From June 4th 2023, as per Fair Work requirements, we will change how Paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave displays on pay slips. It is to reduce the risk to an employee’s safety when accessing Paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave.
Employers need to keep a record of leave balances and any leave taken by employees. However, pay slips must not mention Paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave, including any leave taken and leave balances, and should display as follows:
- Ordinary hours of work,
- OR another kind of payment for performing work, such as an allowance, bonus, or overtime payment.
However, if an employee requests it, their employer can record time taken as Paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave as another type of leave on their pay slip; for example, annual leave. If an employee has taken a period of Paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave, it is best practise for their employer to record this on their pay slip in a way which makes the pay slip look as close as possible to how it would have looked if the employee had not taken the leave.
Important
The below article covers our 4th of June update to Domestic Violence leave; for the content covering the 1st of February update, please refer to the following article.
Helpful Hint
If you would like to read more about the new paid family and domestic violence payments on the Fair Work site, please use the following link.
Business default settings
Paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave will appear on the pay slip as the employee's Primary Pay Category by default, and the setting automatically applies to all employees.
Employee-level settings
Within the employee’s profile, under Leave Allowances, the Paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave pay slip description setting will appear. As per the business settings, this will automatically default to the employee’s primary pay category. You can change this by clicking on the Use Leave Category drop-down, which will display all available pay categories, including leave categories, and will apply to all future pay runs.
Once you have selected the desired pay category, click on the Save button at the bottom of the page. It will make sure any Paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave taken in the future displays on the employee’s pay slip as per their Paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave pay slip description settings.
Pay runs
When an employee has taken Paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave, the pay run will display the domestic violence leave using the setting and category you set up above. The pay slip description by default, will display as the employee’s primary pay category unless it you change it within the employee’s profile.
You can change the display settings by clicking on the Pay Slip Description drop-down, selecting the desired pay category, and saving the new selection. It will only apply to the pay run you have made this change in, i.e. it will not update any of your other pay runs. The employee's pay slip will display the selected pay category as per the default or employee profile settings.
Important
Within the pay run, if you want to override the pay category, which you have set up at employee level, you can. However, any changes made on the Pay Run page will only apply to that pay run. For a permanent change, you will need to amend the Family and Domestic Violence Leave (FDVL) pay slip description on the employee's file.
Single Touch Payroll (STP) reporting
When reporting Paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave via STP, as per the Australian Tax Office (ATO) guidelines, how you report the leave will align with how the leave displays on the employee’s pay slip. For example, if you use an Ordinary Hours pay category, you would report this under the Default option. If you use the Annual Leave category, you will report this under Leave - Other option. When reconciling STP, the gross totals will match the pay run total and pay run audit report.
Data extracts
We have added the Paid Family and Domestic Violence Payslip Description field to the data extracts file. When the field is blank, the employee will have the default business settings used as their Primary Pay Category. If you have overridden the employee settings, the selected pay category will display. You can change the employees setting by clicking on the Pays Slips Description drop-down in the data extracts file, and selecting the required option.