Duration: 24:48
🧾 Analytical Summary
🚀 Major Australian Localization Launch
Lionel, Head of Services for Australia, presents a landmark release for Odoo 19 — comprehensive Australian localization that positions Australia as one of the global leaders in regional compliance. After years of development and countless sleepless nights, the team has delivered full Australian Payroll compliance, enhanced accounting features for BAS reporting, and Tyro payment terminal integration for Point of Sale.
This release represents a significant milestone: Australian businesses can now use Odoo as a complete one-stop shop solution including payroll at no extra cost as part of their enterprise subscription. The Australian payroll module alone comprises approximately 23,000 lines of optimized code, making it the second or third largest payroll module in the Odoo ecosystem globally.
💼 Australian Payroll — Fully Compliant & Feature-Rich
The headline announcement is that Australian Payroll is now fully compliant with Australian legislation as of version 19. This includes two critical compliance frameworks:
Single Touch Payroll Phase 2 (STP2) enables direct reporting of employee tax and superannuation information to the ATO. Superstream compliance ensures all employers provide payments and related data to superannuation funds electronically with integrated direct debit functionality.
Key capabilities now available include company registration for STP directly within Odoo, comprehensive employee management with all contractual and employment information stored in the system, management of cyclical pay runs and out-of-cycle payslips, direct submission of data to the ATO, and payment of super obligations via direct debit — a first for Australian direct debit features in Odoo.
The system supports batch wage payments via ABA files regardless of company size, year-to-date balance imports from previous software like Xero, and employee year-end data finalization for fiscal year compliance.
Version 19 specific enhancements include ATO-mandated security requirements, pre-loaded 2025-2026 tax rates effective July 1st, support for allowances taxed only above certain thresholds (such as cents per kilometer, overtime meal allowance, and travel allowances), multi-income stream type support for year-to-date imports (critical for employees who change employment status mid-year, like working holiday makers transitioning to standard employment), and comprehensive back pay and salary sacrifice capabilities.
The module is deeply integrated with core Odoo applications including Employees, Documents, Accounting, Time Off, Expenses, Attendance, and Planning — showcasing Odoo's signature strength in unified business management.
📊 Enhanced Accounting & BAS Reporting
Australian accounting receives substantial upgrades focused on compliance and usability. A new GST register toggle allows sole traders and businesses with turnover under $75,000 to switch invoices between standard and tax invoice formats as needed.
The BAS report has been completely improved with the ability to select different BAS types (A, C, or D) to display only information relevant to specific business models. New pre-configured taxes cover PAYG income tax installments, PAYG withholding, fringe benefit tax, luxury car tax, fuel tax credits, and wine equalization tax — all mapped to the correct BAS sections.
A critical enhancement is BAS report closing for payroll taxes (sections W1 to W5), which was previously unavailable. The system now rounds all BAS sections down by default, meeting legal requirements. These improvements position Odoo for imminent SBR compliance and direct BAS lodgment to the ATO, which is on the immediate roadmap.
🏪 Tyro Payment Terminal Integration
Addressing customer feedback about payment options and pricing, Odoo 19 introduces native Tyro integration for Point of Sale. This provides Australian businesses with an alternative to Stripe, offering flexibility in payment processor selection. Configuration is straightforward through the POS settings interface, following the same pattern as other payment terminals in Odoo.
⚙️ Implementation & Live Demonstration
The live demonstration showcased the practical workflow from company registration through to payroll processing. Key steps include configuring company information with ABN and GST registration status, enrolling in payroll through an intuitive wizard that mimics the clearing house portal onboarding process, establishing a payroll responsible person and accepting terms including direct debit agreements, and creating employee records with automatic validation of required ATO fields.
The employee setup process captures comprehensive information including tax file numbers (TFN) with built-in validation algorithms, bank details for wage payments, superannuation fund selection from a real-time updated AP fund registry, contract details including hours and pay frequency, and specialized fields for child support, student loans (STSL), self-managed super funds (SMSF), foreign residents, and salary sacrifice arrangements.
The pay run workflow demonstrates speed and efficiency: select the pay period and employees, generate payslips automatically with all calculations performed instantly, review individual payslips with specialized deductions (child support, STSL withholding) visible in salary computations, create draft accounting entries, test and submit to ATO with real-time validation, and manage superannuation contributions through a dedicated super contributions report with direct debit payment processing.
🚧 Current Limitations & Transparency
The presentation honestly addresses current module limitations. Not yet supported include foreign employment income types (employees working abroad while being paid as Australian residents), tax treatment categories for actors and performers, automated award interpretation for pay rates (rates must be manually configured), replacement rates for temporary role coverage, certain termination payment scenarios (delayed ETP and multiple ETP payments across financial years), and specific edge cases like early retirement schemes and invalidity payments.
Lionel emphasizes that while payroll is available for most businesses, proper project qualification remains essential. Account managers should be consulted to verify specific business case compatibility.
🛣️ Future Roadmap
The development priorities are clearly defined with banking integration as the utmost priority. The team is pursuing multiple strategies including open banking standards with Yodlee, evaluation of alternative providers as backup solutions, and pursuing CDR (Consumer Data Right) accreditation directly with ACCC to enable direct feed integration with major Australian banks if open banking proves insufficient.
Additional roadmap items include direct BAS lodgment to the ATO from Odoo, automatic retrieval of deferred GST rates for eligible companies as part of SBR compliance, PEPPOL access point for ANZ region in preparation for e-invoicing mandate compliance, and progressive refinement of the payroll module based on real-world implementation feedback.
These enhancements will support the launch of a fiduciary program targeting Australian accountants and tax agents, bringing them into the Odoo ecosystem once banking integration is resolved.
💡 Implementation Considerations
Initial implementation estimates range from 8 to 12 hours for businesses with straightforward requirements (primarily full-time and part-time employees). This estimate will be refined as the team completes initial client implementations and gathers real-world data.
The Australian localization is available on Odoo 19 (on-premise, SaaS, and Odoo.sh) but not yet on Odoo.com (free tier). Backporting to version 18 is under consideration, though version 19 will be prioritized initially to manage customer influx and thoroughly test the implementation.
Customization capabilities include configurable payslip templates allowing businesses to control which salary rules display to employees, support for multiple superannuation funds per employee with customizable contribution proportions, and flexible allowance and deduction configurations.
🧠 Viewpoint: Odoo Perspective
This Australian release embodies everything we believe at Odoo: simplicity meeting power, all-in-one integration, and making enterprise-grade functionality accessible without additional costs. Building a 23,000-line payroll module — one of our largest globally — demonstrates our commitment to deep, authentic localization rather than superficial feature checkboxes.
What excites me most is not just compliance with STP2 and Superstream, but how naturally payroll integrates with time off, expenses, attendance, and accounting. This is the one-stop shop vision realized: no data silos, no subscription sprawl, just seamless business management. The transparency around current limitations shows our maturity — we're honest about what works today while clearly communicating what's coming tomorrow. Australian businesses deserve world-class local tools, and with this foundation plus our roadmap for banking integration and BAS lodgment, we're building exactly that.
⚠️ Disclaimer: AI-generated creative perspective inspired by Odoo's vision.
🏢 Viewpoint: Competitors (SAP / Microsoft / Others)
Odoo's Australian localization push is impressive in scope and ambition, particularly the depth of payroll compliance achieved with STP2 and Superstream at no additional cost to enterprise subscribers. The integrated approach — payroll, accounting, and operations in a unified platform — addresses a real pain point for SMBs tired of juggling disconnected systems.
However, critical gaps remain that enterprise buyers should carefully evaluate. Banking integration challenges are acknowledged but unresolved, which is fundamental for payroll operations. The absence of automated award interpretation is significant in Australia's complex industrial relations environment where underpayment risks carry serious legal and reputational consequences. While the roadmap is ambitious, the current limitations around foreign employment, termination payments, and specialized tax treatments may constrain adoption in larger, more complex organizations. The 8-12 hour implementation estimate seems optimistic for any business beyond basic scenarios. Enterprises requiring guaranteed uptime SLAs, comprehensive audit trails, multi-entity consolidation, and deep payroll complexity may still find mature, specialized solutions better suited despite higher costs and less elegant integration.
⚠️ Disclaimer: AI-generated fictional commentary. Not an official corporate statement.
Disclaimer: This article contains AI-generated summaries and fictionalized commentaries for illustrative purposes. Viewpoints labeled as "Odoo Perspective" or "Competitors" are simulated and do not represent any real statements or positions. All product names and trademarks belong to their respective owners.