News and Updates
December 2024
FAIR WORK CHANGES – DEC 2024
Fair Work – New criminal underpayment Laws
From 01 January 2025, intentionally underpaying an employee’s wages or entitlements can be a criminal offence. This doesn’t include honest mistakes.
What’s changing
FairWork can investigate suspected criminal underpayment offences and refer suitable matters for criminal prosecution. If a person is convicted of a criminal offence, a court can impose fines, prison time, or both.
Code and Guide
FairWork can’t refer a small business employer’s conduct for possible criminal prosecution if they are satisfied that they’ve complied with the Code in relation to an underpayment.
A small business employer will comply with the Code if they don’t intend to underpay their employees. This will be assessed by looking at several factors. These factors aren’t new to compliant employers. Instead, they’re steps many already take as part of good business practice.
Guide to help you understand the Code
Our Guide to Paying Employees Correctly and the Voluntary Small Business Wage Compliance Code can help businesses understand the Code. It offers practical advice and tools, including a handy checklist, examples, and best practice tips.
The PaysOnline Modern Award Rate validation tool assists clients in ensuring employees are on the correct rate for their award and level.
Fair Work – Changes to entry-level Classifications
- introductory classifications can only apply for a limited time
- new rules and minimum pay apply for introductory rates.
- 1 January 2025 for most awards
- 1 April 2025 for the Horticulture Award and Pastoral Award.
- an initial induction period
- time spent undertaking training, or
- enough time to gain basic skills and experience required for the job.
Quick Onboarding – Flexibility for Mandatory requirements
- Employment Contracts acceptance
- Copies of Licences
- Proof of Qualification
- Next of Kin details
November 2024
FAIR WORK COMPLIANCE CENTRE – NOV 2024
FAIR WORK GUIDANCE
Rules and entitlements during the end-of-year holiday season Rules and entitlements during the end-of-year holiday season – Fair Work Ombudsman
PAYSONLINE COMPLIANCE CENTRE
The PaysOnline Compliance Centre provides clients with access to a library of external links to the Australian Tax Office (ATO), Fair Work Australia, the Office of State Revenue (OSR), and more.
We understand that navigating these sites can be overwhelming and difficult, so we have done the hard work for you.
Items that can be found in the Compliance Centre are:
- Paying Employee
- Employee Leave
- Super and PAYG
- Employing staff
HR SMARTFORMS
PaysOnline HR SmartForms will allow you to have paper documents sent electronically to your staff.
Under Fair Work guidelines, a lot of standard employee payroll requests need to be documented. FairWork provides templates that PaysOnline have built into our platform.
https://www.fairwork.gov.au/tools-and-resources/templates
This documentation is required for, but not limited to:
- Cashing in Annual Leave
- Payroll deductions (including overpayment, uniforms, credit card use)
- Casual Conversion
- Employment Contracts
- Salary Sacrifice requests
The HR SmartForms can be set up on clients’ accounts for employees to submit the requests electronically. This eliminates the need for emails or paper documents that could pose a security/privacy risk.
HR SmartForms are available on our Enterprise+ plan.
October 2024
PAYROLL CENTRE – OCT 2024
PAYROLL CENTRE
We’ve updated the Payroll Centre to help you complete all payroll steps. Follow the details set out in your Payroll Centre to ensure you are not missing any important data.
If any data needs review, approval, or finalisation, you’ll see a number next to each relevant item.
TIMESHEET CHANGES
Items that are not used regularly have been hidden to assist with managing your payroll data.
If you are using leave management or time and attendance, required pay items (e.g. leave) will load when you import the data.
If you are not utilising all features and employee are not applying for leave via the system you can add the pay item manually.
September 2024
NEW / AMENDED REPORTS – SEPT 2024
ROSTER BY ROLE
We have introduced a new report for easy viewing to ensure the correct people are rostered together when using roles for rostering. Data can be printed (for up to 14 days) or downloaded into Excel.
LEAVE ACTIVITY REPORT
Individual employee information can now be downloaded.
ADMIN CENTRE
Time Sheet Items
In line with the changes to STP reporting, the Timesheet Items data will now display a flag on how information is reported to the ATO. This information will assist in STP in reconciling your STP data.
August 2024
NEW USER INTERFACE – AUG 2024
NEW USER INTERFACE
Pay Schedule
The Pay Schedule has been updated in line with the new branding. Changes include:
- Change lay out to display pay schedule table
- User acknowledgment for schedules where a client has 27 fortnights or 53 weeks.
FAIRWORK CHANGES
Closing the Loopholes – Changes to workplace laws to commence August 26.
Multiple changes have been made to casual employment laws. These include how casual work is defined, the pathway to full-time or part-time employment, and employee and employer responsibilities.
For full details from Fair Work Australia click here Casual employment changes – Fair Work Ombudsman
ROSTER
The Off-Day Item Banner has been added to allow you to view staff’s actions when they are not rostered on.
The feature is designed to benefit businesses with Fly In/Fly Out, so they know exactly what is occurring with their rosters.
July 2024
FAIRWORK – JUL 2024
FAIRWORK
Minimum wage increases from 1 July – Fair Work Ombudsman
The Fair Work Ombudsman is reminding employers that a 3.75 per cent minimum wage increase be applied to eligible employees’ pay from the first full pay period starting on or after 1 July 2024.
The new National Minimum Wage is $915.90 per week (based on a 38-hour week for a full-time employee), or $24.10 per hour. The rates have increased from $882.80 per week and $23.23 per hour. Casual employees entitled to the National Minimum Wage must receive a minimum $30.13 per hour, which includes 25 per cent casual loading.
The National Minimum Wage is the base rate for adult employees in the national system who are not covered by an award or registered agreement.
SERVICES AUSTRALIA
Paid Parental leave Payments
From 01 July 2024, the paid parental leave payment will increase to $183.16 a day before tax or $915.80 per 5-day week. This is based on the weekly rate of the national minimum wage.
PAYROLL TIMESHEET
Hiding Pay Items Not Used Regularly
This feature hides Pay items that are not used regularly on the timesheet. It ensures a quicker loading experience which is especially beneficial if you have many different pay items on your account.
Once enabled, additional pay items required for the payroll can be added seamlessly for that pay run while processing the timesheet.
Items such as leave, time and attendance details and standard payments will load automatically.
NEW / AMENDED REPORTS
STP Report
After receiving user feedback on ways to improve the end-of-year reconciliation, we have added an additional column to the STP report.
The new column is for ETP PAYGW and will allow users to easily compare the STP Report with the STP Totals
Reconciliation Report.
STP Totals Reconciliation Report
Under STPv2 requirements, detailed itemised reporting needs to be provided to the Australian Tax Office (ATO). The new STP Totals Reconciliation report assists in the reconciliation of the data.
The data is displayed based on the STP date, but the period end date can also be selected. This report replaces the old Totals Reconciliation report.
June 2024
FAIRWORK – JUNE 2024
FAIRWORK
INCREASE TO MINIMUM WAGE ANNOUNCED
The Fair Work Commission (the Commission) has announced a 3.75% increase to the National Minimum Wage and minimum award wages.
From 1 July 2024, the National Minimum Wage increases to $915.90 per week or $24.10 per hour and the award minimum wages increase by 3.75%.
Other award wages, including junior, apprentice and supported wages that are based on adult minimum wages, will get a proportionate increase.
The increase applies from the first FULL pay period on or after 1 July 2024.
NEW / AMENDED REPORT
Labour Vs Sales Report
Additional information has been added to the Labour Vs Sales report. This report now displays:
• Total hours
• Sales per hour
• Cost per hour
EMPLOYEE SELF SERVICE
ESS Login Details Email
After recent user feedback, we have amended the email sent to new hires to include the Employee Website. The email will also advise users that the link will expire in 48 hours instead of the previous 24-hour expiration.
ROSTER UNAVAILABILITY
Employees are now unable to mark themselves as unavailable (if the feature is enabled) if a roster has been published. The published roster period will appear grey.
May 2024
NEW / AMENDED REPORT – MAY 2024
NEW / AMENDED REPORT
Age and Tenure
We have added age and tenure columns to the Personal Details Reports and Active Employee List.
ROSTER
Workforce Budget Enhancement (Time and Attendance clients only)
The Workforce Budget update enables setting up multiple roles with simultaneous start times. Open/ unfilled shifts can be sent to employees.
April 2024
USER INTERFACE – APRIL 2024
USER INTERFACE
To Do Items
The To Do Items screen has been updated to enhance usability and efficiency as part of our system’s new rebranding. Here are the key changes:
The menu now displays as a list, providing a clearer snapshot of tasks. A new, filterable location column has been added, for better organization and searchability. You can now download all views, making keeping records and sharing information easier.
You can send a nudge to employees to remind them to complete their information, ensuring tasks are completed promptly.
March 2024
TIME AND ATTENDANCE – MAR 2024
TIME AND ATTENDANCE
Web-Clock
We have just released our WEB-CLOCK app, which replaced the old program and can be installed in a matter of minutes. This will allow you to obtain employees’ working hours without having to get paper timesheets.
The WEB-CLOCK feature provides more stability and will remain logged in. Employees cannot accidentally close the program, requiring a manager to be on site. After installation, the app will automatically reopen whenever the computer shuts down and restarts.
USER INTERFACE
Employee To Do items Nudge feature
Users are now able to nudge employees who have not provided personal information such as:
• Personal data
• Bank Details
• Super details
• Tax details
• HR documents
• Pending onboarding data
Employee will receive a Quick Reminder email notification
