EH HR Payroll Australia
ATO PAYG withholding by the statement-of-formulas method, plus superannuation guarantee on ordinary-time earnings, as a ready Australian salary structure on the EH payroll engine.
Why this module
EH HR Payroll Australia
The ATO formula, not a flat rate
PAYG is computed by the statement-of-formulas method from Schedule 1 (NAT 1004): withholding y equals coefficient a times weekly earnings minus coefficient b, for the bracket the earnings fall in. Earnings are reduced to whole dollars plus 99 cents and the result is rounded to the nearest dollar, exactly as the ATO method prescribes. A test pins the engine to the ATO published example: 1,333.45 dollars on the tax-free-threshold scale withholds 250 dollars.
On ordinary time, not basic alone
The superannuation guarantee is an employer contribution at the company rate (12 percent by default), computed on ordinary-time earnings rather than basic wage alone. OTE is a non-printing memo base of basic plus ordinary-time allowances, so an allowance lifts the super contribution while a future overtime rule would feed gross but correctly stay out of the super base. Super never reduces the employee take-home pay.
Coefficients are editable data
The bracket coefficients ship as data records on a dedicated model with an admin-gated list view, seeded with the ATO scale-2 values and marked no-update so an upgrade never overwrites your edits. The ATO revises these each financial year, so the rate table is yours to keep current while the withholding method stays fixed. LGPL-3 source on disk, no activation key, no phone-home.
Day in the life
A monthly pay run on the Australian structure
You compute a payslip on the Australia - Standard structure. Basic wage and any ordinary-time allowance roll up to gross and to the ordinary-time-earnings memo base. The super rule takes 12 percent of OTE as an employer contribution that does not touch net. The PAYG rule annualises the monthly gross to a weekly figure, withholds weekly by the ATO formula for the employee's scale, then scales the withholding back to the month. Net is gross minus PAYG. When the ATO publishes new coefficients in July, an admin edits the bracket rows in place; the formula and the structure stay exactly as they were.
Edge cases
The cases most modules quietly ignore.
In the shipped code today, each one a place where a cheaper module silently does the wrong thing.
Non-weekly pay is handled the ATO way: the period gross is annualised to a weekly equivalent, withheld weekly under the formula, then scaled back to the period. Pay periods per year (52 weekly, 26 fortnightly, 12 monthly, 260 daily, 1 annual) are inferred from the payslip date span by the engine, so the same rule serves every cadence.
The formula reduces weekly earnings to whole dollars plus 99 cents before applying the coefficients, then rounds the result to the nearest dollar with halves up and floors it at zero. These are the exact rounding conventions of the statement-of-formulas method, not generic float math, which is why the pinned ATO example reproduces 250 dollars to the cent.
Superannuation is computed on an ordinary-time-earnings memo line (basic plus ordinary-time allowances), not on raw gross. The memo line is kind other and does not print on the payslip, so it forms the super base without affecting gross or net, and any future overtime rule feeding gross stays out of the contribution automatically.
When weekly earnings fall in the first scale-2 bracket the coefficients are zero, so nothing is withheld, and any negative formula result is floored to zero rather than handed back as a negative deduction. Zero or negative gross short-circuits to zero withholding before any bracket lookup.
The bracket records are loaded no-update, so re-installing or upgrading the module never clobbers coefficients an admin has corrected for the current financial year. The top bracket uses a very large upper bound so high earners always match a row, and a missing-bracket fallback selects the highest defined bracket rather than failing.
PAYG and the super rate are injected into the salary-rule sandbox as a closed callable and a plain number through the engine's helper seam. Rules read payg(gross) and super_rate against a read-only namespace with no raw recordset exposed, so a structure cannot reach the ORM or mutate records during computation.
What is inside
Built to do the job, end to end.
- PAYG coefficient model and method. A dedicated eh.hr.payg.bracket model holds the scale, the weekly upper bound, and the a and b coefficients. compute_weekly_payg resolves the bracket for the earnings and scale and applies the ATO formula; compute_period_payg annualises, withholds weekly, and scales back to the period.
- Australia - Standard salary structure. A seeded structure with ordered rules for basic, ordinary-time allowances, gross, the ordinary-time-earnings memo base, the superannuation guarantee employer contribution, PAYG withholding, and net. It runs on the EH payroll engine with category totals driving gross, deductions, and net.
- Per-employee scale and per-company super rate. A PAYG scale selector on the employee (scale 1 no threshold, scale 2 tax-free threshold claimed, scale 3 foreign resident) picks the withholding scale. A superannuation guarantee percentage field on the company sets the employer rate, defaulting to 12 percent.
- Admin coefficient screen and access control. An editable list view of the PAYG coefficients under the payroll menu, gated to the HR admin group, lets an administrator confirm and update the rate table each financial year. Read, write, create, and unlink permissions are scoped across HR admin, officer, and self-service employee roles.
- Tested against the ATO example. The shipped test suite checks the per-bracket formula, the period scaling, the pinned ATO published example (1,333.45 to 250 dollars), super as an OTE-based employer contribution, the allowance lifting super, and PAYG flowing through to net on a real payslip.
Honest about the edges
What this does not do, so nothing surprises you.
- Coefficients are seeded for scale 2 (tax-free threshold claimed) only. Scales 1 and 3 are selectable on the employee but ship no rate rows; you add those bracket coefficients from the current ATO Schedule 1 before using them.
- The seeded scale-2 coefficients reflect ATO Schedule 1 (NAT 1004) effective from 1 July 2024. The ATO revises them each financial year, so you must verify and update the rate table for the relevant year. The method is fixed; the numbers are yours to keep current.
- This module does not implement Single Touch Payroll (STP) reporting, ATO lodgement, payment summaries, salary sacrifice, HELP or STSL study-loan repayments, Medicare levy adjustments, or super fund stapling. It computes PAYG and the super guarantee on the payslip.
- It depends on and extends the EH payroll engine (eh_hr_payroll); it is a localization layer, not a standalone payroll. PAYG is applied to the gross category as configured in the supplied structure.
- Allowances reach the payslip through a payslip input line; the structure ships one ordinary-time allowance rule. Overtime, leave loading, and other components are not modelled out of the box and would be added as further rules.
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Languages
Available in 19 languages
The interface ships translated out of the box. Switch language in Odoo and the fields, menus, and messages follow.
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