7th

We have introduced a new suite of configurations for Salaried Employment Agreements to allow the employers to manage the salaried employees, who are under Individual flexibility arrangements, directly within the award instead of having to remove them.

This introduction, which is an enhancement rather than a legislative update requirement, includes the items below if they do not already exist within an award:

• Pay Categories (Salary and Salary - Public Holiday Not Worked).
• Leave Allowance Templates for “No loading” and “With loading”.
• Rule Set to disregard timesheets.
• Pay Rate Templates.
• Employment Agreements for all employee types (full-time, part-time, and casual).

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

We have also 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. 

8th

We have updated the award to pay the First Aid Allowance on a weekly basis instead of hourly. The allowance rate has also been updated to the weekly amount as stated in the latest pay guide.

1st

We have updated the award to include an auto meal break rule in the ruleset. A 30-minute break will now be automatically applied once an employee has worked 5.5 hours without a recorded break.

1st

We have updated the award to reflect the Fair Work Commission's National Minimum Wage increase detailed in the Annual Wage Review 2024-25 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 2025. 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 2025.

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 does not accrue super. 

All rule sets has been updated to include a rule for Paid Family Domestic Violence Leave.

In accordance with clause 13.3(c) of the award, paid waiting time has been excluded from overtime calculations. 

30th

Per clause 11.3, casual employees must receive a minimum payment of 2 hours for each engagement where they are solely engaged for the purpose of transportation of children.

Employees assigned the tag "Transportation of school children" would receive the minimum entitlement of 2 hours for all shifts worked.

Alternatively, a new work type "Transportation of school children" has been created. Employees can use this work type to receive the minimum entitlement of applicable shifts.

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.

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 updated the award to include the different roster cycles of clause 13.1(b). The award default Rule Set Period is set to Weekly that ends every Sunday. If you follow a different work pattern or roster period, you can review and set the rule set period date that applies to your organisation. For further information please see this article

The award has been updated to reflect the Fair Work Commission’s National Minimum Wage increase of 2.5% detailed in the Annual Wage Review 2020-21 decision. This also includes updates to expense-related allowances. Information on the Determinations can be found here and here.

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

Updates have also been made to the Leave Category Family & Domestic Violence Leave, so that the balance is displayed in days instead of hours in line with the National Employment Standards.

Once the update is installed, all employees' FDV leave balances will be displayed in days, not hours. This will mean that an employee’s balance may now show as 38 days. In order to correct the balance please see How to Fix Family & Domestic Violence Leave Balance Data.

This update is to ensure that any new installs of this award conducted since 1 July are now captured with the SG increase from 9.5% to 10% for all pay categories. If you have installed this award between 1 July 2021 to 8 July 2021 for the first time, please ensure you select "NO" to preserve custom pay categories. If you were using this award prior to 1 July 2021, then you do not need to select "NO." Further information can be found in Incorrect SG rate used in pay runs article here.

The award, as part of Group 2 awards, has been updated to reflect the Fair Work Commission’s National Minimum Wage increase of 1.75% detailed in the Annual Wage Review 2019-20 decision. This also includes updates to expense-related allowances. Information on the Determinations can be found here and here.

These changes come into effect from the first full pay period on or after 1 November 2020. Please install these updates after you have finalised your last pay run prior to the first full pay period commencing on or after 1 November 2020.

The award has been updated 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 being calculated on working days, not hours. Information on the decision can be found 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 the award was already installed prior to 25 August 2020. However, any new award installs from 25 August 2020 will not display personal/carer's (10 days) leave details.

For further information on migrating from daily personal/carers leave accruals to hourly, please refer here.

The award has been updated 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 (2) weeks of unpaid pandemic leave. A new pay category (Unpaid Pandemic Leave Taken), leave category and work type (Unpaid Pandemic Leave) have been created. Also, the rule sets have been updated, where necessary, to include/exclude the work type and leave category to some pay conditions.

Further, the Leave Allowance Templates have been updated to ensure 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. The employee's pay rate and leave balance will need to be manually adjusted to half in each pay run for the period of leave.

Refresh to award to capture all previous updates.

Due to recent changes to the interpretation of personal/carer's leave accrual under the National Employment Standards, updates have been made to the setup of the award. Further information can be found here. 

A new Leave Category called Personal/Carer's (10 days) Leave has been created. Also, new Leave Allowance Templates (LATs) have been created specific to 10 days accrual per year for each state, and the LATs have been attached to the current Employment Agreements for selection options for an employee's LAT in their Employee Default Pay Run screen. Any rules impacted by Personal/Carer's Leave have also been updated with the new leave category.

Instructions on converting the accruals to the 10-day method can be found here.

The award has been updated to reflect the Fair Work Commission’s National Minimum Wage increase of 3% from its Annual Wage Review 2018-19 decision. This also includes updates to expense-related allowances. Information on the Determinations can be found here and here.

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

The setup of the Payroll Tax Exempt field in Payroll Settings>Pay Categories was replicating the PAYG Exempt field rather than creating a unique identity; when installed into the business settings. An audit has been carried out across the system and the issue has now been resolved with this update.

The award has been updated to reflect changes made as part of the Fair Work Decision 4 -year review of modern awards. The determination for the new clause in the modern award allowing employees to take unpaid leave to deal with family and domestic violence can be found here. Family and Domestic Violence leave applies from the first full pay period on or after 1 August 2018. Further information can be found at Fair Work.

Employees, including part-time and casual employees, are entitled to 5 days of unpaid family and domestic violence leave each year of their employment. The 5 days renew each 12 months of their employment but does not accumulate if the leave is not used.

A new leave category has been created - “Family and Domestic Violence Leave” and a new Work Type - “Family and Domestic Violence Leave taken”. The Leave Allowance Templates and any impacted rule conditions have also been updated.

The award has been updated to reflect the Fair Work Commission’s national minimum wage increase of 3.5% from its Annual Wage Review 2017-18 decision. This also includes updates to expense-related allowances.

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

Additionally, the following changes have been made as part of this update:

1. The Payment Classification settings for allowance-based pay categories have been updated as per Single Touch Payroll (STP) requirements.
2. We have created a new rule - 10.4(i) Apply Overtime - Over Advanced Standard Hours - Part-Time. This rule reflects the following provisions of clause 10.4(i):

• 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, we can assess the Advanced Standard Work Hours as set up within the employee's Pay Run Defaults screen.

For example, if an employee's Advanced Standard Work Hours were as follows:

The rule will assess hours as follows:

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

N.B:

(a) This rule only works where Advanced Standard Work Hours have been set up using start and finish times, not hours only;

(b) If no advanced standard work hours have been set up for a part-time employee, then all hours will be deemed overtime.

The award has been updated to reflect changes made as part of the Fair Work Decision 4-year review of modern awards. The update provides clarification in clause 10.5(e) on when a school bus driver should receive the minimum shift engagement rule of 2 hours. This can occur on 2 separate shifts on the same day.

The only changes required were to update the clause numbering in our rule set. However, based on the changes above, we would suggest you review the 'rule set consolidation' settings. Go to business > payroll settings > rule sets > select "Passenger Vehicle Transportation award" from the drop list > Click 'Passenger Vehicle Transport Employee Rule Set' and review the 'shift consolidation' section. We recommend you do not select 'consolidate shifts starting on the same day' but instead select 'Consolidate shifts within [x] of each other' as shown below: