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For farms and agribusiness

Payroll for farms and agribusiness

PayrollMaster runs payroll for farms and agribusiness, where headcount triples for harvest. Attendance is captured in the field by QR, biometric or geofence, agricultural minimum-wage floors apply by region and job category, overtime is rated by type, and seasonal casuals run on the same payroll as permanent staff.

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The problem

Why casual pay is where payroll breaks

For tea estates, flower farms, horticulture, coffee and plantations.

  • Headcount triples for the season

    Harvest arrives and so do several hundred pickers, for six weeks. Getting them onto the payroll at all is the bottleneck — and they are gone again before a slow process finishes.

  • The muster roll is a clipboard

    Attendance is taken at the edge of a field, by hand, sometimes in the rain. Ghost workers and missed days both begin at that clipboard, and neither is visible until payday.

  • Agricultural wage floors are their own schedule

    The agricultural minimum wage differs by region and job category from the general one. It is also the first thing a labour inspection asks to see evidence of.

A harvest crew onboarded, counted and paid without a clipboard.

How it works

How does casual payroll work?

Four steps, from the gate to a compliant payslip.

  1. 1

    Capture the attendance

    Hours come in by manual entry, QR code, biometric or geofence — whatever suits the gate, the field or the site. Hours are computed automatically rather than transcribed from a notebook.

  2. 2

    Hold the wage floor

    Minimum-wage floors apply by region and job category, not as one national number. Anything below the applicable floor is flagged before you pay it, not after an inspection.

  3. 3

    Rate the hours

    Overtime is computed by type — weekday, rest-day and public-holiday hours each pay at their own rate, across the whole crew, without anyone doing it by hand.

  4. 4

    Tax it correctly

    Sub-monthly earnings get sub-monthly PAYE, with prorated relief and below-threshold exemption. Fixed-fee task workers get withholding tax — resident or non-resident — with the certificate issued automatically.

What you get

What you get for casual and gig teams

Everything below is in the product today. Casuals run on the same payroll as salaried staff — same run, same statutory return, same filing.

See pricing
  • Two models — timesheet-based casuals and fixed-fee task/gig workers
  • Attendance via manual entry, QR code, biometric or geofence, with automatic hours
  • Overtime computed by type — weekday, rest-day and holiday rates
  • Minimum-wage enforcement with region and job-category floors, and below-minimum flagging
  • Sub-monthly PAYE handling with prorated relief and below-threshold exemption
  • Task workers: staged payments, resident and non-resident withholding tax with automatic certificates

Every market you operate in

Casual teams in more than one country?

Minimum-wage floors and sub-monthly PAYE are maintained per market. Every worker is paid against their own country’s rules.

Also for

Not quite your sector?

Questions

Farms & agribusiness: common questions

Can I run payroll for seasonal farm workers?

Yes. Seasonal and casual pickers are first-class: onboard a crew, capture their attendance, and pay them on the same run as your permanent estate staff. The crew can scale up for harvest and back down without a second system.

How is attendance captured out in the field?

By QR code, biometric or geofence, as well as manual entry where a device is not practical. Hours are computed from the capture, so a picker’s pay traces to a record rather than to a supervisor’s notebook.

Does it apply the agricultural minimum wage?

Minimum-wage floors are applied by region and job category, and anything below the applicable floor is flagged before you pay. Confirm the current agricultural order for your region with the labour authority — we hold the floor you configure and check every payslip against it.

Can pickers and permanent estate staff run together?

Yes. Casual pickers, seasonal crews and permanent staff run on one payroll, with one set of statutory returns. Sub-monthly earnings get sub-monthly PAYE; monthly salaries get monthly treatment.

Run one crew free

Start free, add a single crew, and run one real month — the attendance, the overtime, the wage floor and the PAYE that comes out of it. Compare it against your muster roll before you switch anything.

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30-day free trial. No credit card.