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Enterprise - Fair Work Pay Rate Updates

Lisa Kirby
  • Updated

Each year, the Fair Work Ombudsman will release an update to their awards, outlining how to increase the pay for your employees through base rate increases and multiplier changes.

In order to offer a smoother rate update experience, Deputy is releasing the Pay Rate Updater for Deputy Enterprise clients. This guide will cover the usage of this feature to ensure your compliance to Fair Work's updates, including the following:

  • Where to find the Pay Rate Updater

  • How to download your pay rates

  • How to update the CSV file

  • How to upload the completed file to Deputy

  • When to update and how to revert your changes

 

Where to find the Pay Rate Updater

The Pay Rate updater is only available for Deputy Enterprise accounts. You can access this feature by navigating to the Enterprise tab and selecting the "Pay Rate Updater" under Custom Applications.

 

We recommend you use Google Chrome when updating your rates for the best experience.

Note: Only System Administrators will be able to use this feature.

 

How to update the CSV file

Open the Pay Rate Updater and select your Pay Rate Type.

 

There are 3 Pay Rate Types to choose from:

  • Hourly Rates: These rates are paid on a per hour basis and have a dollar figure to define the cost, e.g "$22.11". These rates will generally be base rates or loadings.

  • Multiplier Rates: These rates are also paid on a per hour basis but instead of a dollar figure, they have a multiplier value, that determines the scale of bonus from the base rate, e.g "1.5". These rates will generally be overtime, holiday pay or another penalty.

  • Unit Rates: These rates are paid on a per unit basis and have a dollar figure similar to Hourly Rates. These rates will generally be loadings or allowances.

Once you have selected your Pay Rate Type, click the "Download" button to generate a CSV of that rate type:

How to update your figures

To update your rates, take the CSV you downloaded in the previous step and open it with a spreadsheeting tool, such as Excel or Google Sheets. Fair Work will announce the changes to your specific award, including the base rate increases and any multiplier changes. To maintain compliance, you will need to find if your award has been updated and what changes you will need to make to your rates.

 

You will need to update the empty "New Value" column in the downloaded CSV. This column will be named differently for different Pay Rate Types:

  • Hourly Rates = New Hourly Rate

  • Multiplier Rates = New Multiplier Value

  • Unit Rates = New Unit Value

In this example, we have uploaded our CSV into Google Sheets are updating our rates by 1.75%. We also decrease the decimal places to 2. You can keep the longer decimal figure, however please note that Deputy will only save Pay Rates to 4 decimal places.

 

If you do not wish to update a certain rate, you can delete the pay rate row to exclude it from the upload.

 

You can also edit the Pay Rule name and export code in this sheet. When you are submitting the rates, you will be given the option to overwrite the existing values with your edited names and codes.

 

Note: To avoid upload issues, please don't change the ordering or header names of the columns. These will be used to upload the data back into your account.

 

Once your rates are updated to your satisfaction, export the file to a CSV format. Excel formats or any non-CSV formats will not be accepted by the Pay Rate Updater.

 

How to upload the completed file to Deputy

Return to the Pay Rate Updater and click the "Select" button, then choose your completed CSV file.

 

When you are ready to update your rates, click the "Preview Updates" button to review the changes you are about to submit.

 

If you are satisfied with the previewed changes, scroll to the bottom of the page.

 

 

Here, you will be given the option to update the names and export codes of the rates from your sheet. Tick the checkbox of the values you'd like to change, or simply leave them unchecked for no changes to be made to these values.

 

Once you're ready to update your rates, simply click "Submit Changes" to run the update. Depending on how many rates you have to update, this could take a few minutes.

 

The preview table will be updated to show the update status of your rates. If any of your rates have not been updated, please verify your CSV columns have not been changed and that all updated base rates have been provided a number to be updated to.

 

This process will need to be completed for the Hourly Rates and if applicable to your award update, the Multiplier Rates and the Unit Rates.

 

When to update and how to revert your changes

The Fair Work changes are applicable to the first full pay run after the date of your award update. So if your pay run begins before and ends after the applicable date, then you will not have to update your rates until this pay run is complete.

 

We recommend that you have approved all timesheets for your final pay run before you update your rates.

 

If you prematurely update your rates and need to revert back to your old rates, you can use the uploader to return the original rates to your account. If you move the figures from the "Current Value" column into the "New Value" column in your original file, you can re-upload the file and it will change to back to the old rates.

 

 

 

For any further assistance with rate updates, please reach out to our 24/7 Support team.

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