Tanda Payroll for accountants and bookkeepers
About this guide
Somewhere in your client's business, there's probably a person who keeps a spreadsheet on the side just to check the payroll integration still matches what actually happened in the pay run. They're the one who catches it when a super detail changes in one system but not the other, or when a junior employee has a birthday mid-pay-period and the rate needs adjusting by hand. The payroll gets done every cycle, but that one person is carrying more of it than the business realises.
We built Tanda Payroll because we kept seeing this pattern in the businesses we work with. Good operators, good finance people, spending a disproportionate amount of time holding their pay process together manually.
This guide is for accountants and bookkeepers who work with those businesses. It covers what Tanda Payroll does, where it fits, how it integrates with your accounting platform, and what a migration actually looks like.
If you've ever been unsure about whether a client should use Tanda for payroll, we recommend you read this guide first.
Where Tanda Payroll fits best
Tanda Payroll suits businesses managing awards, multiple entities, labour costing, departments, locations or shift-based teams, typically five or more staff in Australia or New Zealand.
It's most commonly used across hospitality, QSR, healthcare, retail, childcare and professional services, where workforce data and payroll need to stay closely aligned.
It's generally not the right fit for sole proprietors with minimal workforce complexity, or government organisations with highly specialised payroll structures.
Why payroll gets harder to manage over time
Most payroll systems can process a pay run. Payslips, STP, ABA files, tax calculations and super payments are fairly standard functionality.
The harder part is keeping the underlying workforce data accurate and aligned across systems every pay cycle.
Tanda is a workforce management platform: rostering, time and attendance, onboarding and HR. For businesses already using it, the information that determines payroll is already sitting there. Employee records, onboarding details, awards, leave, timesheets, allowances, deductions, departments, cost centres, super details.
When payroll sits in a separate system, all of that has to move across constantly. Tanda Payroll keeps it in one place.
The risk inside familiar systems
Many businesses stay with the payroll setup they already know because changing payroll systems feels risky. That's a fair instinct when there's very little room for error. But the setup they're protecting is often carrying its own risk inside manual processes that have been there so long nobody questions them.
Duplicate employee records, recurring spreadsheet checks, payroll exceptions handled outside the system, one experienced person who knows where the integration breaks… it all feels stable because the workarounds have existed for years.
One retailer explained their previous payroll process this way:
“We were not able to one hundred percent say we’re compliant… with the amount of manual processing that we faced, it was very challenging.”
– Champions IGA
Your accounting system stays put
This is usually the first concern, so let's be direct: Tanda Payroll doesn't replace your accounting platform.
Xero or MYOB still handles financial reporting, reconciliations, BAS and tax workflows, management reporting, and your general ledger structure. None of that changes.
Tanda Payroll handles the payroll workflow: pay runs, payslips, STP reporting, ABA generation, super payments (Payday Super ready), leave balances, payroll journals, onboarding workflows, and payroll reporting.
Tracking categories, cost centres, account codes and entity structures still flow through into the journal structure finance already works with.
Why workforce complexity changes the conversation
A lot of payroll systems were built from the accounting side out. Tanda came from workforce management first.
For businesses running awards, multiple locations, departments, franchises, labour costing or large casual workforces, Tanda Payroll keeps workforce management and payroll inside the same workflow. Onboarding details, cost allocation, payroll adjustments, back pays and reporting all stay in one place rather than moving between systems.
Think about it this way: when 100 staff are managed across separate systems for workforce management and payroll, you're effectively managing 200 employee profiles. Every change, whether that's a rate update, a new super fund, or a classification change, needs to happen twice.
The payroll admin that quietly builds up
These workarounds are rarely dramatic on their own, but they compound over time.
Common questions from accountants and bookkeepers
Yes, and this is how most implementations work.
Before anything goes live, previous pay periods get re-run inside Tanda Payroll and compared directly against historical outputs. Finance teams review journals, pay calculations, leave balances and STP reporting side by side with what they know to be correct. The switch only happens once they're satisfied.
Mid-year payroll transitions under STP Phase 2 are already common, so you don't need to wait until the end of the financial year.
"I did a lot of checking and cross-checking for the first couple of months, and it never skipped a beat." — Chris Williams, CFO, Broncos Leagues Club
That depends on complexity, but the goal is to reduce the reconciliation work that builds up between disconnected systems.
With Tanda Payroll, there's one employee record, with leave balances maintained in one place, award updates applied automatically, and timesheet data flowing straight into payroll without any export or import.
The checking that remains is reviewing the payroll itself, not chasing discrepancies between systems.
This is an area where Tanda goes further than most payroll platforms.
Tanda mirrors your existing chart of accounts. You set the account names and codes to match what you already have in Xero or MYOB, so the journal structure finance works with stays familiar.
For multi-site or multi-department businesses, wages can be mapped by team or location to separate accounts. Three venues that need wages costed separately? Configure it once and it flows automatically through every pay run after that.
Leave liabilities (annual leave, time in lieu, long service leave) are tracked and included in the journal automatically, calculated against each employee's current hourly rate. If a rate changes, Tanda recalculates the leave liability and records the adjustment with a narration, so there's a clear audit trail for why the liability moved.
Journal accounts and codes can be imported directly from Xero, so the chart of accounts you've already set up maps across without manual re-entry. If you're on MYOB, journals export via CSV. Either way, finance teams can review before posting.
Yes. Approved timesheets, draft pay runs, payroll variances, journals, ABA files, STP submissions, audit logs and payroll history are all visible and reviewable throughout the process – logged with timestamps and user history, so you know who did what and when. External accountants and bookkeepers can access payroll activity, journals and reports with appropriate permissions, and can be defined as the registered tax agent for the entity.
Yes. Permissions are role-based and can be separated by entity, workflow and visibility level. A manager approving timesheets doesn't automatically see pay rates or payroll liabilities.
Yes. Tanda Payroll integrates with Xero and MYOB. Payroll journals, tracking categories, cost centres, account codes and entity structures flow through in the format finance already works with.
Both run directly from Tanda Payroll.
Award templates are maintained against Fair Work updates and can be reviewed directly inside the pay run before approval. Custom rules can sit on top where a business's specific setup requires it.
For Xero customers, Tanda Payroll can often be close to cost-neutral once payroll-related Xero plan costs reduce.
For MYOB customers, it's more commonly an additional software cost.
The harder thing to measure is the admin that builds up around disconnected systems: duplicate employee records, recurring spreadsheet checks, onboarding entered twice, payroll corrections after transfer, journal rebuilds, payroll knowledge concentrated in one person. Those costs sit inside payroll hours, bookkeeping time and operational dependency on whoever knows where the integration breaks.
What's included in Tanda Payroll
Tanda Payroll covers the full payroll workflow.
Core payroll
- Pay run processing
- Payslip generation and bulk distribution
- STP Phase 2 reporting and EOFY finalisation
- ABA file generation for bank payments
- Super calculations and payments (Payday Super ready)
- Award interpretation and managed award templates
- Multiple pay schedules and pay frequencies
Employee management
- Employee onboarding within the same system
- Single employee record shared across workforce management and payroll
- Role-based payroll permissions by entity, team or function
- Registered tax agent access for external accountants and bookkeepers
Compliance and calculations
- Automatic award rate updates
- Under-18 super threshold automation
- Maximum super contribution base (concessional cap) calculated automatically
- Long service leave automation
- Junior rates with correct handling across mid-period birthday changes
Journals and reporting
- Configurable chart of accounts to match your existing structure
- Team and location-specific wage accounts
- Leave liability tracking and journal inclusion (annual leave, TIL, LSL)
- Leave liability rate-change adjustments with narration
- Payroll journals exported in Xero and MYOB-compatible CSV formats
- Cost centre and tracking category mapping
- Payroll variance reporting
- Audit history with timestamps and user records
Adjustments and deductions
- Commissions, adjustments and deductions bulk-uploaded and edited via CSV
- Deduction caps
- Back pay calculations
What Tanda Payroll doesn't replace
Your chart of accounts, your financial reports, your reconciliations and your BAS process stay exactly where they are.
What changes day to day
For payroll admins and bookkeepers: less re-entry between systems, fewer transfer errors, fewer payroll corrections, less time rebuilding journals, and no manual checking of whether leave, allowances or deductions transferred correctly.
"The job of doing the payroll for 180 staff is now so seamless. A job that used to take seven to eight hours now comes down to 15 to 20 minutes." — Philippa Gadsby, Payroll and Accounts Manager
For finance teams, the review process stays familiar. What changes is how much manual preparation sits before it.
"The big thing that gets businesses over the line is just the simplicity of Tanda. The one system versus the two systems." — Steven Blaine, Decimal
How implementation works
A typical Tanda Payroll implementation runs over three to five weeks:
- Payroll setup and award configuration — employee records, pay rates, award rules, leave types
- Journal mapping — chart of accounts configured to match your existing structure
- Onboarding payroll data — opening balances and year-to-date figures
- Test pay runs — previous pay periods re-run inside Tanda and compared against historical outputs
- Go-live — once finance is satisfied the numbers match
The testing phase is where accountants and bookkeepers typically get comfortable. You run real pay periods through Tanda alongside your existing system and compare them directly before anything changes.
It's still a change of process, but the implementation is structured to make that change visible and controllable at every step.
"It wasn't as big a task as it seemed, and it's made a monumental change for our business." — Chris Williams, CFO, Broncos Leagues Club
The case for moving
For many businesses, the pain around payroll already exists, it's just become routine. The integrations stay in place because they're familiar, the spreadsheet checks keep running because they always have, and one person knows where the edge cases are while everyone else hopes they don't leave.
Over time, that's accumulated risk sitting inside manual processes that aren't visible on any invoice.
The businesses that stay on disconnected systems longest are often the ones that feel it most when something finally breaks: a compliance failure, a key person leaving, an ATO audit, or a Payday Super obligation they weren't ready for.
Tanda Payroll changes how much effort goes into holding the process together every pay cycle.
Talk to a Tanda Payroll specialist
Bring the payroll workflow you're currently managing for your client: the journal structure, the chart of accounts, the award setup, the systems involved. Bring the edge cases too, the things that create extra admin every cycle, because those are usually where the real conversation starts.
A Tanda Payroll specialist will walk you through how the same payroll would run inside Tanda and where it differs from what you're doing today.
If you want to get across the detail before recommending it to a client, we're happy to talk it through.
Georgie Pollok
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