Pay superannuation

Managing your employees' superannuation details can be stressful, especially with the ATO requirement to pay super at the same time as payroll. Delays in onboarding from not knowing an employee's super fund, or payment bounce-backs from incorrect details, only add to that stress.

That's why foundU gives you tools to make managing and paying employee super easy:

• Super Stapling with Flare
• Member Verification Request (MVR) with Beam

Select through each tab below to learn more about these tools and how to set them up. 

It is important to review your superannuation settings before you start paying your super so you can determine things such as your Superstream file format (if using an external clearing house), and whether you want to allow for employer additional super contributions or superannuation salary sacrifice for your employees. 

  Please note: These settings affect all entities within your foundU platform.
 

To access your Superannuation Settings:

1. In the main menu, navigate to Payroll Settings > Superannuation. 
2. Here you will see your superannuation settings. You will have the following settings to configure:
   • Default Super rate (%) - The default super rate percentage. This cannot be lower than the minimum super rate percentage. 
     
       Hot tip: foundU automatically updates your default super rate in line with any legislated increases each year, so there’s nothing you need to manage.
      
   • Default Super Fund - Select your business's default super fund. 
   • Pay superannuation on every hour for under 18 employees - Enable this setting to allow super to be paid on every eligible hour of work completed, rather than requiring a threshold of 30 hours per week.
   • Allow employer additional super contribution - Choose whether admins can make additional employer contributions to their employees' superannuation fund.
   • Allow employees to create or edit superannuation salary sacrifice - Choose whether employees can choose to make additional pre-tax contributions to their superannuation through a salary sacrifice arrangement.
   • Exception Batching - When enabled, batch exception payments will be made separately with an extended due date. All other payments will follow the standard 7-day schedule that is required for QE Day payments.
   • Superstream Format - This is the format of your Superstream file used for uploading to your clearinghouse. Your clearinghouse will tell you which format they require for the file. 
   • Superannuation Employer ID - This is the unique identifier that is provided by your superannuation fund.
     • This field is required if you are using the Superstream to pay superannuation. If you are paying with Beam, you can leave this field blank. 
   • Superannuation File Reference - This is a unique identifier that is provided by your superannuation fund. It is used in the Superstream file you upload to your chosen clearinghouse to ensure your payments are processed correctly.
     • This field is required if you are using the Superstream to pay superannuation. If you are paying with Beam, you can leave this field blank. 
3. Once you've made the relevant changes, select Save Settings.

Beam set up and settings

Beam is foundU's free integrated solution for fast, easy superannuation payment processing. Beam provides Australian businesses with a 5-star clearinghouse experience, regardless of which default super fund they use. 

  For detailed instructions on setting up Beam, please visit our Beam integration guide.

If you have chosen to pay super through your own external clearinghouse, you can easily manage this on your platform using the Superstream export. 

This export works by uploading it to your external clearinghouse. The clearinghouse then makes the payments to the employee's individual superannuation funds. 

Before using the Superstream export, it is important that you review your platform's superannuation settings, including your selected Superstream Format. 

  Please note: If you have the incorrect Superstream Format selected, you will receive an error when trying to upload your file to your clearinghouse. 

For more information and the steps on how to do this, check out our section above on Superannuation setup and settings. 
 

To pay your employees super via a clearing house:

1. In the quick menu navigate to Payroll > Superannuation.
2. In pending, your superannuation batches will be displayed per paying entity. You can also use the filter to adjust your view to a specific date range, paying entity or employee.
   
     Hot tip: You can select on the overdue, due soon, or upcoming badges in the top-right to quickly filter your view. 
   
   
3. To process a batch, select the 'Review' button located to the right of the batch. You will be able to view the paying entity, period and total super amount of the batch. Additionally, you can filter the batch by specific employees or by any super issues, such as error or warning type.
   
     Hot tip: You can also review the superannuation details for an individual employee by selecting on the arrow to the right of the employee. This will show you the following totals for the individual employee:
   • Super guarantee
   • Super salary sacrifice
   • Employee personal
   • Employer additional
   • Total
     
     
4. When you're ready to process the batch, select 'Superstream' from the floating action bar at the bottom of the page. Optionally select the checkbox to include line item breakdown in your report, before selecting Download CSV. 
   
     Hot tip: You can optionally select individual employees to process by selecting the checkbox next to their name before downloading the Superstream file. 
   
   
5. A CSV file will then be downloaded and ready to upload into your clearing house.

6. Select 'Mark Processed'. This will move the batch to the Processed tab. This action is best practised to ensure your Pending page stays clean and you don't accidentally overpay your employee's superannuation. 

   

7. Once you have confirmation of payment from your clearinghouse, select Actions > Paid to change the status of your batch to Paid.
   
     Hot tip: From the Actions menu, you can also  re-download the Superstream file or export it as a CSV. 

Using the SuperStream report

If you prefer to view your employee's superannuation in a report style format, you can do so from our SuperStream report which is found by navigating to Reports > Financial > SuperStream. 

With this report, you can filter by specific dates and view the following information for each employee:

• The total Superannuation Guarantee amount
• The total Salary Sacrifice amount
• The total Employee Personal Super Contribution amount
• The total Employer Additional Super Contribution amount
• The employees Super Fund details 

  Please note: This report defaults to displaying results on an Accrued Basis (by period end date), you will need to select the Cash Basis checkbox for the results to display as so. 

Beam is a free clearinghouse integrated with foundU to simplify and expedite superannuation payments. You can set up and configure Beam per entity within your platform, and choose to process all or some of your entities as needed. 

  If you are paying your employees' superannuation with Beam for the first time, be sure to check out our dedicated guide here for the steps and more!

You can export your super information at any time from the platform. Once processed, batch details can be exported as a CSV File for reporting.
 

To export information from a super batch:

1. In the quick menu navigate to Payroll > Superannuation.  

2. Navigate to the Processed tab and on the batch you would like to export and select Actions > CSV Export. 

   

3. Once exported, you will see the following information in the CSV file:
   • ID - Employees foundU ID
   • Superfund - Employees chosen Superfund
   • Member ID - Employees Superfund member ID
   • Employee
   • Period Start
   • Period End
   • Super Guarantee - Super guarantee amount
   • Salary Sacrifice - Salary sacrifice amount
   • Employee Personal Super Contribution - Employee personal super contribution amount
   • Employer Additional Super Contribution - Employer additional super contribution amount
   • Total - Total amount of super paid
   • Payment Type - Payment type of the batch e.g. direct debit
   • QE Day - Date the payment needs to be in the employee's account
   • Processed On - Date the payment was processed

  Hot tip: You can also view a full breakdown of your employee's superannuation paid from our Standard and Advanced Payroll Activity Reports. 

When paying employee's super, it's important that you are kept up to date on any changes, reminders or activities, to ensure super remains compliant. If your business uses Beam to pay superannuation, you may find some additional notifications are available for you within the platform. 

You can easily manage these communications and their content from your main menu > Communication > Communication Content page. 

  Learn more about how you can customise the content of these notifications in our dedicated guide, here! 

Below, we will outline the available templates on that page; you can use the search bar to find them within your platform. 

All Platforms

• Admin Super Details Changed

• Superannuation Batch due for payment reminder

Platforms Using Beam

• Batch sent to Beam for processing

• Batch sent to Beam was cancelled

• Batch sent to Beam returned a warning or error

• Superfund member ID updated by Beam    

• Superannuation refund received from Beam

• Superannuation Batch sent to Beam returned a status update

• Superannuation Batch - Direct debit dishonour

I've set up multiple Office Codes in my platform. Why are they not all appearing as individual Paying Entities on my Superannuation page?

Where you might have multiple Office Codes, if any of your Office Codes share the same ABN, they will appear under the one entity name on your superannuation page. 

All superannuation to be paid for that Paying Entity, will be group under the one batch. If your Office Codes each have a different ABN attached, they will appear as seperate batches on your superannuation page. 

When the super percentage guarantee goes up, will I need to update this in my platform for is to take effect?

If the super guarantee percentage goes up on July 1st, we at foundU will automatically update this across all platforms! This means nothing to action for you!
You can always review the current super guarantee for your platform by accessing Payroll > Superannuation.

What happens to my employee's super payment amount if I make an ETP payment or if, after processing payroll, I make an adjustment?

Once you make an adjustment (ETP), in Payroll > Superannuation, you can see the difference by selecting the batch and proceeding to the review screen. Here, you can view the breakdown of the employee's super amounts, with an "ADJ" displayed in yellow next to it to indicate the adjustment. You can then process your superannuation payment as usual.

I've made my super payment, however, I realised that I had an error on a payslip and made an adjustment, and now I have a negative super amount, what do I do?

If you have made an adjustment to an employee's generated payslip and this has resulted in a negative super amount, this will automatically be merged with the employee's existing superannuation batch. This means that the negative amount will automatically come off the employee's total super owing when you make the payment. 

When you make an adjustment (or edit or process an ETP payment), a new superannuation batch is automatically created in Payroll > Superannuation. This means that you can easily merge this new batch with another batch (in this case when you process next week's pay for example). The negative amount will then come out of the employee's total super amount owing.

Please note if you have already paid the employee's super for the pay period, the negative amount will not automatically merge and instead be created as its own package. In this case, you will need to merge this with the next superannuation batch for the employee. 

It's my employee's last payment payslip as they're no longer working with us. I had an error on a payslip and did an adjustment, and now I have a negative super amount, what do I do?

In this scenario, as you won't have a future super total for the employee to take the negative amount you'll need to either collect the super payment from the super fund (or write off the amount) depending on your business requirements. In foundU, you can clear the negative amount, which will mark the payment as processed requiring no further action.