14th

We've renamed all leave allowance templates by adding the award code as a prefix. This ensures each template can be accurately associated with its respective award, particularly in cases where template names are identical.

26th

We have identified an issue affecting Paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave (PFDVL) accrual calculations. The accrual method was changed from "BASED ON A LEAVE YEAR" to "ON AN ONGOING BASIS," which may have caused incorrect leave accruals for some employees. The award has been updated to correct the accrual configuration.

For guidance on making leave adjustments, refer to this support article.

29th

We have updated the award to offer two options for managing Sunday work, aiming to address issues with pay categories and tags, particularly when employees work at a higher classification level.

Here’s the summary of the key changes:

• We've introduced the "Level 2 and Level 3 Employees" tags to both rulesets
• We've updated the stand-alone "Sunday" pay category on all pay rate templates

For detailed information on the changes, please refer to our guide here.

30th

We have updated the rounding method for the following pay categories to align with the Pay Guide rates:

• Casual - Weekday Ordinary
• Casual - Overtime - After 2 hours
• Casual - Saturday
• Casual - Sunday (Level 1)

Note:
For the Casual - Weekday Evening pay category, there is a 0.01 rate difference. Please review and make manual adjustments where required.

25th

We have applied the following updates:

• We have introduced a new work type "Travelling time" and added new rules"17.6 Travelling time" and "17.6 Travelling time - Overtime" to Permanent Fast food and Casual Fast food rule sets, aligning to clause 17.6 where employee will be paid travelling time on Monday to Saturday, at their minimum hourly rate of pay; or on Sunday or a public holiday, at 150% of their minimum hourly rate of pay.
• Added new rule "20.5 Minimum Engagement on Sunday OT" on Permanent Fast food rule set to apply the minimum hours at the relevant overtime rate for overtime hours worked on Sunday per clause 20.5. 
• Updated rule "20.5 Minimum Engagement on Sunday OT" on Casual Fast food rule set to ensure the correct interpretation of minimum hours worked on Sunday. 
• Updated all permanent pay rate templates to include the new created pay categories including:
  • Permanent Travelling time - Mon - Sat
  • Permanent Travelling time - Mon - Sat overtime
  • Permanent Travelling time - Sunday and Public Holiday
  • Permanent Travelling time - Sunday and Public Holiday overtime
• Updated all casual pay rate templates to include new created pay categories including:
  • Casual Travelling time - Mon - Sat
  • Casual Travelling time - Mon - Sat overtime
  • Casual Travelling time - Sunday and Public Holiday
  • Casual Travelling time - Sunday and Public Holiday overtime

16th

We have revised the Permanent Fast Food ruleset and removed the "Extra Annual Leave - Shiftworker" rule, and its associated "shiftworker" tag, as it is no longer included in the award. 

1st

We have updated the award to reflect the Fair Work Commission's National Minimum Wage increase detailed in the Annual Wage Review 2023-24 decision and also includes updates to expense-related allowances. You can find more information on the Determinations here and here.

These changes come into effect from the first full pay period on or after the 1st July 2024. Please install these updates after you have finalised your last pay run before the first full pay period beginning on or after the 1st July 2024.

We have also updated the "Community Service Leave Taken" pay category, where it accrues leave. The payment classification has also been updated in line with the ATO specification categories.

The Casual Fast Food rule set has been updated to include a rule for Paid Family Domestic Violence Leave.

14th

Per clause 20.5, where employees must be paid for a minimum of 4 hours for overtime worked on Sunday. However, "this entitlement does not apply if the overtime is worked immediately before, or immediately after, ordinary hours". The system does not currently have the ability to make this assessment. Hence, a new work type Minimum engagement - Sunday OT has been created. Employees will need to use this work type to receive the entitlement of a minimum 4 hours for overtime worked on Sunday that is not immediately before or after ordinary hours. Otherwise, employees would be paid only for the hours submitted on timesheet. 

25th

We have removed the "Top Up of Standard Hours - Part Time" rule within the Permanent Fast Food rule set to make sure the part time employees would be paid correctly.

19th

We have updated the rule sets for Permanent and Casual employees, and created new pay categories linked under Ordinary Hours. This ensures that penalty rates are automatically updated when the base rate changes. The new pay categories are as follows:

• Casual - Sunday (Level 1)
• Casual - Sunday (Level 2 and 3)
• Permanent - Sunday (Level 1)
• Permanent - Sunday (Level 2 and 3)

NB: We have also introduced a new tag called "Level 1 Employees", which must be assigned to all Level 1 employees to ensure that employees classified as Level 1 will receive the correct penalty rates when they work Sundays, otherwise overpayment may occur.

We have updated the interpretation for Minimum engagement of overtime hours on Sunday. 

 

24th

The LSL accrual rate for Casual - SA has been updated. 

1st

From 1 August, all employees are entitled to 10 days of paid family and domestic violence leave each year. The (Unpaid) Family and Domestic Violence Leave configuration settings under awards have been updated - the leave category is disabled from award leave allowance templates, and the work type is not enabled automatically for all employees. Please ensure that employees no longer use the unpaid leave category or work type.

5th

We have corrected the Sunday rates for all levels.

1st

We have updated the award to reflect the Fair Work Commission’s National Minimum Wage increase detailed in the Annual Wage Review 2022-23 decision and also includes updates to expense-related allowances. You can find information on the Determinations here and here. These changes come into effect from the first full pay period on or after the 1st July 2023.

Please install these updates after you have finalised your last pay run before the first full pay period beginning on or after the 1st July 2023. We have also updated the Community Service Leave category to make sure it pays at base rate.

31st

We have updated the rule-set pay conditions for Permanent Fast Food and Casual Fast Food to include period overtime rules for different roster patterns. The default rule-set period remains at four weeks, where overtime applies after working more than 152 ordinary hours over four consecutive weeks. 

We have updated the Permanent Fast Food pay condition rule set to reflect a new enhancement which will calculate the higher of annual leave loading or penalties based on the entire leave period, aligning with the Fair Work calculation.

We have updated the award to include a tag for employees who work in Broken Hill. We have also updated the rules to include the calculation and payment of the Broken Hill Allowance.

We have updated the award to reflect the Fair Work Commission’s National Minimum Wage increase detailed in the Annual Wage Review 2021-22 decision. It also includes updates to expense-related allowances. You can find information on the Determinations here and here.

These changes come into effect from the first full pay period on or after 1st July 2022. Please install these updates after you have finalised your last pay run before the first full pay period beginning on or after 1st July 2022.

We have disabled Unpaid Pandemic Leave as this entitlement has now expired within this award. You can find additional information on the Fairwork website.

We have updated the Unpaid Pandemic Leave pay category and it now counts as service for entitlements under awards and the National Employment Standards. If any staff have used this category previously, please adjust their Annual, Personal, and Long Service Leave balances for any period of unpaid pandemic leave previously taken.

We have updated the Award in line with the Australian Tax Office (ATO) requirements for Single Touch Payroll (STP) Phase Two reporting. The reporting of gross earnings is now disaggregated into distinguishable categories. We have also updated the Pay Category payment classifications in line with the ATO specification categories found here.

We have made updates to the Unpaid Pandemic Leave allowance Templates so that the balance displays in weeks instead of hours in line with the Fair Work Commission's guidelines. Once you install the award update, all employees' Unpaid Pandemic leave balances will display in weeks, not hours. It will mean that an employee’s balance may now show as 76 weeks.

We have updated the award to reflect the Fair Work Commission’s National Minimum Wage increase of 2.5% detailed in the Annual Wage Review 2020-21 decision. It also includes updates to expense-related allowances. You can find Information on the Determinations here and here.

These changes come into effect from the first full pay period on or after 1st July 2021. Please install these updates after you have finalised your last pay run before the first full pay period beginning on or after 1st July 2021.

We have also made updates to the Leave Category Family & Domestic Violence (FDV) Leave, so that the balance displays in days instead of hours in line with the National Employment Standards. Once you install the update, all employees' FDV leave balances will display in days, not hours. It will mean that an employee’s balance may now show as 38 days. 

We made this update is to make sure that any new installs of this award conducted since 1st July now capture the Super Guarentte (SG) increase from 9.5% to 10% for all pay categories. If you have installed this award between 1st July 2021 to 8th July 2021 for the first time, please make sure you select the No option to the Preserve Custom Pay Categories question. If you were using this award before 1st July 2021, then you do not need to select the No option. 

We have made updates to the Cold Work Disability Allowance Cold Work Disability Allowance (below zero degrees)  so that the unit types now are fixed rather than hourly to stop them contributing towards the total hours of the shift. We created the Apply Overtime - Public Holidaypay conditions ruleset to cover overtime on a public holiday.

We updated the award, as part of Group three Awards,  to reflect the Fair Work Commission’s National Minimum Wage increase of 1.75% detailed in theAnnual Wage Review 2019-20 decision. It also includes updates to expense-related allowances. You can find information on the Determinations here and here. These changes come into effect from the first full pay period on or after 1st February 2021. Please install these updates after you have finalised your last pay run before the first full pay period beginning on or after 1st February 2021.

We have updated the award to reflect the High Court's decision on the accrual of personal/carer's leave, which overturns the decision made by the Full Federal Court of Australia. With personal/carer's leave calculated on working days, not hours. You can find Information on the decision here.

As such, we have removed the Personal/Carer's (10 days) Leave Allowance Templates and updated associated Employment Agreements. Please note, this update will not remove any of the above from a business where you already installed the award before 25th August 2020. However, any new award installs from 25th August 2020 will not display personal/carer's (10 days) leave details.

We have updated the award pay rate templates to reflect the Australian Taxation Office's decision to increase the cents per kilometre rate for work-related car expense deductions to 72 cents per kilometre. The new rate applies from the first paid date in the 2020-21 financial year.

We have updated the award to reflect changes made as part of the Fair Work Decision around flexibility during coronavirus. The new schedule allows employees to take up to two weeks of unpaid pandemic leave. We have created a new Unpaid Pandemic Leave Taken pay category, leave category and work type.

Also, we have updated the rule sets, where necessary, to include/exclude the work type and leave category to some pay conditions. Further, we have updated the the Leave Allowance Templates to make sure this new leave category is enabled and is now accessible for employees to take this leave when required.

Further, under this new schedule employees can take up to twice as much annual leave at a proportionally reduced rate if their employer agrees. You will need to manually adjust the employee's pay rate and leave balance to half in each pay run for the period of leave.

Due to recent changes to the interpretation of personal/carer's leave accrual under the National Employment Standards, we have made updates to the setup of the Award. You can find further information here.

We have created a new Leave Category called Personal/Carer's (10 days) Leave. Also, we created new Leave Allowance Templates (LATs) to 10 days accrual per year for each state. We have also updated any rules impacted by Personal/Carer's Leave with the new leave category.

We have updated the rule set pay conditions for Permanent Fast FoodandCasual Fast Food to exclude overtime calculations from leave-taken work types for period overtime rules. We also updated the rule set pay conditions for Casual Fast Food to the Minimum EngagementandMinimum Engagement - Sunday OTrules to make sure that clause 26.4 minimum four hours of overtime is applied when the time worked is not immediately preceding or immediately following ordinary hours worked on a Sunday.

Please note Payroll Administrators will need to manually apply a minimum of three hours of OTE for work on a Sunday and manually reduce OT hours worked on a Sunday if preceding OTE. We have included these changes in the Permanent Fast Food pay conditions.

We have made a rounding update to the Casual Pay Rate Templates.

We have made amendments to the Permanent Fast Food Time in Lieu of Overtime - Thereafter (tag) and Time in Lieu of Overtime - Public Holidays (tag) to accrue time in lieu instead of annual leave Pay condition rule sets.

We have updated the award to reflect the Fair Work Commission’s National Minimum Wage increase of 3% from its Annual Wage Review 2018-19 decision. It also includes updates to expense-related allowances. You can find information on the Determinations here and here.

These changes come into effect from the first full pay period on or after 1st July 2019. Please install these updates after you have finalised your last pay run before the first full pay period beginning on or after 1st July 2019.

We have made updates to the Permanent Fast Food to the Saturday and Sunday pay condition rule sets to exclude carer's leave and sick leave. So that the base rate of the employee is paid when leave is taken on Saturdays and Sundays. We updated the Permanent Fast Food the Weekday Evening and Weekday Late Work rules when Public Holiday not Worked applies pay condition rule sets. The current weekday - 10:00pm-12:00am and weekday - 12:00am to 6:00am rule now pays the Public Holiday not-worked rate for the whole shift; no penalty rates apply.

The setup of the Payroll Tax Exempt field in Payroll Settings Pay Categories page was replicating the Pay as you Go (PAYG) Exempt field rather than creating a unique identity when you added it to your business settings. We have carried out an audit across the platform and have now resolved the issue with this update.

Allowance rate update for Kilometre Allowance - Car (above and below ATO limit). You can find further information at ATO. We have updated the award to reflect changes made as part of the Fair Work Decision 4- year review of modern awards. You can find the determination here. Family and Domestic Violence leave applies from the first full pay period on or after 1st August 2018. Further information can be found at Fair Work.

Employees, including part-time and casual employees, are entitled to five days of unpaid family and domestic violence leave each year of their employment. The five days renew every 12 months of their employment, but it does not accumulate if the leave they do not use the full leave balance.

We have created a new Family and Domestic Violence leave category and a new Family and Domestic Violence Leave taken work type. We have also updated the Leave Allowance Templates and any impacted rule conditions.

We have updated the Award to reflect the Fair Work Commission’s national minimum wage increase of 3.5% from its Annual Wage Review 2017-18 decision. It also includes updates to expense-related allowances.

These changes come into effect from the first full pay period on or after 1st July 2018. Please install these updates after you have finalised your last pay run before the first full pay period beginning on or after 1st July 2018.

We have also created a new laundry allowance pay categories and rule conditions to reflect the ATO threshold maximum limits for claiming laundry (not dry cleaning) for deductible clothing under the Award. You can find further information in the Cleaning of Work Clothing section of this ATO article.

We have reduced the Sunday penalty for permanent Level one employees om 45% to 35%. We have reduced the Sunday penalty for casual Level one employees from 70% to 60% (inclusive of casual loading).

We have updated the Payment Classification settings for allowance-based pay categories as per STP requirements. We have also created a new rule -12.7 Apply Overtime - Over Advanced Standard Hours - Part-Time. The rule reflects the following provisions of clause 12.2:

• the hours worked each day.
• which days of the week the employee will work.
• the actual starting and finishing times of each day.

Previously, we could only assess the number of hours worked per week for overtime purposes using the existing Apply Overtime - Over Standard Hours - Part Time rule. Now, however, we can assess the Advanced Standard Work Hours as set up within the employee's Pay Run Defaults page. The rule will assess hours as follows:

1. Any time worked on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday we will deem overtime.
2. Any time worked before the start times on Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Sunday we will deem overtime; and
3. Any time worked after the end times on Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Sunday we will deem overtime.

The rule only works where you have setup Advanced Standard Work Hours using start and finish times, not hours only. If you have not set up Advanced Standard Work Hours up for a part-time employee, then we will deem all hours overtime.

Amended a rule for the minimum of four hours for overtime worked on a Sunday to only be applicable when overtime is on its own and exclude Sunday overtime adjacent to ordinary hours:

1. Fix any auto-meal break rules so that they do not apply to leave requests
2. Updated allowance pay categories configuration.  e.g. changed payment classifications
3. Create Kilometre allowance pay categories - above and below ATO limits
4. Changed the rules "Weekday" and "uniform allowance" as this was being triggered by the Kilometre work type.

We have udpated the award to reflect changes made as part of the Fair Work Decision 4-year review of modern awards. The changes replace Clause 26 - Overtime to include overtime paid for casuals. Iy now provides for casual staff to be paid overtime in excess of the following:

• Thirty-eight hours per week, or an average of 38 hours per week, averaged over a 4-week period; or
• 11 hours in one day.

We have applied the rule using 152 hours worked over a 4-week period to remain consistent with the rule set for permanent staff. Implicitly, this also allows for overtime swapping for time in lieu and for Sunday overtime to have a 4-hour minimum engagement, consistent with the existing overtime clauses.

It also means you can convert overtime to Time in Lieu by using the Time off in lieu of overtime employee tag, and we hace also reflected this update in the rules. These changes are reflected in the Casual Fast Food rule set.

We have also automatically enabled the work types on meal allowances for casual staff as well. To receive paid a meal allowances, the 1+ OT hrs worked (24 hrs prior notice not provided to employee)' and/or 4+ OT hrs worked (24 hrs prior notice not provided to employee)' needs selecting on a separate line of the timesheet and a unit of one recorded.

These changes have also meant we have created a set of new pay categories for casual overtime, and the pay rate templates for casual employees. Please note that the changes come into effect on the first full pay period on or after 1st January 2018. It means that you should only install these updates once you have completed the last pay period that pays shifts worked during December 2017.