	MYOB ESSENTIALS
Employee portal
Can add documents or notes to an employee's file				Can add notes only
Timesheets supported
Employment Awards integrated within software			Offered in "Plus" plan at an additional cost
Tax tables automatically updated
Ability to withhold extra tax
PAYG withholding variations supported
Ability to choose between hourly or salary payments
Ability to edit a payrun after completion
Create & save draft payruns
Print and email payslips
Electronic ABA upload to bank
Can divide employee pay to multiple banks
Automatically calculates superannuation guarantee
SuperStream ready
Superannuation clearing house within software
Automatically calculate leave accruals
Leave is calculated as % of hours worked
Leave can be calculated pro-rata of hours per pay period
Option to pay leave in advance
Leave can be entered manually
Create employee payment summaries
Can email payment summaries to employees
Create EMPDUPE file
Can lodge Payment Summary Annual Report directly from software
Reporting functionality (options vary between softwares)
Payroll liabilities are linked to BAS fields
Option to print deductions on payslip
Option to print expenses on payslip

To further assist you with your research, below you will find links and videos for each of the software platforms mentioned in our comparison table which specifically relate to their payroll features.

Saasu

How payroll works withing Saasu: http://help.saasu.com/payroll/

Link to video showing how to use the payroll feature in Saasu

Xero

How payroll works in Xero: https://help.xero.com/au/PayrollStart

QuickBooks Online

How payroll works in QuickBooks Online: http://qbo.keypay.com.au

MYOB Essentials

How payroll works in MYOB Essentials: http://help.myob.com/wiki/display/ea/Payroll