When you’re using xero and minutedock, you get used to having nice quality tools. It’s like having chisels that were shaped by master craftsmen. And then there’s your payroll package…

Payroll?

Payroll is the software that takes money from my company account, pays the tax man, deducts my taxes as an employee, then pays me in my personal account.

iPayroll

I’ve always used iPayroll. Giles Crisp is a great contact there (tell him Ben sent you), and provides great service. With iPayroll, you authorize them to move the money around and they get access to your company bank accounts. You will be paid every Tuesday without having to lift a finger. Plus it does all sort of HR stuff as well, so if you have employees, you can know know how many days off they should have.

Anyway - Ipayroll is great, but it’s kinda funky looking, and trying to sign up just recently has been a real PITA. Bugs a plenty with the sign-up process.

So I went to the xero payroll providers page.

Smart Payroll

Looks awesome. Until you actually look at the screenshots of the real app, not the pretty marketing page. It looks like it was designed in 1901. It makes iPayroll look a perfectly executed piece of modern art. Pass.

Flexitime

Looks awesome. The app is very xero / minutedock-ish, so I rang them up on their 0800 number and asked:

“Can I pay you money to take money from my account and move the money around?”

“Err - no sorry”

The Flexitime guy told me what I’d have to do to use flexitime to satisfy my obligations as an employer. Basically, set up an automatic payment, modify the AP as necessary, update flexitime, and remember to log into IRD once a month and upload a report that I download from the flexitime site. That’s a lot of remembering.

If Flexitime had put a ‘we manage everything’ option on their website with a nice CSS3 button for me to press and a well form that let me set up my organisation, I probably would have chosen them as my payroll provider. Oh well, back to iPayroll.