There are approximately 94 payroll vendors in New Zealand with their own developed payroll application and this does not count the 220 payroll vendors in Australia who may have a New Zealand module as an add-on to their Australian payroll application. With this number of payroll applications in the market place and with the cost of maintaining and updating them as legislation changes, NZPPA wants to provide the latest information on changes and potential changes to help payroll developers meet legislative requirements.
This is not just about tax—it covers all the requirements of employment legislation as well.
What NZPPA wants from doing this are payroll applications that meet legislative requirements. The result will be that payroll practitioners get an effective application that minimises risk to the employer and ensures where possible) that employees are paid correctly—first time, every time.
NZPPA will ensure that, when any changes occur that could affect a payroll application, information on that change will be included here on this page.
Payroll Specification Documents
There are two main payroll specification documents available for payroll developers. They are:
- The IRD Payroll Specification (covering all the tax requirements payroll software is required to include)(see links below)
- In 2010 NZPPA was invited to facilitate the updating of the Holidays Act Payroll Specification
(In consultation with DOL and payroll developers)(see links below)
IRD Payroll Specification and Related Document Links
Draft payroll specification document:
http://www.ird.govt.nz/software-developers/software-dev-draft-spec/
Technical specification documents for software developers:
http://www.ird.govt.nz/software-developers/software-dev-specs/
*click on the link or copy and paste into a web browser.
IRD Payroll Developers Group
The IRD has become very proactive in helping payroll developers to develop applications that meet the requirements set by tax and compliance legislation. If you are a payroll developer it is essential that you become part of the IRD payroll developers group and forum.
IRD provides a regular conference for this group—information on their website and also email updates.
Payroll Developers on the IRD website
To view the IRD Payroll Developers’ page go here:
http://www.ird.govt.nz/software-developers/
Potential or upcoming changes
At last count there were up to 39 acts in New Zealand that mention the word “employee” somewhere within them. For a payroll developer this does not mean each piece of legislation affects payroll but you have to keep an eye out. The following table will be updated with future changes that may affect payroll.
| Potential or forthcoming changes | ||
| Legislation and date it might be implemented | Overview | Link to document |
| No Update at present. |