Is your payroll software ready for Payday Super? What to check

Payday Super has been in force since 1 July 2026. Employers now have to get super into each employee’s fund within 7 business days of payday, rather than by a quarterly due date. Our explainer on the deadlines employers are measured against covers the rules and the ATO’s first-year approach.

This guide is about the software. Under Payday Super, your payroll system does two jobs the ATO relies on: it tells the ATO what super was owed on each payday, and it sends the money and data to funds. If either is set up wrong, the ATO may contact you unnecessarily about super you’ve already paid.

The ATO’s own advice is blunt. In a June bulletin, it said employers whose provider hasn’t explained how its product is ready “should have concerns”.

1. Check that your STP reports carry the two new figures

From paydays on or after 1 July 2026, the ATO says each employee’s Single Touch Payroll report must include two year-to-date amounts:

• qualifying earnings (QE), the new base for working out super guarantee, and
• super liability, the super you owe.

STP reports are still due on or before each payday.

The ATO uses these figures to check you. Its compliance page explains that it subtracts the previous year-to-date QE from the current one to get each payday’s QE, then applies the 12% super guarantee rate. In its example, year-to-date QE rising from $4,000 to $5,000 means $1,000 of QE and $120 of super. The payday in your STP report sets the super due date.

Transition. The ATO will accept super liability with the older ordinary time earnings (OTE) figure until 30 June 2027. Once you start reporting QE, it no longer accepts OTE. From 1 July 2027, the ATO says reports without both QE and super liability will be rejected, and penalties may apply. Reporting QE has been required since 1 July 2026, and the ATO says to start as soon as possible if your software hasn’t, because not reporting it during 2026–27 increases your risk of compliance action. When you start, the figures must still be year-to-date amounts.

2. Check how your pay codes are mapped

Your software decides what counts as QE from how each pay item is set up. The ATO advises reviewing your STP pay-code mapping and employee details so that pay items are mapped correctly.

The ATO’s STP guidance and its explainer on qualifying earnings make two points worth checking:

• Fringe benefits and expense reimbursements aren’t QE. Reporting them as QE may lead to inconsistencies with what funds report and prompt the ATO to contact you unnecessarily.
• Award or agreement super on other pay goes in super liability, not QE. The ATO’s examples include super an enterprise or industrial agreement requires on paid parental leave or overtime.

For 2026–27, the maximum contribution base is $270,830. Once an employee’s QE passes it, the ATO says you can stop increasing it and report $270,830 as their year-to-date QE.

If you find a mistake, fix it through your software’s STP correction steps, either in the next pay event or with an update event. The ATO warns that leaving an error uncorrected can attract a false or misleading statement penalty.

3. Check how super leaves your business

Super guarantee contributions must go through SuperStream: the money and the data travel electronically, linked by a payment reference number, and must be sent on the same day. You can send them from your payroll software, a fund’s online system, a clearing house or a messaging portal.

The ATO’s Small Business Superannuation Clearing House closed permanently on 1 July 2026. If you used it, your super now has to go another way. The ATO’s SuperStream options include your payroll software, a fund’s online system and a commercial clearing house.

Two things matter for the 7-day deadline:

• Processing time. With a commercial clearing house, the payment counts when the fund receives it, not when you send it.
• Faster payments. The new SuperStream standard supports payments through the New Payments Platform (NPP), which can arrive the same day, and all funds must be able to receive them from 1 July 2026. The ATO notes you may need to update your bank account to use NPP.

The ATO also says that if super is paid under a different ABN, the contribution message must still report the ABN that lodged the STP pay event, or the data may not match. If you use a clearing house, give it the same ABN as your STP reporting.

4. Check where fund errors appear

Funds now have 3 business days to allocate or return a contribution, down from 20. The ATO says the 7-business-day deadline “does not reset or extend because there were errors”, so you need to see a rejection quickly and resend.

Where error messages appear differs between products. The ATO lists common causes: a wrong USI or member number, an ABN mismatch, wrong fund details, an inactive SMSF electronic service address and wrong amounts.

The new standard also adds a Member Verification Request that checks an employee’s fund details before money is sent. The ATO says it must be used before the first contribution to a fund, where your software supports it. Funds have 24 hours to respond. That helps with new starters, whose first contribution has a longer deadline of 20 business days.

5. Confirm five things with your provider

The ATO says you should be able to confirm and understand these from your payroll provider:

1. Can the product report qualifying earnings and super liability in STP?
2. Has it been updated for the new SuperStream data requirements?
3. Where will errors for rejected payments appear?
4. How can you access the Member Verification Request?
5. Can it pay through the NPP, and how long until the fund receives the money?

You can also look your product up on the ATO’s Super Product Register. It lists products whose providers say they meet the SuperStream standards and Payday Super, with columns for NPP payments, error responses and Member Verification Request support. Providers supply the entries voluntarily, and the ATO doesn’t endorse them. The separate Product register shows which products can lodge STP, but it doesn’t show Payday Super readiness.

Checklist

• Ask your payroll provider whether your product reports qualifying earnings and super liability in STP. If it doesn’t yet, ask when it will, because the ATO says not reporting during 2026–27 increases your compliance risk.
• Look your payroll product up on the ATO’s Super Product Register. Check the columns for NPP payments, error responses and Member Verification Request support.
• Review how each pay item is mapped for STP. Make sure fringe benefits and expense reimbursements aren’t counted as qualifying earnings.
• Find out where rejected super payments show up in your software. Funds have 3 business days to return a contribution, and the 7-business-day deadline doesn’t extend for errors.
• Check how long your clearing house takes to get money to funds. A payment counts when the fund receives it, not when you send it.
• Confirm your super contributions report the ABN that lodges your STP pay events. That includes the ABN you give any clearing house.
• Confirm your software sends a Member Verification Request before the first contribution to a new fund. The ATO says it must be used where your software supports it.
• Start reporting qualifying earnings now if your software doesn’t yet. From 1 July 2027, the ATO says STP reports without both qualifying earnings and super liability will be rejected.