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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.

We have updated pay condition rule sets for Permanent (daywork), Permanent (shiftwork), and Casual to remove the capping of leading hand allowances as per the award; this allowance pays on all hours worked, including overtime.

The award has been updated to reflect the Fair Work Commission’s national minimum wage increase, as detailed in the Annual Wage Review 2021-22 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 2022. 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 2022.

Unpaid Pandemic Leave has been disabled as this entitlement has now expired within this award. Additional information can be found on the Fair Work Commission website.

The Unpaid Pandemic Leave pay category has been updated and 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.

To identify affected employees and enter the leave accrual see: Calculating Missing Leave Accrual for Unpaid Pandemic Leave Taken. 

The Award has been updated in line with the ATO's requirements for STP Phase 2 reporting. The reporting of gross earnings is now being disaggregated into distinguishable categories. The pay category payment classifications have been updated in line with the ATO specification categories found here. For further information please see our STP support article.

The pay condition rule sets for Permanent (daywork), Permanent (shiftwork), and Casual have been updated in relation to clause 18.2. The All-Purpose Allowances (First Aid, Leading Hand and Wet Work) rules have been simplified. The all-purpose allowances will still be calculated using the 'base' pay category and applicable multiplier, however the pay categories originally created for each multiple will no longer be used.  Instead, the system will automatically create the multiplied rate whilst still using the base pay category name convention.

The pay condition rule set Casual has been updated to ensure that overtime is paid to casual employees when they work in excess of 12 hours upon each engagement. 

The pay categories Leading hand allowance - in charge of 11-20 employees, Leading hand allowance - in charge of 2-6 employees, Leading hand allowance - in charge of 2-6 employees, and Leading hand allowance - in charge of 2-6 employees have been updated to exclude leave from being accrued specifically from the allowance. 

The pay rate for pay category Vehicle allowance - above ATO-approved limit has been updated to 0.08c per unit.

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. For further instruction on how 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 has been updated to reflect changes made as part of the Fair Work Decision 4-year review of modern awards, specifically in regards to the calculations of all purpose allowances. The rule set Casual has been updated to ensure that casual loading is included in the calculations for any all purpose allowance

The rule set period for the Casual pay condition rule set has been updated to eight weekly, in line with clause 23.2.

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 of Australia'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 pay rate templates have been updated 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.

The award has been updated to reflect the changes made as part of Fair Work Comission's determination around Clause 15 - Annualised Wage Arrangements. A new employment agreement for annualised wage employees has been created which can be assigned to an employee who is paid under the provisions of clause 15. Further information on the employee setup can be found here.

The pay conditions rule sets for Permanent (daywork), Permanent (shiftwork), and Casual have been updated in line with the following clauses within the award: Clause 28.3 Public Holidays, 23.1(b) Working through a meal break, and 24.3(b) Less than 10 hours break between shifts.

The rules have been updated to ensure that the Public Holiday Overtime pay category applies for all hours worked on a public holiday when overtime hours should apply. Also, when an employee works during a meal break and into overtime, the pay category Working through a meal break overtime will apply to those hours. Finally, when an employee has not had 10 hours break between shifts, the pay categories Less than 10 hour break between shifts and Less than 10 hour break between shifts overtime will apply and be paid at overtime rates at ordinary hours and overtime rates for overtime hours respectively.

The award has been updated to reflect changes made as part of the Fair Work Commision decision around flexibility during coronavirus. The new schedule allows employees to take up to two (2) weeks 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.

The rule set pay conditions for Permanent (daywork),Permanent (Shiftwork), and Casual have been updated to include an automatic meal break rule in line with clause 24.1 of the award. The minimum break between shifts, as part of clause 24.3(b), rule has also been updated to include the first shift of the day and to exclude leave work types. 

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. 

A new work type has been created for clause 24.4 Meal Allowance of the Award. The work type is Meal provided / notice of OT given on prior day. ‌This work type should be selected when an employee is working overtime and was either given a meal or received notice the day prior to the overtime being worked and therefore, is not to receive the meal allowance specified under this clause. The rule for the meal allowance has also been updated to exclude this work type from any meal allowance being paid for the overtime.

Rounding update for casual pay rate templates.

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 Horticultural Award 2010 (MA000028) has been updated to reflect changes made as part of the Fair Work Commision decision review of modern awards. The determination for the new clauses in the award are specific to casual employees and can be found here.

The ordinary hours of work are now defined for casual employees. Casuals are also entitled to overtime penalties of 175% if they work in excess of 12 hours per engagement, 12 hours in a single day, or 304 ordinary hours over an 8-week period. For work outside the span of hours, they will be entitled to an extra 15% loading. Casuals are also entitled to a meal allowance of $12.43 for more than two hours of overtime worked without notice. 

In line with these new clauses, we have created two new pay categories; Casual - Outside span of hours and Casual - Overtime. We have also updated the pay condition rule set Casual to reflect clause 22.2 Span of Hours, Maximum Engagement, and Period Overtime (304 hrs over 8 weeks), clause 24.3 Casual Overtime, and clause 24.4 Meal Allowance.  

These changes apply from the first full pay period on or after 15 April 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 Commission 4-year review of modern awards. The change is a newly created clause 10.4(d) - Casual Minimum Engagement. This now provides for casual employees to be paid for at least two consecutive hours of work on each occasion they are required to attend work.

This change is reflected in the Casual rule set.

Please note that the change comes into effect on the first full pay period on or after 1 October 2018. This means that you should only install this update once you have completed the last pay period for hours worked during September 2018. The Fair Work Commission determination can be found here.

The award has been updated to reflect changes made as part of the Fair Work Commision 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 Commission.

Employees, including part-time and casual employees, are entitled to 5 days unpaid family and domestic violence leave each year of their employment. The five 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. New laundry allowance pay categories and rule conditions were created to reflect the ATO threshold maximum limits for claiming of laundry (not dry cleaning) for deductible clothing under the award. Further information can be found in the Cleaning of Work Clothing section of this ATO article.
2. The payment classification settings for allowance-based pay categories have been updated as per STP requirements.

We have created a new rule - 10.3(g) Apply Overtime - Over Advanced Standard Hours - Part-Time. This rule reflects the following provisions of clause 10.3(g):

• • 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. Now, however, 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; and
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.