News
by Beam
|29/05/2024
In the 2023-24 Federal Budget the government proposed that employers will be required to make super contributions at the same time they pay salary and wages.
Proposed to start on 1 July 2026, payday super aims to improve the retirement outcomes of many Australians and provide a more logical and clear-cut approach to paying super guarantee (SG) contributions to employees. You can learn more about payday super here.
For many employers, payday super may add to the difficulty of staying on top of super obligations, particularly for those businesses that rely on manual and time-consuming onboarding and payroll processes who are likely to be the most affected.
Rather than being seen as an additional stress, payday super presents an opportunity for employers to streamline every aspect of their super obligations and make positive changes that can save time.
It’s a simple change, it will strengthen the system and it will boost retirement incomes.”
The Hon. Jim Chalmers, MP, Treasurer
Streamlining how employers manage their employee super obligations can begin with the way they onboard new employees. Many employers use manual, paper-heavy onboarding processes that take up a significant amount of time and leave them open to human errors and risk. For employers with high staff turnover or who contract shift-based workers, the time devoted to manually onboarding staff is even more significant.
With payday super likely to increase the frequency of paying super to employees on payday, employers may face additional payroll management admin tasks, combined with anticipated spike in compliance risks as a result. Inevitably, this will increase the need for simple, efficient, and integrated systems and processes that can reduce workloads while keeping businesses compliant. A solution like Beam’s Super Fund Onboarding (SFO) offers employers a seamless, digital way to onboard new employees, collect TFNs and super fund choices in real-time, minimising the risk of errors and helping them pay super correctly.
Rather than waiting to take action until payday super may come into effect, employers could benefit now from reviewing their current approach to onboarding employees. A more simple and effective employee onboarding process can offer many benefits from freeing up time and costs that could be better focused on more valuable business activities to improving employee engagement and possibly lower staff turnover by up to 18% (Gallup, 2023).
Peter Antonius, CEO at Liston Newton Advisory believes that, in light of proposed payday super legislation, digital employee onboarding is a practical way to streamline and automate current processes, especially for employers with large workforces or high staff turnover.
While Liston Newton Advisory is yet to uncover the extent of the impact that payday super will bring to their business, Antonius believes the company is well placed, given the size of its workforce, current processes it has in place and the type of staff it employs to make sure it can meet the legislative requirement of payday super when it’s in force.
From an onboarding perspective, Antonius recognises the need for Liston’s to be on top of its payroll obligations and act quickly if an employee doesn’t select a super fund through onboarding.
The greatest challenge will be ensuring our onboarding processes are efficient and timely so we can make super payments in time for a new staff member’s first pay.
Peter Antonius, CEO, Liston Newton Advisory
Like Antonius, Melissa Podruzny, Head of Finance at EngineRoom also expects payday super to increase admin time and compliance-related pressures many businesses already face in meeting their super obligations from a position of payroll and onboarding. Ensuring accuracy, and improving staff experiences, Podruzny is quick to recognise the benefits of adopting a simple, time-saving employee onboarding digital solution like Beam’s SFO.
Given that the end game within a paper super environment is all about reducing manual processes, ensuring accuracy, and improving staff experiences, Podruzny is quick to recognise the benefits of adopting a simple, time-saving employee onboarding digital solution like Beam’s SFO.
To stay on top of likely impacts of payday super, our business will continue to reassess our existing processes and adjust as necessary to ensure that processing pay and employee super on the same day is automated and streamlined as possible.
Melissa Podruzney, Head of Finance, EngineRoom
Overall, Podruzny believes the best preparation for challenges resulting from the introduction of payday super is for all employers, especially for those heavily reliant on manual admin and operational processes, to understand that they’ll be staring down the barrel of a lot more admin unless they act quickly.
As an example, EngineRoom uses an automated payroll software and in the lead-up to payday super Podruzny will assess how to make the most of their current platform’s existing functionality to better support the operational activities of the business.
Podruzny believes that there’s no better time to consider the benefits of automating all payroll and employee onboarding processes.
SFO can help many employers make light work of their employee onboarding and support their super obligations, turning manual, paper-heavy onboarding processes into a quick and simple digital experience. As employers consider how they can streamline their super obligations, SFO offers some key benefits.
By allowing new hires and existing employees to choose their super fund at the click of a button, there may be fewer instances an employer will need to confirm an employee’s existing super fund via the ATO, saving time and effort for everyone and supporting employers to meet their stapling requirements.
In addition to reducing the need to create and then store mountains of endless paperwork, being all-digital makes the onboarding experience quick, painless and mobile responsive for employers and their teams.
With SFO the personal details of both new hires and existing employees, TFN declarations, and super fund choice can be collected digitally and stored securely in one place, making setting up payments quick, accurate, and easy.
SFO gives employers complete oversight into an employee’s onboarding journey, so they can track and monitor progress of where their teams are at with their onboarding activities.
Employers can send personalised SMS and email notifications to employees to invite them to complete their onboarding activity online.
SFO also offers employers sign-in authentication to safeguard sensitive information collected from employees like addresses, contact details, TFN and choice super fund.
Mathew Gilroy, Founder at Beam and Head of Employer, Platforms and Partnerships at Australian Retirement Trust (ART) reminds employers that the introduction of payday super requires a rethink around the simplification of their existing onboarding processes.
By making it easy to obtain an employee’s choice of fund and TFN declaration digitally in one secure place, Gilroy believes digital onboarding removes the pain points associated with paying super as part of an employer’s payroll run where the super contribution will be included.
“By letting employers automate the time-consuming process of adding (at the click of a button) new employees, inviting them to validate their personal details, and recording their choice of super fund, Beam’s SFO gives back so much time and reduces pressure in this space,” recently told Investment Magazine.
“Given that super will – under payday super – move from being seen as an “addendum” to payroll to being integrated directly into the payroll system, the argument for onboarding employees digitally makes even more sense than ever.”
Important information
Super Fund Onboarding (SFO) is powered by Beam. Beam is issued by Precision Administration Services Pty Ltd (Precision) (ABN 47 098 977 667, AFSL No. 246 604). Precision is wholly owned by Australian Retirement Trust Pty Ltd (ABN 88 010 720 840, AFSL No. 228 975) as trustee for Australian Retirement Trust (ABN 60 905 115 063).
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