Outsourced payroll services Brisbane.
Outsource payroll to a team that lives in it: efficient pay runs, compliant super, clean STP and award interpretation that holds up - reducing workplace risk while your people get paid right, on time, every time.
Rated 4.9 from 126+ Google reviews · Registered BAS Agents · Xero Platinum Partner
Payroll just became a weekly compliance event.
Since 1 July 2026, super is due with every payday and must reach employees' funds within 7 business days. Miss it and the new super guarantee charge applies - ATO-assessed, with interest compounding daily. If payroll was a chore before, it is now a deadline that repeats every cycle. This is exactly the problem outsourced payroll removes.
Everything payroll, end to end.
Pay run processing
From timesheet entry to compliance checking, for payrolls large and small - with tailored packages to fit how your business actually pays people.
Super, on payday
Super calculated and paid with each pay run so the 7-business-day window is never in danger. The ATO's new penalties stay theoretical.
Award interpretation
Classifications, penalty rates, allowances and the complex edges: terminations, provisions and back-pay calculations done properly.
STP every cycle
Single Touch Payroll filed with every run, and EOFY preparation, finalisation and lodgments handled when June arrives.
Payroll tax
Calculations and management for employers over the threshold, including grouping questions across related entities.
Ongoing strategy
Payroll data that feeds decisions: labour cost visibility, roster economics and the numbers behind your next hire.
Where payroll quietly goes wrong.
None of what follows stops a pay run going out on Thursday. That is the trouble with payroll errors - the software is perfectly happy, the staff get paid something, and the gap only shows up when someone takes leave, resigns, or lodges a tax return that does not match their payslips.
Super timed to the quarter, not the pay run
Since 1 July 2026 super has to move with wages and reach the employee's fund within seven business days of payday. The amount owed has not changed. The timing has, and that changes the shape of your cash. Money that used to sit in the business account until after the quarter closed now leaves with every run. Any business quietly using that lag as working capital feels it in the first month or two. It is a budgeting job more than a compliance job, and far easier done before the first affected run than after it.
We pay above award, so we are covered
The most common thing we hear, and not a defence. An award sets a classification, and the classification sets a base rate. It also sets penalty rates for evenings, weekends and public holidays, overtime thresholds, allowances, minimum engagement periods and rules about breaks. A flat rate that looks generous against the base can still fall short in a week with a Sunday shift and a late finish in it. Where a higher rate is meant to absorb those entitlements, that has to be documented deliberately and reconciled against the hours people actually worked.
STP Phase 2 categories assigned in a hurry
Phase 2 wants a pay run broken into its parts instead of one gross figure. Ordinary hours separate from overtime. Each allowance reported by type. Bonuses and commissions identified. Paid leave split by reason. Every employee given an income type and an employment basis. Most files were mapped once during the changeover, often by whoever had a spare afternoon, and wrong categories do not stop a submission going through. They surface later in the employee's prefilled tax return, in their dealings with Services Australia, and in a finalisation that does not agree with the payslips.
Leave accruing on a basis nobody rechecked
Full-time staff are the easy case. Part-timers are where it drifts, because leave accrues on ordinary hours worked, so a fixed weekly figure typed in at setup stops being true the moment someone starts picking up extra shifts. Casuals do not accrue paid leave at all, and when a casual moves across to permanent the accrual has to start cleanly from the change date rather than quietly backdate itself. Payroll software accrues whatever it was told to accrue, for as long as you let it. The error only becomes visible when someone books a holiday or hands in notice.
Final pay worked out in the last ten minutes
A termination has more moving parts than an ordinary run. Notice, or payment in lieu of it. Unused annual leave, with loading on it where the award applies loading. Long service leave, which turns on years of service and the state. Redundancy pay, taxed on a different footing again. Employment termination payments carry their own caps and withholding treatment, and the reporting has to describe each component correctly or the employee's tax return is wrong. It is the run most likely to be done under time pressure, by the person least likely to have done one recently.
Contractors who are contractors in name only
Two separate questions sit here and most businesses answer only one. For tax and Fair Work purposes what counts is the substance of the arrangement: who controls how the work gets done, who supplies the equipment, whether the person can send a substitute, and whether they are paid for a result or for their time. Super then has a rule of its own, which can capture someone engaged wholly or principally for their labour even though they hold an ABN and send invoices. Unpaid super does not stay small, because the super guarantee charge that follows it is not deductible.
What a payroll handover looks like.
Taking a payroll over is not a data import. The year-to-date figures already reported to the ATO have to agree with what was actually paid, or every number after the changeover inherits the problem. So we check first and process second.
- 01
Read the file before we run anything
Employee records, pay templates, leave balances, super fund details, the awards or agreements you believe apply, and the year-to-date figures already filed through STP. Those balances get agreed to what was actually paid before a single run goes out. Finding a variance in your first month with us is a small job. Finding it at the following June is not.
- 02
Check people against the award covering them
Classification first, because the rest hangs off it. Then the pay items behind each person: penalty rates, overtime, allowances, loadings and any annualised arrangement, built as rules in Xero instead of numbers somebody remembers to type. Where a classification looks wrong you hear about it before the next run, with the amount at stake, so it is your decision rather than a surprise.
- 03
Set the rhythm, super included
Pay cycle, timesheet cut-off, who approves what, and super scheduled to leave with the run so the seven business day window is never something anyone has to think about. STP files on or before payday, every time. Staff get Xero Me for payslips, leave requests and timesheets, which removes most of the questions that otherwise arrive by text on a Sunday night.
- 04
Run it, then keep checking it
Each cycle: process, review the exceptions, file STP, pay super, send you the summary. Each quarter: a look at what has drifted, which is usually a new hire classified in a hurry, an allowance that stopped applying, or a leave balance that reads oddly. Award rates move on 1 July most years, and those changes get loaded before the first run of the new year rather than back-paid after someone notices.
Frequently asked questions.
What changed with payday super?
From 1 July 2026, super must be paid with each payday and reach your employees' funds within 7 business days - the old quarterly cycle is gone, and the super guarantee charge now runs on daily compounding interest with new penalties. Outsourced payroll exists precisely so this happens automatically. We set your pay runs up so super flows on time, every time.
What size payrolls do you handle?
From an owner paying themselves and one offsider through to large multi-entity payrolls with timesheets, awards and shift loadings. Packages are tailored to your headcount and complexity.
Can you handle award interpretation?
Yes - award classification, penalty rates, allowances and the messy edges like terminations and provisions are exactly the work clients hand us. Underpayment findings cost far more than payroll services do.
Do you do STP and end-of-year finalisation?
Yes. Single Touch Payroll filing happens with every pay run, and we handle EOFY preparation, reporting, finalisation and lodgments as part of the service.
What does outsourced payroll cost?
A fixed fee based on employee count and pay frequency, agreed before we start. Use the fee estimator for an indicative range.
Our super has always gone out quarterly. What does payday super do to our cash flow?
It brings the payment forward and leaves the amount alone. Under the old cycle the super on three months of wages sat in the business account and went out in a lump after the quarter closed. From 1 July 2026 it goes with each pay run and has to reach the fund within seven business days. If that lag was quietly funding stock, a slow debtor or a quiet month, the first two cycles are the tight ones. The practical answer is to fold super into the same weekly or fortnightly transfer as the wages, so it stops being a separate event you have to find money for four times a year.
We pay everyone well above the award. Do we still need award interpretation?
Yes, because the base rate is one part of an award and not the interesting part. Classification level, penalty rates, overtime thresholds, allowances, minimum engagement and break rules all sit alongside it, and a generous-looking flat rate can still leave someone short in a week with weekend or late work in it. If a higher rate is meant to cover those entitlements, it has to be set up that way on purpose and reconciled against the hours actually worked. Most underpayments we are asked to fix were not mean-spirited. They were arithmetic done once, years ago, on a classification that was wrong from the start.
We use subcontractors. Do we have to pay them super?
Sometimes, and an ABN does not settle it. Where a contractor is engaged wholly or principally for their labour, super can be payable on the labour component even though they invoice you as a business. Underneath that sits a second question - whether the person is a contractor at all once you look at control over the work, who supplies the equipment, whether they can send a substitute, and whether they are paid for a result or for their time. We flag the borderline ones when we take a payroll on, because fixing an arrangement now costs a fraction of funding back-pay, super and the charge on it later.
We want to move payroll across to you mid-year. What do you need?
Employee records with start dates and classifications, current pay templates and rates, leave balances, super fund and member details, the year-to-date figures already reported through Single Touch Payroll, and any contract or agreement sitting over the award. We reconcile those year-to-date figures against what was actually paid before we process anything, because every number after the changeover inherits whatever is in them. STP keeps reporting on its normal footing, on or before the day people are paid, so there is no gap in the changeover month.
Make payroll someone else's deadline.
One conversation and your next pay run can be our problem. Call 07 3899 8311 or book a free consultation.