Show full location paths in payroll exports and archive old locations

If your clients use hierarchical locations, a payroll report export shows only the leaf-level name, for example, "Warehouse". Finance teams and advisors cannot tell which entity or department it belongs to without manual cross-referencing. Locations that have been tied to historical pay runs, employee records, and reports also cannot be deleted. When clients restructure entities or close projects, these locations crowd selection lists, requiring payroll administrators to scroll through an increasingly cluttered dropdown to find the correct active location.

We are introducing two location updates for payroll to help you manage your clients' files more efficiently.

What's new?

Show the full location path in payroll report exports
A new setting in Business Details shows the full hierarchy path of each location in your client’s payroll report exports, for example, "Victoria > Operations > Warehouse". This makes it easier to reconcile payroll data with their accounting structure.

To enable it, turn on the "Show full location path in exports" toggle in Business Settings > Business Details. The setting is off by default, so your clients' exports stay the same until you or your team turn it on. If turned off, exports show only the leaf-level location name.

You can choose your own separator in the "Path separator" field. The default is >. The separator can be up to ten characters long and cannot be left empty. If the value is invalid, an error appears and must be corrected before saving.

When you export a report as CSV or Excel, the location column shows the full path with your chosen separator. If a location has no parent, only its name appears.

The full path is supported in the Pay Run Audit Report, Payroll Tax Report, Costing Report, Pay Run Variance Report, Detailed Activity Report, and Detailed File Export. In New Zealand, it is also supported in the KiwiSaver Report.

Archive locations clients no longer use
You can archive individual locations in Payroll Settings. Archived locations no longer appear in active selection dropdowns for employee assignment, pay run allocation, and pay run inclusions. They continue to display correctly on historical reports and existing employee records. Partners and payroll admins can restore an archived location at any time.

The location list in Payroll Settings shows only active locations by default. Use the toggle to reveal archived locations, which a visual indicator distinguishes from active ones.

Before archiving a location, any employees currently assigned to it must be reassigned. You cannot archive a location that an open pay run references.

Who can use these updates?

Both updates are available on Payroll Standard and Payroll Premium for Owner and Admin users in Australia and New Zealand.

More information: Show full location paths and archive old locations

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