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Payroll & expenses

Customer ideas for Xero Payroll, employees, expenses and using Xero Me

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Payroll & expenses

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39 results found

  1. At present there is no capacity for employees to enter overtime hours and have it approved in Xero Me.
    If additional hours are entered via Xero Me then the staff member needs to enter in all the hours worked in that fortnight, otherwise the "standard hours" in their pay template disappears in the payroll run and all you see if the overtime hours.

    3 votes

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    0 comments  ·  Payroll  ·  Admin →

    Hi Jeff,

    Thanks for sharing your idea and explaining how you’re using Xero Me with standard and overtime hours.

    It is currently possible for employees to enter overtime hours on their timesheets. Once an overtime earnings rate is set up in Payroll settings, staff can select that rate in Xero Me.

    If the employee is set to be paid via timesheets, they’ll need to enter all hours and rates on the timesheet for that pay period.

    If you need an extra hand you can raise a case with our Xero Support specialists. 😊

  2. Dear Xero Team,

    I’d like to submit a request for an enhancement to Xero Payroll to improve the setup and management of default superannuation funds.

    Currently, when adding a default fund in Xero, there is uncertainty around what should be entered in the Member Number field. We typically process super contributions through the ATO Portal, but we would love to have the ability to do this directly within Xero.

    Specifically, we would like the ability to:

    Add a Default Fund chosen by the employer.

    Assign employees who do not have an existing super fund to this default fund.

    Have a…

    20 votes

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    1 comment  ·  Payroll  ·  Admin →

    Hi Jonathan,

    Thanks so much for sharing your idea about default super funds in Xero Payroll.

    In Xero, Auto Super does let you add new employees to your chosen default fund without needing a default member number. In the membership number field for new employees, you can enter NEW or UNKNOWN as a placeholder, although we recommend checking with the fund directly to confirm they’re happy with this.

    When you process a payment to that fund using Auto Super, the fund will receive the employee details and create a membership for them. Once you receive the new member number from the fund or the employee, just open their Employment tab in Xero, click into the existing super line, overwrite the placeholder with the new membership number.

    If you need an extra hand you can raise a case with our Xero Support specialists. 😊

  3. The new timesheet - it would be great if the names can be in alphabetical order. Like they were on the previous version.

    17 votes

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    2 comments  ·  Payroll  ·  Admin →

    Hi Denise and everyone who’s supported this idea. Apologies it’s taken us a while to update you here.

    We released the new timesheet experience for NZ and UK Payroll in March 2025, and very quickly heard how important alphabetical ordering was for finding and reviewing employee timesheets.

    In April 2025, we updated the new timesheet view so that employee timesheets display in alphabetical order. Thank you again for speaking up and helping us improve this experience.

  4. I have a client that operates two seperate shops under the same entity. They have employees at each shop (Group 1 and Group 2 let's call them) and we need to be able to generate the Payroll employee summary report with a filter for each group, but also a total for each group.

    I want to be able to see in one report the total wages for each group and then the grand total.

    Please make this happen as other reports have this functionality but not the Payroll employee summary report.

    1 vote

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    0 comments  ·  Payroll  ·  Admin →

    Hi Phil, thanks for raising this as a product idea. I wanted to let you know that the Payroll Employee Summary report can already be filtered by Employee Group.

    In your client's scenario, they could assign each staff member to either Group 1 or 2, depending on which store they work at. This will allow you to filter the report by group so you can view total earnings per group.

    If you need an extra hand, you can raise a case with our Xero Support specialists. 😊

  5. Pension filings - Submission errors

    When an employee's employment is terminated and subsequently corrected due to the employee no longer intending to leave - pension contributions are no longer included in the pension filings even though deductions are made on the payslips. This results in an underpayment to the pension provider.

    There is a work around suggested by the support team whereby a new employee profile is required - making the employee a leaver and then a joiner.

    1 vote

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    0 comments  ·  Payroll  ·  Admin →

    Hi Gemma, thank you for sharing your feedback on reinstating employees and how this impacts pension filings.

    When an employee's leaving date is processed in Xero, the system sends an event update to both HMRC and the pension provider. Once this leaving date is processed, the specific employee record can no longer be opted into a pension scheme under that record, and they will cease to appear in filing reports.

    Our product team has reviewed this workflow and confirmed that it is working as designed. This is primarily due to compliance and reporting requirements. HMRC guidelines mention employees should not be paid under an employment record once a P45 has been issued.

    If you have marked an employee as leaving but have not yet posted their final payslip, you can simply reinstate the original record. This will prevent the "leaver" status from being send to HMRC and allow you to…

  6. It would be great if you could provide payroll set up for ExtraOrdinary (NZ)

    1 vote

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    0 comments  ·  Payroll  ·  Admin →

    Thanks for posting on our product ideas website.

    We’ve got some easy-to-use material to guide you through the payroll set up process. We'd suggest shooting over to Xero Central and take a look at the range of payroll set up guides.

    If there's a particular part of the payroll setup that you're having trouble with you can raise a case with our Xero Support specialists. 😊

  7. On the create timesheet tab once a new timesheet is created can we have "create a new timesheet button" added so that we dont need to go back to the timesheet to create a subsequent new timesheet, much in the same way as when you create a new invoice once approved a "create new invoice" button appears towards top of the screen. This would speed up the creation of multiple timesheets. Another time saver would be a timesheet template for each employee which would save having to manually add in payment rates ie. ordinary time, sat, sun each time a…

    1 vote

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    0 comments  ·  Payroll  ·  Admin →


    Hi Chris! Did you know it's already possible to create timesheet templates in Xero?

    Timesheet templates can be created at a user level once a timesheet has been approved. Just click the blue "Save as template" in the bottom left of the screen and give it a name "i.e. Chris's timesheet".

    When you want to load the timesheet template, just create the timesheet, then click the "Load Template" in the bottom left hand corner to load the time and earnings saved in the template.

    We have a bit if help around this in Xero Central - Add or edit your own timesheet, but if you need an extra hand you can raise a case with our Xero Support specialists. 😊

    In regards to a button to create a new timesheet quickly, we have an existing product idea for this, so I've added your vote and you'll get updated automatically…

  8. Pay cycle report (report to be saved in the Payroll module after each pay cycle)

    1 vote

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    0 comments  ·  Payroll  ·  Admin →

    Thanks for sharing your idea.

    You can actually already view employee earnings summary reports for any posted pay run. These reports are saved automatically against the pay run once it is posted.

    To view them:

    1. Go to Payroll > Pay employees.
    2. Click on the specific Pay Period you want to view.
    3. Click the Options button.
    4. Select the report you want.

    I will close this idea as Existing Functionality. If you need an extra hand you can raise a case with our Xero Support team.

  9. YTD payroll report (to see total salaries earned by staff for each reporting period)

    1 vote

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    0 comments  ·  Payroll  ·  Admin →

    Hi Yash, thanks for submitting your idea for a YTD payroll report.

    Good news! You can currently achieve this in NZ Payroll using the following existing reports:

    • Pay History Report: Run this report for your desired date range (e.g., 1 April to today) to view a detailed breakdown of what has been paid to employees. It lists payments by date, allowing you to see salaries earned for each reporting period.
    • Gross Earnings Report: This report can be generated for a specific date range (YTD) to see total earnings per employee, or for a specific pay run to see the totals for that reporting period.

    I will close this idea as Existing functionality. If you need an extra hand you can raise a case with our Xero Support specialists. 😊

  10. Have a button to copy a Superannuation Payment to a draft bill, to simplify reconciliation of the payment.

    I pay myself every week, and pay superannuation as part of the process. While the details are in front of me, I create a bill for the superannuation payment, which Xero then recognises as matching the payment when I do the reconciliation - I don't need to find the numbers again when it's time to reconcile the payment.

    Offering a button to automate that bill creation would streamline the process.

    From where I sit, it looks simple. Might not be so simple…

    1 vote

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    0 comments  ·  Payroll  ·  Admin →

    Thanks for sharing this idea about adding a button to copy a Superannuation payment to a draft bill to make reconciliation easier. We understand the workflow pain you’re trying to solve.

    From an accounting and payroll-reconciliation perspective, converting payroll super liabilities into a bill can introduce duplication of liability. If a bill is coded to a superannuation expense, it double counts expense and creates an extra payable. Best practice is to clear the existing superannuation payable when you make the payment (ideally via Auto Super), rather than re‑creating it as a bill.

    To keep Payroll reports and your General Ledger aligned, we recommend using the Superannuation Accrual or Superannuation Payments report and reconciling payments against the superannuation payable liability. This avoids overstating costs or liabilities and maintains clean auditability.

    If you need an extra hand with using the Auto superannuation payment feature you can raise a case with our Xero…

  11. Xero defaults to full pay period hours for a new employee in the 1st payrun even if the employee start date (already entered into Xero) is part-way through a payrun. This doesn't make sense and is too easy to overpay a new employee in this way, if a manual override has not been done. Ideally, Xero would calculate the expected hours for a salaried employee based on the start date, but another idea would be to flash up a warning before finalising a payrun with employees that have a start date listed within the pay run period.

    11 votes

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    1 comment  ·  Payroll  ·  Admin →

    Hi everyone, thanks for your feedback on having Xero automatically adjust hours in a pay run if the employee starts or leaves part way through a pay period.

    We released work patterns to all NZ payroll organisations in August 2024. If an employee has been assigned a Regular week work pattern, their first and final pay runs will be automatically pro‑rated based on their start or end date in the pay period.

    For employees still set up on “Days and Hours”, Xero doesn't have enough information about which specific days they work, so automatic pro‑rating doesn’t occur in those cases and a manual adjustment to the hours in the pay run will be required.

    For more details on how to set up work patterns please see our Xero Central article.

    We really appreciate everyone who voted and commented here. We hope this helps make first and final pays more accurate.

  12. Should have a warning Pop Up before posting the pay run, there are draft timesheets for that pay run.

    7 votes

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    1 comment  ·  Payroll  ·  Admin →

    Hi Dany, it’s been a little while since you raised this idea, so we wanted to check in.

    I wanted to let you know that payroll already provides a warning message when an employee has an unapproved timesheet. If you open a draft payslip, you'll see a notification "This employee has an unapproved timesheet for this pay run. Approve it now."

    If you need an extra hand you can raise a case with our Xero Support specialists. 😊

  13. I would like to be able to firstly differentiate my payroll journals from other journals and then produce an end of year report of the payroll journals.

    How you could facilitate this:
    -Tick box on the journal to identify it as payroll related.

    16 votes

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    3 comments  ·  Payroll  ·  Admin →

    Thanks so much for taking the time to share this idea with us.

    This is already possible today using report filters. When you run your journal or account transactions reports, you can filter the results to show only payroll journals, for example by using the narration filter to isolate your payroll-related entries.

    If you’re creating manual journals for payroll amendments, we’d also recommend using a consistent naming convention in the narration that’s similar to your automatic payroll journals. That way, all of your payroll-related postings (automatic and manual) can be easily grouped together using the same narration filter. If you need an extra hand you can raise a case with our Xero Support specialists. 😊

  14. When you go into Payroll Overview-Timesheet to Approve-then click on the individual timesheet can you please add an option to export the timesheet to pdf for printing.

    8 votes

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    2 comments  ·  Payroll  ·  Admin →

    Hi everyone, it’s been a little while since you raised this idea, so we wanted to check in.

    I wanted to let you know that it is currently possible to export timesheets to PDF by running the Timesheet Details report. This report provides a clear, comprehensive view of each employee's hours, split across every day of the week.

    You can filter the report by specific employee or by pay period. Once you have the view you want, you can export the report directly to PDF, as well as Excel or Google Sheets. This should provide the documentation you need

    If you need an extra hand you can raise a case with our Xero Support specialists. 😊

  15. Wish I could remove it from the top row of tabs. Keep it simple.
    Previous versions allowed it to be removed by turning off the Payroll Add-on. Cheers Pete

    1 vote

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    0 comments  ·  Payroll  ·  Admin →

    Hi Peter, I wanted to let you know that it's currently possible to remove the payroll section from showing in Xero.

    If Payroll is included in your pricing plan but you don't want to use it, you can hide payroll functions by removing the payroll admin permission from all users.

    Only users with the payroll admin user permission can see payroll features.

    I've included a link to our support article for more information about the payroll admin permission.

    If you need an extra hand you can raise a case with our Xero Support specialists. 😊

  16. Workers Comp pay item leave accrual idea.

    There is an option to "Accrue Leave for this Earnings Rate" when setting up the WC pay item.

    What would be good is the option to accrue for AL or PL separately as this alters according to state law eg in WA, AL is accrued but not PL on WC payments.

    19 votes

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    3 comments  ·  Payroll  ·  Admin →

    We appreciate that it's been a little while since this idea was raised, so just wanted to touch base with an update. While not specifically possible to accrue leaved based on ordinary hours, a workaround for this is to change the leave accrual rate to a set amount per pay period whilst the employee is on workers compensation. 🙂

  17. It would be great if there was an option (tick the box) to copy last week's wages for the current week for payroll. I have casual staff who sometimes have the same hours as the previous week's so not having to replicate this would be great and the quickest way would be to have a tick the box which can copy it across to the current payroll

    2 votes

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    0 comments  ·  Payroll  ·  Admin →

    Hi Lien, thanks for your suggestion! I wanted to let you know that it’s actually currently possible to have a set amount of hours automatically populate in a pay run, which might solve this for you.

    Even for casual employees, you can go into their Pay Template and enter the number of hours they normally work per week. Once this is saved, those hours will automatically pull through to the draft pay run each time you create one. You can then just overwrite them on the odd occasion that their hours change, rather than having to manually enter them every single week.

    If you need a hand getting this set up, I’d recommend reaching out to our Xero Support team.

  18. Once Payroll is posted we require the relevant reports (journal and activity), I feel a download link (alike the one for payslips) would be beneficial rather than having to view reports and then having to export download for printing or saving purposes, this would save users time.

    2 votes

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    0 comments  ·  Payroll  ·  Admin →

    Hi Craig, thanks for your feedback on an easy download link for payroll reports.

    I wanted to let you know that it's currently possible to download payroll reports directly from pay runs.

    From a posted pay run, you can open it and download the Payroll Activity Summary, Payroll Activity Details, and the Pay Run Journal.

    I hope this helps and saves you time.

    If you need an extra hand you can raise a case with our Xero Support specialists. 😊

  19. As we don't have the ability to turn off automatic posting of payroll, can you add nominal codes for ER NI & ER Pension, other analysis fields to employees records rather than at Company level to allow easier analysis and posting of payroll journal.
    There is a field on the employee record to enter the nominal code for their wages cost so why can't there be more fields for different codes?

    5 votes

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    1 comment  ·  Payroll  ·  Admin →

    Thanks for your patience, it’s been a little while since this idea was raised so we wanted to check in.

    For pension contributions, it is currently possible to allocate the costs across more than one nominal code. To do this, create an additional pension pay item for both the employee and employer contributions then assign the new pay item to the additional code.

    For National Insurance, allocating the cost to more than one nominal code isn’t currently supported however there is an existing product idea specifically for allocating NI costs to multiple nominal codes. It would be great if you could take a look at that idea and add your vote and any additional context.

    If you need an extra hand splitting pension costs you can raise a case with our Xero Support specialists. 😊

  20. It would be wonderful if there is an option where employees can add R&D work hours in timesheet where the employers can filter the R&D hours separately for each employee

    3 votes

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    0 comments  ·  Payroll  ·  Admin →

    Hi there, it's been a while since you raised this idea so just wanted to touch base.

    This sounds like something you may already be able to achieve by creating a earnings pay item for R & D hours, then adding a 2nd earnings line in the timesheet for R & D hours.

    You could speed up inputting hours by using timesheet templates. We have a bit if help around this in Xero Central - Create timesheet template, but if you need an extra hand you can raise a case with our Xero Support specialists. 😊

    To review the timesheet hours for R & D, you could run the Timesheet Detail or Timesheet Summary reports.

    If you'd like to try this out before taking action in your own org, you can use the demo company to test it. 🙂


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