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This article explains how superannuation is calculated for employees under the age of 18 in Deputy Payroll (AU). It also outlines how to create and assign a dedicated weekly pay calendar for employees under 18 to assist with accurate superannuation calculation across multi-week pay periods.

Before you read

Target audience: This article is for users with System Administrator, Payroll Manager and Payroll Administrator access.
Plan restrictions: This article is for Australian customers with a Deputy Payroll (AU) subscription.

This article covers

Superannuation eligibility for employees under 18
How Deputy calculates super for under 18's on non-weekly pay calendars
What to consider
- Creating a weekly pay calendar for applicable employees

Superannuation eligibility for employees under 18

If the employee is under the age of 18 and works less than 30 hours in a week, they generally do not qualify for superannuation.

Deputy Payroll (AU) calculates hours based on the pay cycle itself. For example, if the pay period is fortnightly, it would consider 60 hours (30 hours per week in the fortnight).

How Deputy calculates super for under 18's on non-weekly pay calendars

For employees under 18 on a fortnightly or other multi-week pay calendar, Deputy assesses super eligibility using the total hours worked across the full pay period, rather than assessing each week separately.

For example, for an employee on a fortnightly pay calendar:

Week 1: 32 hours
Week 2: 17 hours
Total hours: 49 hours

The weekly threshold is 30 hours. For a two-week pay period, Deputy applies a pay-period threshold of 60 hours (30 hours × 2 weeks).

Because the employee worked 49 hours across the fortnight, which is below the 60-hour pay-period threshold, super is not applied for that pay period.

Note: This is a current limitation of how super is calculated for employees under 18 on non-weekly pay calendars.

What to consider

If you need to assess hours on a weekly basis, this can be managed through your pay calendar setup.

A common approach is to create a weekly pay calendar for applicable employees.

Creating a weekly pay calendar for applicable employees

This approach allows employees’ hours to be assessed each week rather than across a longer pay cycle.

You can continue to align payroll processing with your existing payroll schedule while using the calendar structure to control how hours are assessed.

For example, if your regular pay calendar is fortnightly, you will process three pay runs each fortnight:

Weekly calendar - Week 1 (new under 18's pay calendar): First week of the fortnight
Weekly calendar - Week 2 (new under 18's pay calendar): Second week of the fortnight
Fortnightly calendar (remaining employees not on new weekly calendar): regular fortnightly run

You would follow this as the regular pay process.

Important note: When an employee turns 18, you will need consider whether they should remain on the weekly pay calendar or be moved to your regular fortnightly pay calendar.