# Odoo HR Alternatives for UAE Companies: Running Payroll and WPS Next to Odoo > Using Odoo for the business but struggling with UAE payroll and the WPS file? Why you probably should not rip out Odoo, and what to run alongside it. Source: https://officehr.ae/blog/odoo-hr-alternatives-uae Published by OfficeHR (https://officehr.ae). Author: The OfficeHR team. Comparisons · November 2026 · 5 min read Topics: odoo hr alternatives, odoo payroll uae, odoo hr uae, wps payroll software Most people who search for this are not unhappy with Odoo. They are unhappy with one specific part of it. The usual story is that a business setup consultant or a local implementation partner put Odoo in for accounting and inventory, it works well, and then someone said the HR module is included so you may as well use it. A few months later the payroll run is still half manual, the WPS file needs fixing by hand every month, and nobody is sure the gratuity numbers would survive an audit. So before anything else: **you probably do not need to leave Odoo.** The sensible move for most UAE companies is to keep Odoo for what it does well and run a dedicated HR and payroll tool next to it. We built OfficeHR for exactly that job, and it is AED 250 a month for up to fifteen employees, then AED 9 for each extra employee, billed yearly, with a 30 day free trial. ## Why HR in a general ERP frustrates UAE companies A general ERP has to serve many countries and many industries. UAE payroll has specifics that are easy to underestimate: a salary file that must match a bank's format every month, gratuity under Federal Decree Law 33 of 2021, leave rules, and documents that expire. In an ERP these are usually configured or customised through an implementation partner, which means three questions you should answer in writing before you spend more: 1. What will it cost to make WPS file generation and gratuity work correctly? 2. Who maintains that work through the next major version upgrades, and at what price? 3. What does the partner's scope document explicitly leave out? An answer to the second question that is vague, or a fixed price with no scope document, is a warning. Customisation has a recurring price, because whatever was built to make UAE payroll work has to be kept working through upgrades. None of this makes an ERP a bad product. It means HR and payroll in the UAE are a specialist problem, and a specialist tool solves them for less than the partner days. ## The question to ask before you change anything Work out whether your problem is HR or payroll, because the answer changes what you should do. If leave requests and employee documents are the mess, that is a light problem and almost any dedicated HR tool fixes it. If the SIF file is the mess, that is the serious one, because a rejected WPS file is a compliance problem rather than an inconvenience. ## Option 1: keep Odoo, add a dedicated HR and payroll tool This is the right answer for more companies than any other option, and it is worth taking seriously before you consider anything more dramatic. You keep Odoo for accounting, inventory, purchasing and whatever else it already does well. You run leave, employee records, payslips and the WPS file somewhere built for it. The two systems meet once a month, when the payroll total goes into Odoo as a journal entry, which is a five minute job rather than an integration project. People resist this because running two systems feels like a failure. In practice, one tool doing payroll properly and one doing accounts properly is a calmer arrangement than one tool doing both at seventy percent. **When this is wrong:** if you genuinely need HR data flowing live into project costing or manufacturing, the integration matters and a single system earns its difficulty. ## Option 2: OfficeHR alongside Odoo OfficeHR covers core HR, leave and attendance, payslips, the WPS file, hiring and performance, with the price on the page. Hiring is included rather than a bolt on module, only employees on payroll count toward the price so admin logins are unlimited, and there is a runway tool that projects headcount cost against your actual cash, including what releasing someone would cost once gratuity, notice, leave and repatriation are counted. At thirty people this is AED 385 a month on yearly billing, published, with no implementation fee. **What OfficeHR does not do.** It is a younger product with a shorter track record. It has no accounting, inventory or purchasing, so it does not replace Odoo and is not trying to. There is no live integration with Odoo today, and it does not file Emiratisation, ILOE or anything else with MOHRE for you. If what you actually wanted was one system for the whole business, this is not that. ## The thing nobody tells you about the WPS file Whatever you choose, test this before you commit. Take the SIF file you actually submitted to your bank last month. Generate the same month in whatever system you are evaluating. Open both and compare them line by line, field by field: employee codes, IBANs, the fixed and variable components, the totals. Our free [WPS file checker](https://officehr.ae/tools/wps-file-checker) can validate one file or compare two. If a vendor will not let you do that during evaluation, that itself is the answer. Everybody says WPS compliant. The file either matches your bank's expectations or it does not, and finding out on the 28th is an expensive way to learn. ## Common questions **Is HR in an ERP usable for UAE payroll at all?** With partner work, yes, companies run it. The question is what that work costs to build and to maintain through upgrades, and whether you would rather spend that on a tool where UAE payroll is the main event rather than one more thing to configure. **Do I have to abandon Odoo to fix payroll?** No, and most companies should not. Keeping Odoo for finance and operations while running HR and payroll separately is usually the cheaper and calmer route. **Will OfficeHR integrate with Odoo?** Not through a live integration today. The monthly payroll total goes into Odoo as a journal entry, which is how most companies of this size handle it anyway. **Does OfficeHR file Emiratisation or ILOE?** No. It keeps your records straight so you can answer questions about your workforce. It does not file anything with MOHRE on your behalf. ## Keep reading - [What HR Software Actually Costs in the UAE (2026)](https://officehr.ae/blog/hr-software-pricing-uae) - [WPS Payroll Software for UAE Small Businesses: What to Check (2026)](https://officehr.ae/blog/wps-payroll-software-uae) - [How to Switch HR Software Without Losing a Month](https://officehr.ae/blog/switch-hr-software-without-losing-a-month) - [Free WPS SIF file checker](https://officehr.ae/tools/wps-file-checker) - [Free UAE gratuity calculator](https://officehr.ae/tools/gratuity-calculator) - [Free UAE salary calculator, gross to net](https://officehr.ae/tools/salary-calculator) - [OfficeHR pricing, published at every size](https://officehr.ae/pricing) - [Start a free 30 day trial, no card needed](https://officehr.ae/signup) --- **Before you decide anything,** email three of your employment contracts, with employee names and ID numbers removed, to hello@officehr.ae and we will send back a short read on what they say against the Labour Law's default positions. Free, no call, and you do not need to be evaluating OfficeHR to ask. *Last checked November 2026. General guidance only; confirm scope, prices and capability directly with any vendor or implementation partner. Odoo is a trademark of its owner and is used here only to describe what readers are searching for.* --- **Try OfficeHR free for 30 days, no card needed:** https://officehr.ae/signup. Prefer a walkthrough? [Book a demo](https://cal.com/officehr/30min).