Under Payday Super, which has applied since 1 July 2026, you pay super guarantee each time you pay wages, and the contribution must reach the employee’s fund within 7 business days of payday. Four months in, the same four mistakes keep turning up: counting the day the money left your account, calculating on the wrong earnings, assuming the old quarterly catch-up still exists, and relying on a clearing house arrangement that no longer fits.
Each one is fixable in an afternoon. Left alone, each one now compounds with each pay run instead of once a quarter.
Mistake one: counting the day it left, not the day it arrived
The test is receipt. The ATO’s guidance is that your employees’ super funds must receive super guarantee contributions within 7 business days after you pay your employees, with enough information for the fund to allocate the money to each member’s account. A payment that leaves your bank on day 6 and lands on day 9 is late.
Clearing houses and payroll platforms add processing time between your submission and the fund’s receipt, and that time is yours to allow for. The fix is to submit super with the pay run rather than at the end of the week, and to learn your provider’s typical processing time, so the 7 business days run from payday to arrival rather than payday to click.
Mistake two: calculating on ordinary time earnings
Payday Super replaced ordinary time earnings with a new base called qualifying earnings. The rate stays at 12 per cent. The base it applies to is broader: the ATO lists ordinary time earnings; all commissions; salary sacrifice contributions; and other amounts that counted as salary or wages for super guarantee under the old rules. You now report both qualifying earnings and the super liability through Single Touch Payroll each pay event.
This goes wrong inside payroll software that someone set up years ago with pay categories mapped to OTE. A commission or bonus category excluded from super under the old rules may now be in scope, and the software will keep doing what it was told until someone reviews the mapping. If you have not reviewed each pay category since July, that review is overdue.
Mistake three: assuming the quarterly catch-up still exists
Before 1 July 2026, the super guarantee charge applied when contributions did not reach the fund within 28 days of the end of the quarter, which in practice gave a late pay run weeks of quiet in which to fix it. Under Payday Super the charge applies when amounts do not reach the fund within 7 business days after payday (the ATO notes a longer period can apply in some cases, such as for new employees). The window to fix a miss is now days. The ATO’s published penalty settings for the new regime are 25 per cent or 50 per cent of the unpaid charge depending on prior penalties, in place of the old maximum of 200 per cent.
The behavioural change is simple to state: super is part of the pay run rather than a separate task. A pay run is complete when the super has gone, and your month-end check is that the fund received each pay event’s super in time, rather than that the quarter’s total looks about right. We treat a day-8 arrival as a process failure.
Mistake four: relying on an arrangement that no longer fits
The ATO’s Small Business Superannuation Clearing House has closed. Employers who used it need a replacement, which in most cases is the clearing house built into their payroll software, and that replacement has its own processing time and its own cut-off, and you need to know both. Beyond that, any arrangement that assumed super could wait for a monthly or quarterly batch, including the cash flow habit of holding super back until the BAS went out, is now a late-payment machine.
The cash discipline that replaces it: treat super the way you treat PAYG withholding. It is the employee’s money the moment you calculate the wages; it moves on payday; your cash forecast carries it as a weekly or fortnightly outflow rather than a lump.
What a clean Payday Super process looks like
- Pay categories reviewed against the qualifying earnings definition, once, then documented.
- Super submitted with each pay run, through a clearing house whose processing time you know.
- Receipt checked, not submission: a monthly reconciliation of super paid against super received by funds, by pay event.
- STP reporting carrying qualifying earnings and the super liability each pay event, so the ATO’s record matches yours.
- Cash forecast updated so super sits beside wages as a per-pay outflow.
If someone who reconciles payroll to the ledger each month runs your payroll, steps three and five happen as a matter of course. If a spreadsheet runs it, they are the steps that get skipped. The same applies to the bookkeeping that the super reconciliation depends on.
Frequently asked questions
Did the super guarantee rate change with Payday Super?
No. The ATO’s guidance is explicit that the percentage stays at 12 per cent. The base changed (qualifying earnings) and so did the timing (each payday, received by the fund within 7 business days).
What happens if a contribution arrives on day 8?
The super guarantee charge applies to amounts the fund does not receive within 7 business days after payday. The practical answer is to find out why it was late (the clearing house cut-off, in most cases) and change the process so the next one is on time, then take advice on the charge for the one that was late.
We paid super quarterly for years and were never late. Does any of this apply?
Yes, all of it. Quarterly payment is no longer the standard; super is due with each payday. A business that complied under the old rules can be late on each pay run under the new ones without changing anything.
Does Payday Super affect contractors?
Workers who had an entitlement to super guarantee before, including contractors paid mainly for their labour under the existing rules, keep it. Payday Super changes when and on what you calculate their super; coverage stays the same.
If you want your pay categories reviewed against qualifying earnings and your super reconciled to fund receipt each month, book a discovery call at ascendsolutions.com.au/contact or phone (02) 6189 2248.
