Coding of pay items

We previously used payroll premier and our ordinary hours was classified as normal hours in that system. With the migration to reckon payroll our description of normal hours has come across, so we have continued to use this pay item of normal hours rather than ordinary hours or OTE.

With the change to payday super and the new definition of QE (qualified earnings), will we need to manually update our normal hours to OTE before the system update that was spoken about in yesterdays information session?

We are concerned that our hours wont map correctly.

Thanks Renee and Suzanne

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klaura

Hi @Suzanne DiStefano,

There is no need to rename or manually replace your “Normal Hours” pay item just as long as the pay item is properly marked as OTE-eligible within Reckon Payroll. QE is based on the nature of the payment rather than its label.

Suzanne DiStefano

Hi Karren,

Thanks for the reply. Some further clarification please.

We have three pay items that are eligible for super guarantee - 'normal hours' and 'early morning shift - casual' and 'early morning shift - full time'. In addition to this, there are the 'leave items' that are eligible for super.

Currently only, 'normal hours' has the type OTE. The 'early morning' rates are classified as 'overtime', please see below screenshot.

Also, none of the leave items are coded as OTE (please see screenshot below)

My questions are -

Will we need to re-create the 'early morning' rates and make them OTE (I note they cannot be edited)?

2. Will the leave items need to be re-created, although I cannot see how to assign OTE to them? Or is that different altogether?

Thank you, kind regards,

Suzanne

klaura

Hi @Suzanne DiStefano,

We will be sharing additional information about the Payday Super and the Qualifying Earnings here in the Community soon. In the meantime, I wanted to share what I have gathered so far regarding the Qualifying Earnings. Please feel free to take a look.

What are qualifying earnings? | Payday Super | Reckon

Suzanne DiStefano

Hi Karen,

Thanks for the reply and sharing the info on qualifying earnings.

We shall await the additional information, hopefully it is released in plenty of time so changes don;t have to be implemented at the last minute.

Do you have an indication when the info will be available?

Thank you

Rav

Hi Suzanne

Just wanted to jump in to give you a little sneak peek on some things we're working on to help with this that's coming over the next couple of months or so.

The good news is, our team is currently developing an automated workflow that will enable you to nominate which pay items are Qualified Earnings so there will be minimal work required on your part (or you can even do it manually if you prefer).

Our new workflow will let you nominate which pay items are Qualified Earnings (QE) and also separately choose which items count toward SG calculations. These are two different actions, so taking your screenshot example above, you could mark overtime as QE but decide independently whether it’s included in SG.

Stay tuned, more info on this will be coming soon and we'll keep the Community updated as well so you'll be ready 🙂

Suzanne DiStefano

Hi Rav,

Thanks for the reply and update, I appreciate it.

Just to clarify please, in regards to your example with our overtime rate. I thought that anything classified as QE was required to have super paid on it (SG)?

Thanks and regards,

Suzanne

Rav

Overtime payments are not classed or included as Qualified Earnings (QE). I'm pasting the below from the ATO's page on QE which is here but I'd also recommend checking out the page Karren has linked in her reply above as I think its a bit more user friendly to read than the ATO's 🙂

Overtime payments are not OTE, provided the employee's ordinary hours of work are clearly identified in the award or agreement. As such, overtime payments are also not qualifying earnings.

Suzanne DiStefano

Thanks Rav. I understand