Paycycle is Australia’s first-ever online ‘five-minute’ payroll system for small to medium-sized Australian businesses—whether you have only a few employees or up to 100 team members. Using the latest technology, Paycycle works from anywhere in the world—anytime.

Paycycle runs from any computer connected to the internet. The system is user-friendly and highly efficient—streamlined to save you from wasted data entry. To get started, step through the settings pages and record your employee’s details. After this, payroll processing will only take five minutes.

Paycycle is part of the UX movement—the philosophy that great software centres around users. It is quick, easy and efficient. Paycycle lets you get on with your business rather than being weighed down by technology. Just enjoy—perhaps even love—your payroll.

Paycycle is competitively priced—much cheaper than old-style applications, installed on a single computer. There are no on-going obligations under Paycycle—no contract or up-front payments. You just pay-as-you-go. Paycycle set-up, on-going support and the first 30 days are free.

One more thing, your employee and tax details are completely confidential. No one—not even the Paycycle team—have access to it, unless you give us your permission.

If you do have any questions, just email the payroll team at support@paycycle.com.au or visit support.paycycle.com.au and we will respond to your query ASAP.

Co-founders Stuart McLeod and John Freeman

Paycycle is a small but ever-expanding online payroll business founded in 2009 by entrepreneur Stuart McLeod and IT guru John Freeman. The team also comprises IT specialist David Riddiford and marketing expert Agus Echagüe, who is currently pursuing a Masters of Entrepreneurship & Innovation at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne with Stuart. 

John Freeman works with David in the Canberra Paycycle office and is renowned as a ‘fix-it man’ or problem solver. As Stuart says, “John’s a lateral thinker. He’s practically a technological genius.” Stuart McLeod works with Agus in the Melbourne office on the people side of the business. He is a payroll expert, having established Contract1, which provides payroll service for IT contractors across Australia. “Stuart gets the job done. While others are sitting around talking about ideas and how to change the world, Stuart gets off his bum and actually does it,” John says.

John and Stuart both have degrees in Information Technology and were awarded scholarships to study in this field. John has more than twenty years experience in the IT industry, beginning his career in Sydney at Qantas. He has worked for numerous organisations including the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, the Department of Education, Science and Training and, more recently, AusAID. Stuart, too, has more than 15 years experience in the IT industry, having worked for government and private organisations including Oracle and AusAID. It was Stuart’s expertise as an entrepreneur in setting up Contract1 that inspired the entire Paycycle project. 

Stuart recognised the dire need for a better, user-friendly, payroll product in Australia. “Stuart strongly believes in making things happen—no matter how crazy they might seem. He even shipped a pair of houses from Victoria to Queensland because it made good business sense. And it worked,” John says. Paycycle is a family business. Stuart’s wife Amanda, a lawyer, and John’s wife Gillian, writer and editor, work behind-the-scenes on the business while also caring for their children. Amanda and Stuart recently had a baby girl Georgia May and John and Gillian have three children, Amelia, Oliver and Charlie.

Paycycle is based on the philosophy that user experience is vital to good business practice and technology. The user experience is everything. “There is no point in having excellent software for areas such as payroll if users can’t understand or relate to it on a basic human level,” Stuart says. This philosophy is born from the UX movement, known also as the user experience design movement. 

For many IT professionals and designers in general, the interaction between humans and design is more important than the design itself. “Communication is the key to good—great—technology, as much as the technology itself,” Stuart says. “With Paycycle, we have both. Using Microsoft's Silverlight technology to create our system has enabled us to build a website that is a step above the rest,” John says. “Paycycle runs smoothly and is easy to use. All our clients need to do is to enjoy the freedom—and the system worries about the rest,” John adds.

When John and Stuart first met at AusAID in Canberra during the mid naughties, they knew they had a great deal in common. They certainly knew they loved beer—all sorts of beer—as well as good food, great living and red wine, particularly as Stuart is a red wine connoisseur.

But Stuart and John also had something even more important than beer and wine in common—a love of simplicity, efficiency and the UX movement. Or a hate of everything opposed to this. Both Stuart and John believed in value for money—products that work efficiently and effortlessly. They also believed that people—not software—is the key to good business. “It’s all about the user experience,” John says. “People should want to use it. It’s all about getting the job done quickly, so we can work on other aspects of life and business. It’s about users and people and not the technological process per se.”

And this is how Paycycle came to be. When setting up Contract1, Stuart came to realise there was a gap in the accounting market for good quality—brilliant—payroll technology. And so, on a perishing afternoon in a pub in Canberra in July 2009, he put the idea to John to build Paycycle—a user-friendly online payroll system for Australian businesses. “Being in the middle of it, I grew aware of the dreadful state of the payroll software industry for small businesses in Australia. I set my mind to do something about it, suggesting to John the application would be a good one—the best one,” Stuart says. “It would solve our payroll software problems. I didn’t even have to twist John's arm with another beer before he agreed on the business. After a phone call to the number cruncher, Paycycle was born.”

Only four months after its conception, on 30 November, Paycycle launched its beta version, which took another six months to develop into the application it is today. “Building software is not like building a house. Once you finish a house, it's all done. But software is an ever-evolving, ever-improving art form. It’s a challenge but worth it,” Stuart says. Most users loved the new system, making positive and helpful comments. “Yesterday was the first time in my life I was able to do the pay run from home… Can’t wait for the new features, keep up the good work," Cathie Ireland from Contract1 Pty Ltd said when she first tested Paycycle back in November 2009. 

"The benefits of Paycycle can be expressed in two words: “easy” and “online”. Paycycle’s online access helps me do business better. I can concentrate on growing and managing my business, rather than doing the paperwork," Paul Meissner, Director, Five Ways Accountants and Business Advisory, recently said. On 15 April, 2010, Peter Maxwell from Maxwell Recruitment said, "I have recently opened a labour hire office for myself and was pretty intimidated about running payroll. Paycycle has been easy even for me. So thank you!"

After months of blood, sweat and tears, Paycycle has now evolved into everything its founders had hoped it to be. It is the combination of Stuart’s conceptual mind and go-get-it attitude combined with John’s pragmatism (or sheer genius, as Stuart puts it)—as well as a commitment to family and the human side of design and technology—that makes Paycycle such a success. “It’s taken awhile. 

We have come a long way in such a short period to create the best software user experience for small Australian businesses using payroll,” Stuart says. “Paycycle has become a system that is easy to use, with the flexibility and freedom that every single business owner craves for,” Stuart adds. “Because, truth be told, who likes to be stuck in the office running payroll?”  

Sales phone 1800 PAYCYCLE (729 292)

Email info@paycycle.com.au

Snail Mail to PO Box 4120, Richmond (3121) Victoria.

Trading Address at 383 Johnston Street, Abbotsford (3067) Victoria.