Employing Casuals?

Here's what you need to know about the new rules.

Casual Employment New Rules from March 2021

The Fair Work Act 2009 has been amended to enforce several new rules for employing casual workers.

The Act includes a statutory definition of casual employment, a pathway for casual employees to become permanent, and a Casual Employment Information Statement (CEIS).

Definition of Casual Employee

A casual worker does not have an agreed pattern of work or an advance commitment to ongoing work from the employer. Therefore, there is no consistent or guaranteed work schedule, and the employee is paid an hourly rate plus casual loading according to the relevant modern award.

If you require employees to agree to a regular roster well in advance of scheduled work and rely on them as an integral member of your team, talk to us about whether the employee should be considered a permanent employee. True casuals can choose whether or not to work when you offer them shifts.

Permanent part-time and full-time employees have a set roster of work and a commitment from the employer to ongoing work. For full details of casual employees, visit the Fair Work Ombudsman Casual Employees webpage.

Casual Conversion Pathway to Permanent Employment

Employers of casuals are now obliged to offer casual workers the option to convert to permanent employment after 12 months of employment if the pattern of work has been regular and systematic during the last six months.

Some modern awards already have clauses that allow employees to request permanent work. The Act overrides individual award provisions and means that employers must now actively offer conversion to casual workers who meet the criteria for converting to a permanent position.

If there are reasonable business grounds for not making an offer of permanent employment, the employer must notify casual employees.

Casual Employment Information Statement

Employers must now provide the CEIS to all casual workers upon starting work. You must also continue to provide the National Employment Standards and Fair Work Information Statement. Visit the FWO Casual Employment Information Statement webpage for details and to download the form for your employees.

The CEIS outlines the rights of casual workers to become permanent employees in certain circumstances.

Review Your Casual Workforce

The rules around reasonable business grounds, when employees can refuse an offer, time constraints, and transitional provisions are complex.

First, check your employment contracts to make sure they meet the new definition of casual employment.

Then, put in place a process for assessing casual roles at the 12 month anniversary of the employee start date.

You’ll need to keep detailed records for casual employees to ensure you are complying with the changes.

Talk to us if you’d like assistance with managing your casual workforce payroll.

Single Touch Payroll Reporting for Closely Held Payees Mandatory from July

Closely held payees must be reported via Single Touch Payroll from July 2021. Now is the time to get organised.

Does your business make payments to closely held payees? If so, you will need to start reporting these payments via Single Touch Payroll (STP) from July 2021.

Closely held payees include family members, directors or shareholders of a company and beneficiaries of a trust.

If you’re already reporting employees via STP, then it will be easy to include the extra payees from July.

If your business only pays closely held payees then you may not have signed up for Single Touch Payroll. If not, now is the time to establish a reporting solution.

Typically, closely held payees are paid amounts on the advice of the tax agent, and often these amounts are not calculated until they do your tax return. In this situation, the business can report estimated amounts via STP.

Three Ways to Report Payments to Closely Held Payees

Report actual payments on or before the date of payment if you lodge your own STP reports through your ATO business portal.

Report actual payments quarterly when the activity statement is due. This option is available if you have a BAS or tax agent lodge on your behalf and they already have the ATO quarterly reporting concession in place.

Report a reasonable estimate quarterly. Estimates should be based on amounts equal to or greater than 25% of the previous year’s payments.

If you’re reporting quarterly estimates, it’s important not to underestimate amounts to be paid, as the business may later be liable for superannuation guarantee late charge and penalties.

Small employers have until the individual’s tax return due date to submit the STP finalisation declaration. (For all other payees, the finalisation is due by the usual date of 14 July).

If you’d like help with Single Touch Payroll reporting for your closely held payees, talk to us about planning ahead for lodgement and calculating estimates. We’ll help organise your systems so you’re prepared for STP reporting obligations,

Five benefits of outsourcing your payroll

When it comes to running a business, time is an irreplaceable commodity and we are seeing more and more businesses start to outsource specialist or essential services. If you employ people, then payroll is both a specialist and essential service.

Why?

Because outsourcing payroll allows business owners to focus on their strengths and core business, leaving the complexities of systems and compliance to experts.

With the right team behind you, the benefits of outsourcing your payroll can be realised almost immediately.

Here are five benefits of outsourcing your payroll.

1. Save time

By outsourcing your payroll, time spent on compliance, regulations, and training staff on using internal systems is eliminated. Cloud-based payroll services can also eliminate time spent by HR updating entitlements, leave and benefits.

2. Save money

Having fewer full-time employees can cause a ripple effect on cost savings throughout an organisation, from HR and IT through to office space and utilities. Outsourcing to payroll services providers reduces the cost of hiring and retaining specialised staff – two activities that are expensive and increasingly seen as unnecessary.

3. Compliance

For many small business owners payroll isn’t a core competency. And that means the complexity of work place agreements and EBAs increases the risk of costly errors. Keeping up with the Australian government’s National Employee Standards (NES) vigilance and expertise to remain compliant.
Outsourcing to a specialist payroll provider ensures that the minimum standards are adhered to.

4. Simplified reporting

Outsourcing payroll provides complete transparency and access to accurate information that doesn’t need to be verified. Simplified reporting means, as a business owner, you can more effectively plan for growth and predict changes to your staffing needs.

5. Avoid losing payroll expertise

Outsourcing your payroll means your business maintains a consistent approach to payroll management. There’s no need to induct employees and role transfer can be reduced to the functions and outputs of the payroll service.

At the end of the day outsourcing payroll services allows you to focus on the aspects of your business that generate revenue.

Talk to us today about outsourcing your payroll so you can invest in strategic resources that increase value and drive the growth of your business.

Contractor or Employee 

What You Need to Know

Should your staff be contractors or employees?

There are many factors to assess and, as a business owner, it’s your responsibility to get it right.

So, what is the difference between a contractor and an employee?

An employee

A contractor

It is the business owner’s legal responsibility to determine the nature of the work and the correct basis of engagement. We can help you get it right.

Multi Factor Test

There are many factors involved in deciding whether a worker is an employee or contractor. And the guidelines must be applied individually to each working relationship.

There is no single overriding factor, rather, the totality of the working relationship and nature of the work being done is taken into consideration.

Sole Trader as a Contractor May Not be Right

When sole traders are engaged as contractors, the business owner needs to check whether they really meet the criteria for being engaged as a contractor. Many sole traders engaged as contractors are not actively carrying on a business, and do not have the level of independence that a contractor should have. This is even if they have their own ABN. 

Sole traders are often engaged for their own services and labour. However they are not free to delegate the work to someone else and must work under the direction of the employing business. In this case, they should be engaged as an employee and not a contractor.

Factors to Consider

This is not an exhaustive list but some of the main factors to assess.

Covid-19 Advice for Employers

Employers are facing unprecedented changes to the way of working, and many employers are having to do this with little or no preparation for such adversity.

The Fair Work Ombudsman has updated their information on Coronavirus and Australian workplace laws to provide advice to employers on managing the situation. The advice is general in nature and reminds employers that the usual provisions of the Fair Work Act apply.

It is important to note that the Fair Work Act does not have specific provisions or rules for a situation like this, that has such an unforeseen effect on business and employers.

Employers and employees need to come to their own arrangements. Employers must communicate with employees what their policies will be in this situation, making sure that they are lawful within the Fair Work Act provisions.

The Fair Work Ombudsman provides guidance on many topics including:

• Health and safety in the workplace.
• Directing employees to stay away from the workplace.
• Quarantine and self-isolation.
• Working from home.
• Casual employees and independent contractors.
• Redundancy and reduction of hours.

Essential Information for Employers

There is a great deal of information being published, and we encourage you to stay updated with the official websites.

• Australian Government Coronavirus Health Alert – daily updates of the current status, essential information and advice.
• Fair Work Ombudsman Coronavirus and Australian workplace laws – workplace entitlements and obligations.
• Fair Work Ombudsman hotline – 13 13 94 and select the option for Coronavirus.
• Check your local Chamber of Commerce or state government website for dedicated employer guides.

What you need to do

We suggest you write a policy and plan for the business management of Covid-19 and provide this to employees as soon as possible. This should include guidance on working from home, productivity measures and expectations, personal hygiene, workplace safety, flexible working, user access to relevant tools and technology, leave policies, online security and safety, team communications, as well as any procedures or policies relevant to your business and industry in this situation.

Remember, stay safe and maintain connection and communication with your employees throughout this challenging time.

Need help navigating the support packages available?

Talk to us. We are here to help.

Gift cards and vouchers now have three year expiry

Gift vouchers can be a great way to attract customers, maximise marketing campaigns and increase sales - so long as you don’t get caught out by the new rules.

Does your business offer gift cards or vouchers? If so, new laws came into effect on 1 November 2019, which you'll need to adopt. Gift cards and vouchers issued on or after 1 November 2019 must meet the new requirements of the Australian Consumer Law (ACL).

New Gift Card Laws

• Mandatory minimum expiry period of three years from the date of issue.
• The actual expiry date must be listed on the card; alternatively, the supply date and expiry period, for example, “Valid for 3 years from 11/02/2020”.
• Post-purchase fees are no longer allowed. Payment processing fees may be allowed, however activation, top-up, account keeping or balance enquiry fees are not.

There are some situations in which the new requirements don’t apply, for example if the card can be topped up, if it is part of a temporary marketing promotion or if it is donated free of charge for promotions. Visit ACL New Gift Card Laws webpage for full details.

If you have not met the new requirements on vouchers issued since 1 November, the new laws will still apply even if the actual voucher does not. Customers will be able to redeem the voucher within the three-year expiry regardless of what is stated on the voucher. Gift cards and vouchers issued before 1 November 2019 have the same expiry period and conditions of purchase as at the time of purchase.

What Next?

1. Review your gift voucher terms and conditions.
2. Update your printed and online vouchers and related marketing material.
3. Check the information published on your website and social media.
4. Make sure your internal processes and point-of-sale systems are brought up to date and remember to tell your staff of the changes.

We can help you.

​Talk to us about how the changes affect your business operations and cashflow, or how to implement gift cards in your business.

Modern award annualised salary changes

Recent changes made by the Fair Work Commission mean that you need to review employment agreements to ensure they are compliant with the award requirements.

The Fair Work Commission (FWC) late last year has varied a number of modern awards that include annualised salary provisions. The decision has also introduced the provision for annualised salaries into some other awards for the first time.

Whilst the actual specifics of the annualised salary provisions vary per award, there are some significant changes that affect all award terms in relation to annualised salaries. - We can help with the red tape.

What is an Annualised Salary?

Some awards permit employees to be paid an annual salary that covers all payments such as allowances, penalty rates and overtime. For many employers and employees, this has been a flexible and practical solution to avoid the need for timesheets and extra payroll administration.

The important changes

The changes may affect the ease and efficiency of your current payroll administration, as there are now extra records required for all employees paid an annual salary under an award provision. Note: this does not affect employees with a common law employment contract.

• The agreement or arrangement must document the specific provisions of the award that are addressed.
• The agreement must include reference to overtime or other penalty rates the employee would otherwise be paid, specified as an ‘outer limit’, or maximum number of such hours to be worked in each pay period. Outer limits must be specified separately for overtime and hours that would be subject to a penalty or loading.
• Records of hours worked (and unpaid breaks) must be kept for each pay period and signed by the employee.
• The employee must be paid for any extra hours that exceed the ‘outer limits’ as defined in the annual salary agreement.
• Check the relevant award to see if an employment agreement is required. In some awards the employer can implement an annual salary arrangement without an employee agreement.
• Document the calculation of the annual salary according to the requirements of the award. It is vital that the calculation shows that the employee is receiving at least as much as if they were paid according to the award hourly rates, including all wages, allowances, penalties, overtime and loadings. This will require breaking down the salary into its separate components.
• Employer and employee must complete an annual salary review on the anniversary of the agreement or arrangement.

What you need to do now

1. Make sure you are aware of the applicable modern award and check the annualised salary provisions.
2. Check that the current annualised salary arrangements meet the new requirements of the award.
3. Document the calculation as per the award conditions.
4. Update existing agreements or implement new ones as needed.

The new provisions came into effect on 1 March 2020. Employers need to review all existing agreements for annualised salaries as soon as possible.

You will also need to consider the impact of the new requirements on your payroll administration and software.

There are many payroll software add-ons that can help to make administration easier if your current software does not have the required record-keeping tools built in.

We can help you.

Contact us to arrange a time for a payroll compliance review.