Employment Hero Payroll

# Fix list: Employment Hero Payroll

From Anchor Terminal's listing at https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/employment-hero, the October 2026 research run, assessed 8 October 2026. Grade D, 50.4 out of 100.

This is everything the published grade says the listing lacks, the biggest possible gain to the total first. It comes from the reason given for each score, the checklist each category was scored against (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist), the provenance checks, the deductions, what we couldn't check and what the review panel asked for. A fix counts at the next check, once it's public.

For a coding agent working on Employment Hero Payroll: work through the items below in the product, its docs and its public pages. Each category gives the reason for its score, with the points each checklist item earned, and the checklist itself, so the gap is the items that earned less than their points. Change the product, not the wording, and keep a note of what you changed and where it's published.

## 1. Payments & pricing, 10 out of 100, up to 11.3 more on the total

Why it scored 10: Read with the hosted rubric. No x402, MPP or L402 (0). The Australian pricing page lists the Payroll plan at $10 with conditions and a minimum of 10 users, and says prices are AUD ex. GST in its plan disclaimers. That is public plan pricing with no per-call charge (10). No free tier or trial for Payroll was found on the pages read. The two-week free trial in the partner guide is for an HR organisation (0). A person signs up and generates the key in the browser (0).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-payments):

The published rubric, also on the [x402 page](https://www.anchorterminal.com/x402/).

- 40, a machine payment protocol (x402, MPP or L402) on the tool's own endpoints. 10 to 30 when it covers only some endpoints or only goes through a third party, and the note says which.
- 20, per-call or per-unit pricing published without a login. 10 for public plan-only pricing, 0 for "contact sales" or prices behind a login.
- 20, a free tier or trial that doesn't need a card.
- 20, autonomous onboarding, meaning an agent can get access without a person signing up in a browser (keyless use, x402, a programmatic key API).

Payment platforms and agent wallets rarely charge for their own API over a machine protocol, so the first line has steps for them, and the highest one that applies counts. 40 when x402, MPP or L402 runs on all their own endpoints, 30 when it runs on part of their own API, 25 when their merchants can accept one, 20 for running a facilitator, 15 for paying as a buyer, and 0 when the only protocol is their own. Merchant acceptance sits above a facilitator because the platform's own customers can charge agents through it, while a facilitator settles for sellers who wire up the protocol themselves. The counter-argument (a facilitator does more for the protocol as a whole) has a point. Each note says which step applied.

Open-source software you run yourself is scored on its hosted or paid option if it has one. A free, self-hosted package with nothing to buy gets 20, 20 and 20 for the last three lines, and 0 to 40 for the first only if it ships a payment protocol.

## 2. Security & auth, 46 out of 100, up to 9.5 more on the total

Why it scored 46: An API key generated under My Account, sent as the Basic auth username, and replaced with Change API Key. It carries its user's access. OAuth 2.0 authorisation code grant with 24-hour access tokens, 28-day refresh tokens and a revoke endpoint. The spec names `read` and `write` scopes, while the guide's sample token shows an empty scope (22 of 30). Business access can be Restricted to employee groups and locations, a user can be created as `apiOnly`, and pay runs have an approval start endpoint. Nothing holds a finalise call for confirmation (10 of 20). The API returns notes and other text written by employees and managers, with no guidance on treating it as untrusted (3 of 15). Employee audit and pay run audit reports are in the spec, and responses carry `x-correlation-id`. No per-call log for the operator was found (5 of 15). security.txt is valid until 31 December 2026 and links a Vulnerability Disclosure Policy v1.2. The trust centre is script-drawn and unread, so certifications and any bounty are unconfirmed (6 of 20).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-security):

- 0 to 30, the credential model. 30 for OAuth 2.1 with scopes, or scoped and revocable keys with rotation. 20 for plain revocable API keys. 10 for one all-powerful key. 10 off when a secret can travel in a URL query string as a documented option.
- 0 to 20, read-only or least-privilege modes, and confirmation or approval for destructive actions.
- 0 to 15, prompt-injection posture where the tool returns untrusted content (documented mitigations or guidance). A tool that returns no untrusted content gets 10.
- 0 to 15, audit logs or per-call visibility for the operator.
- 0 to 20, a security programme. security.txt or a disclosure policy, a bug bounty, SOC 2 or ISO 27001, advisories handled in public.

Models are read for retention, whether API data trains models (and whether that's off by default), zero-retention options and certifications. Frameworks for telemetry defaults, approval hooks, guardrails and sandboxing.

## 3. Schema & documentation, 51 out of 100, up to 8 more on the total

Why it scored 51: A Swagger 2.0 file for each of five regions, public and without a login, 728 operations and 460 definitions for Australia (25). No llms.txt or Markdown twin on the documentation site. employmenthero.com/llms.txt indexes marketing pages only (0). 713 of 728 Australian operations have a description, most of one sentence, such as noting OData support or that a pay run can't be finalised while calculations run. None say when not to use an operation (8 of 20). Every request body references a named model and 269 of 4,461 properties carry enums, but only 13 of 460 definitions list required fields and dates are plain date-time strings (9 of 15). The guides have curl and HTTP examples for both auth routes and OData. 711 of 728 operations document a 200 response, 131 a 400 and 136 a 404, with a `ProblemDetails` model, and no example bodies (5 of 15). The path carries v2. No API changelog was found, and the .NET client documents one set of breaking changes (4 of 15).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-schema):

APIs and MCP servers.

- 25, a machine-readable contract (a public OpenAPI file or similar; for MCP, typed JSON Schema inputs on every tool).
- 10, llms.txt or Markdown docs served for agents.
- 0 to 20, descriptions that say what a tool is for, when to use it and when not to, read from the tool definitions in the source or the API reference.
- 0 to 15, typed inputs with enums, constraints and required fields, and no free-form JSON blobs.
- 0 to 15, examples and documented error responses.
- 15, versioning and a public changelog.

Models are read from the API reference, the OpenAPI file, llms.txt, the structured-output and tool-use docs and the model cards. Frameworks from docs a model can follow, typed interfaces, examples and the API reference.

## 4. Agent ergonomics, 53 out of 100, up to 7.6 more on the total

Why it scored 53: `$top` caps lists at 100 and `$select` trims fields on the Employee API only. Summary endpoints exist for pay runs (15 of 25). OData `$skip`, `$top`, `$orderby` and `$filter` on most GET operations (20). Some operations return `ProblemDetails`. 401 and 429 answered our test as plain text, and the docs have no error catalogue (8 of 20). No idempotency keys. Employees and several other resources can be looked up by `externalId`, which lets a caller check before repeating a create. This is an HTTP API with no MCP annotations to read (4 of 20). One official client, for .NET. Creating a pay run needs a pay schedule, a period end and a paid date (6 of 15).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-ergonomics):

- 0 to 25, context cost. For MCP, the number and size of the tool definitions (25 for ten or fewer compact tools, 15 for 11 to 30, 5 for more than 30, plus up to 10 back for toolsets, dynamic loading or read-only subsets). For APIs, whether responses can be sized (field selection, limits, summaries).
- 20, pagination, filtering and output-size controls.
- 20, actionable, documented error responses, codes and messages an agent can recover from.
- 20, idempotency or safe retries, and for MCP the `readOnlyHint` and `destructiveHint` annotations.
- 15, sensible defaults, few required parameters, and official SDKs in at least two languages.

Models are read for tool use, structured output, prompt caching, context length, batch and SDKs. Frameworks for how much code and how many defaults a tool-calling agent with MCP needs.

## 5. Reliability, 65 out of 100, up to 7 more on the total

Why it scored 65: Read with the hosted lines. https://status.employmenthero.com is a Statuspage with Login, Create Pay Run, Finalise Pay Run and Create Employee components for each of five payroll regions and incident history. No component names the Payroll API (20). Between 10 July and 8 October 2026 it lists two payroll incidents. On 21 July pay runs did not load employee data for businesses with a deleted leave category still referenced in a pay run, marked major and resolved in 2 hours 3 minutes. On 2 September employees could not be removed from a pay run, marked no impact, with a fix posted 5 minutes after the notice. One major that touched a subset of businesses sits between the minor and one-major lines (15 of 30). Four further incidents in the window are on HR Software, a separate product. 5 requests a second per API key per IP address (15). The usage guide says only to space calls out. Our unauthenticated test saw a 429 with `retry-after: 1` and `x-rate-limit` headers, which the docs don't describe, and no idempotency keys were found (5 of 15). No SLA found in the General Terms or the docs (0). The API is at v2 with no beta label (10).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-reliability):

Hosted APIs, MCP servers, models and platforms.

- 20, a public status page with component history (Statuspage, Instatus, BetterStack or the vendor's own).
- 0 to 30, the incident record for the last 90 days on that page. 30 for a clean record or trivial incidents only, 20 for minor incidents only, 10 for one major outage (an hour or more of a core API down, or errors across the board), 0 for several. 5 when there's no history we could read, and the note says so.
- 15, rate limits documented with numbers.
- 15, documented 429 or overload handling (Retry-After, backoff guidance), and idempotency keys or safe-retry guidance where writes are involved.
- 10, an SLA published for any paid tier.
- 10, the surface agents use is generally available, not beta or preview.

Local packages, SDKs, frameworks and stdio MCP servers.

- 20, installs from an official package with supported runtimes stated.
- 25, a public CI and test suite, passing on the default branch.
- 0 to 25, open crash or regression issues relative to activity (25 for few and handled, 0 for many, old and unanswered).
- 15, semver discipline and breaking changes called out in a changelog.
- 15, version 1.0 or later, or declared stable.

Protocols are read from their reference implementations, the public facilitators or servers, spec stability and test vectors.

## 6. Transparency & trust, 60 out of 100, up to 3.5 more on the total

Made of editorial 49, provenance 71.

Why it scored 60: Closed service. General Terms effective 15 June 2026 name Employment Hero Pty Ltd and cover access through its APIs. The .NET client is MIT (15 of 30). The privacy policy (3 June 2026) and the DPA (15 June 2026) agree on processor and controller roles, say personal data is not used to train AI models, and name storage in Australia, Ireland and Canada. Retention is 'as long as necessary' under an internal policy, with no periods (20 of 30). No deprecation policy or dated notices were found for the Payroll API (2 of 20). The DPA gives data centre locations by region and 30 days to object to a new sub-processor. The sub-processor list sits on a trust centre our reader could not read (12 of 20).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-transparency):

- 0 to 30, source availability and licence clarity. 30 for open source under an OSI licence, 15 for closed with clear terms, 0 for unclear terms.
- 0 to 30, data handling and retention statements that agree with each other (privacy policy, DPA, retention periods, subprocessors).
- 0 to 20, a deprecation policy or notices with dates.
- 0 to 20, telemetry disclosed with an opt-out (local software), or subprocessors and data locations disclosed (hosted).

The other half of Transparency and trust is the provenance score, computed from checked facts (below). The category score is the mean of the two.

Provenance checks not met in full (half of this category, computed from checked facts):

- Endpoint on the vendor's domain:  is not on employmenthero.com (0 of 15)
- Terms of service: read, states 6 of the 7 things a reader expects, and has 1 clause that costs points (7.1 of 10)
- Privacy policy: read, states 7 of the 8 things a reader expects (9.3 of 10)
- Changelog: not found (0 of 10)

## 7. Maintenance & community, 68 out of 100, up to 2.8 more on the total

Why it scored 68: The .NET client repository, generated from the API, has a build commit on 8 October 2026, and the swagger files were last modified on 28 August 2026 (30). The repository has commits on 52 separate days since 10 July, and NuGet shows 62 package versions published in the same period (20). Closed service with no API changelog. The developer forum's front page shows spam topics and API questions from 2024 and 2025 with no replies (4 of 15). One current official client. NuGet stops at 3.0.0.969 from 2 September while the repository is at build 3.0.0.1025 (10 of 15). The client repository has no CI workflow, and its test folder holds a sample application (4 of 10).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-maintenance):

- 0 to 30, time since the last release, or the last published model or API change for a closed service. 30 within 30 days, 20 within 90, 10 within 180, 0 older.
- 20, at least three releases or dated changelog entries in the last 90 days.
- 0 to 25, responsiveness. Issues and pull requests answered on GitHub (the open issues and how recent the replies are). For closed services, a public changelog and a support or community channel that answers, 0 to 15.
- 15, presence in the official MCP registry under a verified namespace (MCP servers), or current official SDKs (APIs and models).
- 10, package health, current dependencies and CI.

Models are read for deprecation notice periods and model churn rather than release counts.

## What we couldn't check

What we couldn't read counted as absent. Publishing it on a page a plain HTTP fetch can read (not only in a browser) lets the next check count it.

- unchecked: the trust centre at trust.employmenthero.com and its sub-processor page are script-drawn and showed our reader a title only, so certifications, penetration testing, any bounty and the sub-processor list are unconfirmed
- unchecked: the body of the Vulnerability Disclosure Policy v1.2 linked from security.txt, a Google document that showed our reader its title only
- unchecked: the official MCP registry search answered 500, so presence of any Employment Hero server there is unconfirmed. No MCP server was found on the vendor's pages read
- unchecked: open issues and replies on Thinkei/keypay-dotnet-v2, which aren't in a git clone. The GitHub API reports one open issue
- Whether Employment Hero Payroll has a free trial or sandbox of its own. None was found on the pricing page or the API docs, and the free trial in the partner guide is for an HR organisation
- The unit behind the Payroll plan's $10. The page shows the figure with a 10-user minimum and billing by user count, and states AUD ex. GST in plan disclaimers, but the per-user wording sits in script-drawn tooltips we did not read in full
- Whether OAuth tokens can be limited to `read`. The spec names `read` and `write` scopes under an implicit flow, while the guide describes the authorisation code grant and shows an empty scope
- Which API host serves each region. The docs name api.yourpayroll.com.au, the client README uses a United Kingdom host, and api.yourpayroll.co.uk, api.yourpayroll.io and api.nzpayroll.co.nz each answered 401 to our test
- Whether a customer agreement includes an SLA. None is in the public General Terms
- The 429 `retry-after` header and `x-rate-limit` headers were seen on unauthenticated calls and aren't in the docs, so their behaviour for authenticated calls is unconfirmed
- The registrant of yourpayroll.com.au and keypay.com.au. RDAP names only the registrar
- The star count is for Thinkei/keypay-dotnet-v2. The API has no public repository of its own

## Weaknesses

- An API key carries the whole access of the user who generated it. No per-key scopes were found
- No idempotency keys in the spec or guides, and 5 requests a second per key and IP address is the only documented limit
- No changelog, versioning policy or deprecation policy was found for the Payroll API
- Only 13 of 460 schema definitions in the Australian spec list required fields, and 711 of 728 operations document a 200 response and little else
- The developer forum's recent topics include spam, and several API questions from 2024 and 2025 show no replies

## What costs an agent a turn today

The notes we give agents before they call it. Each one is a workaround an agent shouldn't need.

- Send the API key as the Basic auth username with a blank password, for example `curl -u {api_key}: https://api.yourpayroll.com.au/api/v2/user`
- Pick the Swagger file for the business's region (`swagger-au.json`, `swagger-nz.json`, `swagger-uk.json`, `swagger-sg.json`, `swagger-my.json`). Paths and models differ by region
- Stay under 5 requests a second per key and IP address. A 429 answered our test with `retry-after: 1`
- Page lists with `$skip` and `$top` (100 at most). Filter property names are capitalised, unlike the camelCase JSON
- Read `GET /api/v2/business/{businessId}/payrun/{payRunId}/warnings` before `POST .../finalise`. Finalise can lodge with the tax office and publish pay slips in the same call

## When it's done

Send what changed and where it's published as a dispute (https://www.anchorterminal.com/builders/#disputes, or `POST https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/contact` with `"kind": "dispute"`). Disputes are answered in public, and the listing is checked again by the same checklist. Paying for an audit or a listing claim changes nothing here.