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For each pay run:

• A manual journal, dated pay day: wages (split into the accounts you pick, and by cost centre if you want), employer KiwiSaver, and what's owed: net pay to staff (into a wages clearing account), PAYE, KiwiSaver, ESCT, student loan and child support. It has a "Go to RosterMate" link back to RosterMates.
• A payment (Spend Money) from your wages bank account for exactly the bank file's total: the net pay out of the clearing account and the IRD line out of PAYE and KiwiSaver owed. It goes to a contact called Payroll, so whoever reconciles doesn't see staff names.
• A pay summary PDF attached to the journal (unless you turn it off).

If you choose them, the leave owed to staff and month-end accruals go in as journals too (see below). Filed payrolls shows what's in Xero for each pay run, with links that open it in Xero.

Don't also code the bank line to Wages in Xero. The journal already puts the wages in. Match the bank line to the payment instead, and the clearing, PAYE and KiwiSaver accounts all come back to zero.

1. Go to Settings → API's, open the Xero card and connect Xero if it isn't connected. Pick the organisation that does your accounts.
2. Click Pay runs into Xero accounts.
3. If it asks, click Allow. Xero asks you to log in and let RosterMates add journals, payments, contacts and attachments. Your employee import and timesheet export keep working as they are.
4. Go through the sections below, tick Send pay runs to Xero and click Save.

The Xero login that connects needs to be able to add manual journals: an adviser, or a standard user with Edit ticked for Manual journals (in Xero, Settings → Users, under Accounting). If it can't, RosterMates says so.

1. When

Send pay runs paid from starts on today's date, so pay runs you've already put into Xero yourself aren't sent again. Earlier pay runs only go if you press Send to Xero on them in Filed payrolls. With Send each pay run automatically ticked, a pay run goes to Xero as soon as it's paid. Untick it to send each one yourself from Filed payrolls.

Start from one of three layouts, then change any account you like:

• Simple: all wages in one account, and everything owed to Inland Revenue in one account.
• Standard (like Xero Payroll): PAYE with student loan, child support and ESCT in one account, and KiwiSaver owed on its own.
• Detailed: PAYE, KiwiSaver, ESCT, student loan and child support each in their own account.

RosterMates suggests your existing accounts by name (for example 477 Wages and Salaries, 825 PAYE Payable). If Xero is missing one, click Make them in Xero for me. That adds, for example, 815 Wages Clearing - RosterMatePay and 826 KiwiSaver Payable. You can also pick a different account for each kind of pay: ordinary hours, overtime, salaries, public holidays, annual leave, other leave, allowances, holiday pay, leave paid out, one-off payments and reimbursements.

Xero's own 814 Wages Payable belongs to Xero Payroll and can't be used in journals, which is why RosterMates uses its own clearing account.

To see in Xero how much you pay, say, the kitchen against the front of house, split wages by up to two of: area, position, roster group, location or person. Each one becomes a tracking category in Xero, and every wage line carries its option, so the Profit and Loss can be filtered by it. Xero allows two active tracking categories, so two is the most.

1. In 3. Cost centres, choose what to split by.
2. Pick one of your existing Xero tracking categories, or let RosterMates make a new one named after it (for example "Area").
3. For each area, position and so on, pick its option in Xero. Options with the same name are picked for you; anything else can be a new option RosterMates makes, or "Not tracked".
4. Optionally, under Wages go to, send one cost centre's wages and employer KiwiSaver to a different account, for example the kitchen's wages to Cost of Goods Sold.
5. Save. New categories and options are made in Xero then.

How each dollar is split:

• Pay for a shift goes where the shift was.
• Pay with no shift (salaries, leave, public holidays, holiday pay, one-offs) is split by where the person worked in that pay run. With no hours in it, it's split by their last four weeks, or else their one assigned area or position.
• Employer KiwiSaver follows the person's wages.
• What's owed (net pay, PAYE, KiwiSaver) isn't tracked.

For someone who should always count as one area, position or roster group whatever their shifts say, use Always count these people as….

In 4. The payment, pick the bank account wages are paid from, and how your bank shows the batch on your statement:

• One line for the whole batch (BNZ, Kiwibank and ASB files do this): one payment for the file's total.
• A line for each person and IRD: one payment per person, and one for Inland Revenue.

The payment is dated the bank file's pay date. If you didn't make a bank file in RosterMates, it's what the pay run says was paid, and Filed payrolls says so.

Matching It in Xero

1. When the bank line comes into Xero (bank feed or a statement import), open Reconcile for that bank account.
2. Xero shows the RosterMates payment as the match for the line. Click OK.

Filed payrolls then shows "Payment in Xero, matched ✓" (it checks every few hours).

If you'd rather code the bank line yourself, choose I'll code the bank line myself. Code it to the wages clearing account and what's owed to IRD, not to Wages.

• Add it as: posted, or a draft for your accountant to post. Anything dated on or before Xero's lock date always goes in as a draft.
• Dated: on pay day, or on the last day of the pay period.
• Lines: one per account (and cost centre), or one per person for wages. With one per person, anyone who can see journals in Xero sees each person's pay.
• When a pay run is amended with IRD: change the journal in Xero to match, or leave it and add a correcting journal for the difference (see below).

In 7. Check it, Show the last pay run as Xero will get it shows the journal and payment with the settings on screen, before you save, and links to its pay summary PDF.

In Summary → RosterMatePay → Filed payrolls, each pay run shows what's in Xero, for example "Journal in Xero · Payment in Xero, matched ✓". Click either one to open it in Xero. The buttons next to it:

• Send to Xero: for a pay run that hasn't gone yet (paid before the start date, or with automatic sending off).
• Try again: when something didn't go. The reason is shown underneath.
• Send the amendment to Xero: when the pay run was amended with IRD after its journal went, and the amendment hasn't gone yet.
• Send again with today's settings: see below.

Sending happens in the background, so paying staff never waits for Xero. If Xero is down, it tries again by itself.

A Pay Run Amended with IRD

With Change the journal in Xero to match (the default), the journal already in Xero is changed to the amended figures. It keeps its date and cost centres, its narration says it was amended and why, and a note goes on its history in Xero. Xero gives an edited journal a new number (journal #1 might become #4), but it's the same journal and the links still open it.

A correcting journal for just the difference, dated the day it's sent, goes in instead when:

• the journal's date is inside Xero's lock date;
• Xero won't let it be changed;
• a correcting journal has already been added to that pay run;
• you chose Leave it, and add a correcting journal for the difference.

The payment already in Xero isn't touched. The top-up bank file for an amendment gets its own payment.

Send Again with Today's Settings

If you change accounts or cost centres after a pay run went, Send again with today's settings voids its journal(s) in Xero (a draft is deleted) and sends one fresh journal with the current settings. The payment stays as it is. It won't do it when the journal's date is locked in Xero, or when net pay or what's owed to IRD would now go to different accounts than the payment already cleared. It says which, and what to do.

Every journal RosterMates puts in Xero gets a PDF under Files, so whoever opens the journal sees where the figures came from. It covers the original, an amendment, a correction and a fresh journal. It shows what the pay run paid (hours, gross, PAYE, student loan, child support, KiwiSaver, ESCT, deductions, reimbursements and net pay) and the journal's lines with their cost centres.

In 6. Extras → Attach a pay summary, choose:

• With the totals (the default): no names.
• With each person's pay: anyone who can see journals in Xero sees it.
• No.

Attaching files needs Xero's permission. If you connected before this was added, press Allow once more. Until then the journals still go, without the PDF.

Your accounts can show the holiday pay you owe your staff, kept up to date by RosterMates. In 6. Extras → Leave owed to staff, choose to update it at the end of each month or on each pay day, and pick two accounts in 2. Accounts (or click Make them in Xero for me):

• a cost account, for example 480 Holiday Pay Expense;
• a liability, for example 832 Annual Leave Owed.

It starts from the date in 1. When: only pay runs paid from then count.

How It's Worked Out

For each person, it's what they'd be paid for their leave if they left that day, worked out the same way as a final pay under the Holidays Act:

• annual leave they've earned and not taken, at the higher of their normal and average weekly pay;
• 8% of what they've earned since their last work anniversary, less leave taken before it was earned;
• alternative holidays not taken, at a day's pay.

Staff paid holiday pay with each pay (pay-as-you-go), casuals, and anyone with no annual leave set up only count their alternative holidays.

Until RosterMates has all of someone's pay since their anniversary, which is usual in your first year with RosterMatePay, the 8% would come out too low. So RosterMates uses the leave they've built up in hours at their holiday pay rate when that's more.

What Goes into Xero

The first journal puts in the whole amount owed. After that, each journal is just the change since the last one, so the liability account always equals what's owed. The cost is split by cost centre the way the person's wages are. If your accountant already keeps leave owed in Xero, use their accounts and tell them before the first journal goes.

Show leave owed today lists what each person is owed and why, with anything that may make a figure low (such as a missing year of pay history or no contracted hours).

From 6 August 2028 leave is owed under the new Employment Leave Act, which RosterMates can't value yet. The journal pauses and says so.

With weekly or fortnightly pay, a pay period often runs over a month end, but its journal is dated in the new month. Tick Month-end accrual (in 6. Extras) and pick an account for Wages owed at month end, for example 835 Accrued Wages. Each month's Profit and Loss then carries the wages worked in it.

For a pay period of 26 October to 1 November paid on 2 November, RosterMates adds:

• a journal dated 31 October with the wages and employer KiwiSaver worked by then (by each person's approved hours, or by days for anyone without), on the same accounts and cost centres as the pay run's journal, owed as accrued wages;
• the same journal reversed on 1 November.

No accrual is added for a month end inside Xero's lock date. An accrual isn't redone when the pay run is amended or sent again.

When you open RosterMatePay on the Summary page, a box at the top says if anything would stop this pay run going into Xero:

• Xero disconnected, or connected to a different organisation;
• an account or the bank account archived or deleted;
• a cost-centre option archived;
• a lock date past today;
• something from an earlier pay run that didn't go.

Fix it first and the pay run goes in as normal. When everything is fine, there's no box. You can run the same check any time with Check Xero is ready in 7. Check it.

• "Xero isn't connected" or "Xero has ended RosterMates' access": reconnect in Settings → API's → Xero, then press Try again in Filed payrolls. This also happens if the Xero login that connected is removed or disabled.
• "Xero needs permission to add journals and payments": press Allow in Settings → API's → Xero → Pay runs into Xero accounts.
• "Account … is archived in Xero" or "isn't in Xero": pick another account in 2. Accounts and save, then Try again.
• "A tracking option … isn't in Xero any more": pick the option again in 3. Cost centres.
• "The Xero user who connected RosterMates isn't allowed to add manual journals": in Xero, go to Settings → Users, open that user and tick Edit for Manual journals (under Accounting), then Try again. You don't need to reconnect. Or reconnect with an adviser.
• A journal went in as a draft: its date was inside Xero's lock date. Your accountant can post it, or change its date in Xero. An amendment to a pay run inside the lock date goes in as a correcting journal dated the day it's sent.
• A payment didn't go because Xero is locked: a payment can't go in on or before the lock date. Code that bank line to the wages clearing and PAYE accounts in Xero yourself.
• The bank line doesn't offer the payment as a match: check the bank account picked in 4. The payment, and how your bank shows the batch. A batch the bank shows as one line needs "One line for the whole batch"; one line per person needs "A line for each person and IRD".
• Wages counted twice: the bank line was coded to Wages as well. Remove that coding and match the line to the RosterMates payment instead.

Still stuck? Book a free setup call and we'll go through it with you.