See pay and staff costs
How the owner sees what each person costs from Xero payroll, how rates are worked out, and what everyone else sees on their own Pay page.
3 min readUpdated 7 October 2026
Pay turns each person's pay into what they cost the agency per hour, which then costs client time in client margin. The full list is for the agency owner alone. Everyone else sees their own pay.
Before you start
- Seeing everyone's pay and costs needs the staff-costs permission, which only the agency owner holds by default.
- Connect Xero Payroll: in Settings, Integrations, under Payroll, choose Connect on Xero payroll. Only the owner connects or disconnects it.
- Link each person to their Xero payroll record. On the person's record, under Connections, choose Link or Confirm on the Xero payroll row. People are matched automatically only on an exact, unique work email.
Step by step: the owner's view
- In the main menu choose People, then Pay in the strip.
- Choose the month in the command bar.
- Use the People costs tab to read each person's figures, and Match to Xero to link people still unmatched.
- Search, or filter by Pay from.
What you will see
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Pay from | Where the cost comes from: Xero payslips, Xero salary, Pay set by hand, Rate set by hand, Fixed fee or Not set |
| Gross pay, Employer NI, Employer pension | From the month's payslips |
| Employer cost | The month's pay cost |
| Hourly delivery cost | Employer cost over contracted hours |
| Loaded cost rate | A year's cost plus a share of overheads, over billable hours |
| Day rate | The loaded rate for a working day |
| Billable rate | The loaded rate with your profit margin added |
| Teamwork rate | The billable rate as sent to Teamwork |
How employer cost is worked out: Xero payslips when there are any (gross pay plus employer NI, pension and benefits); otherwise salary plus the employer on-cost % for payroll employees; otherwise pay set by hand on the person's Pay tab. A rate set by hand wins for the days it covers.
Pay settings
The owner and agency finance open Pay settings in the People strip:
- Rates: Contracted hours a week, Hours a day, Non-billable allowance, %, Profit margin on billable rates, %, Target delivery gross margin, %.
- Costs: Employer on-cost for payroll employees, %, the Overhead pool a year with its currency, and the Overhead split.
- Time areas: the most each area should take of paid time, and when untracked time is flagged.
- Tags, categories and bank holidays: how Teamwork time is sorted into areas.
Every change is kept in the history.
Your own pay
Everyone else who opens Pay sees their own: Pay in force, Latest pay run, Gross pay this tax year, their pay history, their payslips in Xero and Your bonus share if they are in the bonus scheme.
Troubleshooting
- "People costs are the owner's": pay and every rate that reveals it are visible to the agency owner only.
- "Reconnect Xero payroll to read payslips": the Xero connection needs renewing. Choose Reconnect Xero payroll.
- "Employer on-cost is not set": salaries without a payslip are costed at pay alone until you set it in Pay settings.
- "The overhead pool is not set": loaded, day and billable rates carry no overhead until you set it in Pay settings.
- "{n} Teamwork people are linked to nobody": their time has no pay behind it. Link them on each person's record, under Connections.