FAQs

An employee can have up to 3 bank accounts. Employees can change their main account themselves, but only an admin with Payroll - Full Access can add the second and third accounts.

Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees > click Edit for the employee > in the Employee Profile, under Banking.

When multiple bank accounts are set up, the primary account (Bank Account 1) receives the remainder of the payment after the other splits are allocated.

Additional bank accounts (Bank Account 2 and Bank Account 3) are set up under Split Payments. Each split can be a Fixed amount or a Percentage of the total pay. If the amount to split is more than the pay, that split doesn't happen.

If you're an employee, you can change your main bank account on Profile. See Change your bank account. To split your pay across more accounts, ask your employer.

Microkeeper bills monthly, based on your plan and the number of active employees in your account. Paid plans have a minimum monthly charge. See the prices on the Microkeeper pricing page.

• Payroll & STP Only is a fixed price each month, for up to 10 active employees.
• Standard is a price for each active employee each month, with a minimum monthly charge.
• Enterprise is priced by Microkeeper's sales team.

To see how many active employees you have, navigate to Menu > Settings > Billing. Under Invoices, the page shows "There are XX active employees". Each plan under Plan Selection shows its price and minimum charge.

See How Microkeeper bills you.

Yes, each employee can have their own level of access, set in the Access Control section of their Employee Profile. The options are in two columns, Manager Options and Payroll/Admin, and what a person can do comes from the options you choose. See What access is in Microkeeper.

Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees > click Edit for the applicable employee > within the Employee Profile, under Access Control, choose the options for the areas this person needs.

You need Payroll - Full Access and Settings access to see the Access Control section.

Yes. Microkeeper's payroll tax reports work out payroll tax from your pay runs, state by state.

1. Navigate to Menu > Payroll > Reports.
2. Choose the Year, then choose one month in Period.
3. Run Payroll Tax - New (Beta) or Payroll Tax - Legacy, choosing View or CSV in its Export as... list.

In Payroll Tax - New (Beta), you can mark payments as exempt, add exempt staff, such as apprentices, and choose regional rates for Victoria and Queensland.

Microkeeper keeps each state's payroll tax threshold and rate, and updates them each year. To see them, navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Global, click Payroll Settings, then click Show payroll tax table. The table is a guide: check your figures with your state revenue office.

See Super, tax, deduction and leave reports.

Either way below, the employee can still clock on and off, and their shifts show on the Timesheet.

To pay their shifts at $0:

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees and click Edit next to the employee.
2. Under Payment and Employment, set Rate Rule to No Rate Rule and enter "0" in their Default rate under Rates.

Their payslip in each pay run then comes to $0. Leave them out of any Extra Rules, which would still pay them. Their hours still build up leave, so to stop that, enter "0" in their leave entitlements under Entitlements.

If you have two or more pay cycles, you can instead leave them out of every pay cycle, so no pay run includes them:

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Global, then click ABN and Pay Cycles.
2. Click the number in their pay cycle's Staff column. Employee Allocation opens.
3. Untick the employee.

See ABNs and Pay Cycles.

Yes, Microkeeper is partnered with Beam, a super clearing house. Beam takes the total super from your bank account by direct debit and pays each employee's fund.

To get started, navigate to Menu > Payroll > Super, choose the ABN and click Setup Beam. You can also start from a pay run: click Complete Payrun, then 4. Pay Super. Once you're signed up, you pay super from each pay run's 4. Pay Super.

See Sign up to Beam.

Prices for fingerprint scanners and other clocking hardware are in the Microkeeper Store at shop.microkeeper.com.au. When you're logged in, navigate to Menu > More > Store.

See How to access the Microkeeper Store, and Before you set up fingerprint or NFC clocking for what else you need.

The fingerprint scanner plugs into a Windows PC that's connected to the internet. The Microkeeper Store lists these requirements for the Fingerprint Scanner:

• A PC running Windows 7 or newer. It can be a PC you already use, such as a POS station or laptop.
• A spare USB-A port for the scanner.
• An internet connection, preferably a wired (ethernet) one.
• The free Microkeeper Timesheets app, for 64-bit or older 32-bit Windows.

Keep the app open on the PC, so staff can clock on and off at any time. See Before you set up fingerprint or NFC clocking and Install the Microkeeper Timesheets app.

Leave builds up in each pay run from the hours paid on payslip lines with the Class Normal. Hours paid as Workers Comp Entitlements also build up leave in the states that require it. Lines with other Classes, such as Overtime and Bonus, don't build up leave. See the Payments Classification Chart.

How much builds up is set on the employee's profile, under Entitlements:

• Entitled Annual Leave and Entitled Personal Leave: the weeks of leave a year, such as "4" and "2".
• Pro-Rata/Fixed Entitlements: Pro-Rata Leave Accrual builds up leave in proportion to the hours paid. Accrual Fixed to Weekly Ordinary Hours builds up the same amount each pay run, from the employee's Weekly Ordinary Hours, whatever hours they work.

For example, an employee entitled to 4 weeks of annual leave who is paid 38 Normal hours in a week builds up 38 / 52 x 4 = 2.92 hours of annual leave.

To open the profile, navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees and click Edit next to the employee. See Choose how a leave type builds up.

Microkeeper takes an automated backup of your data every day, during quiet times. The 9 most recent daily backups are kept for 9 days, and an annual backup is kept indefinitely.

Backups are encrypted with AES-256 while they're stored, and sent over TLS 1.3 / 256-bit SSL when they move between servers.

See Data Security.

Yes. All data sent to and from Microkeeper's servers travels over an encrypted HTTPS connection, using TLS (the successor to SSL) with 256-bit encryption. You can check it by the padlock beside the address in your browser.

See Encryption - Data In Transit.

Microkeeper's servers are in Equinix data centres in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. All of Microkeeper's hosts are in Australia, and Equinix is ISO 27001 compliant.

See Server Hosting Environment.

The average amount of data an employee uses in a month of clocking on and off is about 6.25 MB, or about 0.13% of a 5 GB mobile plan.

Loading the Employee Console on a phone and clocking on or off uses about 160 KB of data.

Doing this twice a day, 5 days a week, for 4 weeks uses about 6.25 MB.

See Clock on from the Employee Console or app.

You can reset your password with the User Password Recovery tool. On the login page, it's the Forgot Password? link. You'll need access to your email, and if you're an admin, your mobile phone too.

On the User Password Recovery page, enter the Microkeeper username you use to log in.

Confirm the reCAPTCHA and click the Continue button.

You'll receive a 6 digit code to your email address. If you've lost access to your email, a code can be sent to your mobile number instead: click the Lost access to your email? Try SMS instead button. If you're an admin, a second code is also sent to your mobile, and you enter both.

Enter the code and your date of birth, then click the Continue button.

If you get the error "A value below does not match", check the code and your date of birth. The message shows how many attempts you have left. After too many wrong attempts, you need to start again later.

When your code is confirmed, you're asked to choose a new password. Your new password must:

1. Be 8 or more characters long
2. Contain both upper and lower case
3. Contain a number
4. Contain a special character

When your new password is valid, all 4 lights turn green. Enter it again in Confirm new password and click the Update button.

You'll see a "Password changed successfully" message. See Getting started questions for other login help.

An image of the fingerprint isn't stored. When you enrol a fingerprint, the scanner turns it into a template, a string of characters, and Microkeeper keeps that template on its fingerprint server against the employee it's assigned to.

The template can't be turned back into a fingerprint. Each time the employee clocks on, the scan is turned into a template again and matched against the stored one.

To stop a fingerprint working, such as when someone leaves, navigate to Menu > HR > NFC & Fingerprint, click View active fingerprints and click Deactivate beside it. See Assign the fingerprint or tag to an employee.

Microkeeper doesn't store an image of your fingerprint, so there's nothing to steal. When you enrol, the scanner turns your fingerprint into a string of letters and numbers. That string can't be turned back into a fingerprint, and it's only useful to Microkeeper's fingerprint reader, so it would be useless to anyone who got hold of it.

See Microkeeper Fingerprint Data Retention.

An employee can be added to a pay run that is still unlocked with Bulk Actions, then Add Employee.

1. Navigate to Menu > Payroll > Payruns, click the Processed tab, then View next to the pay run.
2. Click Bulk Actions, then Add Employee.
3. Select the employee. Only staff in the pay cycle who aren't already in the pay run are listed.
4. Click Add Employee to the Payrun.

This creates a payslip for the employee.

Bulk Actions only shows while the pay run is unlocked. If you've already paid and locked the pay run, pay the employee in an ad hoc pay run instead, and choose Select under Staff. See Pay an ad hoc pay run.

Each leave balance starts from the employee's closing balance at the end of last financial year, plus any opening balance entered for this financial year. Each pay run then adds the leave built up from the ordinary hours paid, and takes off the leave paid.

For example, an employee who starts in Microkeeper with 40 hours of annual leave from your old system, and builds up 2.923 hours in a pay run, has 42.923 hours. If they then take 8 hours of annual leave, they have 34.923 hours.

To enter an opening balance, such as leave carried over from your previous payroll system:

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees, and click Edit next to the employee.
2. Under Opening Balances, find the column for the financial year. Click Show more years if it isn't shown.
3. Enter the hours in the row for the leave type.

Leave carried over from your old system only needs entering once, in the year you start in Microkeeper. Later years carry on from the closing balance.

To correct a balance later, such as leave missed when you started, enter a positive or negative amount in the current financial year's column. An amount entered under an earlier year isn't added to the current balance, because that year's closing balance has already been worked out. The change shows after you click Actions, then Recalc Leave, above the employee's payslip on a recent unlocked pay run, or the next time payroll is processed.

See How does pre accumulated data work and Choose how a leave type builds up.

Basic hours are now called Weekly Ordinary Hours, on the employee's profile under Payment and Employment. They're the hours the employee is expected to work in a typical week, such as "38", whatever their pay frequency.

If the employee's Salary option is Salary, each payslip is worked out from their Weekly Ordinary Hours and Default rate instead of their timesheets. Auto Overtime and Auto TOIL also use them: hours worked above the Weekly Ordinary Hours are paid as overtime, or banked as time off in lieu.

Leave builds up from the Weekly Ordinary Hours only when Pro-Rata/Fixed Entitlements, under Entitlements, is set to Accrual Fixed to Weekly Ordinary Hours. Otherwise it builds up from the hours paid.

The hours paid for leave and public holidays come from the employee's Contracted Hours, not their Weekly Ordinary Hours. See Set each employee's Contracted Hours.

Leave is paid against the employee's Contracted Hours, one day at a time. For each day the leave request covers, the pay run works out:

Leave hours = contracted hours - hours worked - public holiday hours

So a leave request never pays more than the employee's contracted hours for the day. When a request covers more time than that, such as a whole day from 00:00 to 23:59, only the contracted hours they didn't work, and that weren't paid as a public holiday, are paid as leave. Only the hours paid come off their leave balance. Days with no contracted hours, such as a weekend for a Monday to Friday employee, pay no leave.

For example, Mia is contracted for 7.6 hours each weekday and requests annual leave for all of Monday. Her payslip pays 7.6 hours of annual leave for Monday, and 7.6 hours come off her balance. If she worked 2 hours on Monday morning before going on leave, it pays 2 hours worked and 5.6 hours of leave.

If the employee's usual day is longer than their contracted hours, change their Contracted Hours on their profile, then click Reprocess on their payslip. See Set each employee's Contracted Hours.

To pay more leave for one day without changing their contracted hours, add it to the payslip by hand.

1. In the pay run, on the Payslips tab, find Mia's payslip.
2. Click Add Leave above the payslip.
3. Choose Annual Leave.
4. Click OTE in the Leave Payment Class window. It shows for annual leave and long service leave.
5. Enter "2.4" in Hours.
6. Click Add Payment.

Leave added this way comes off the employee's balance, and can take it below zero even when Negative Leave Balance is set to Do not allow negative. That setting, in Global Settings, only limits leave requests: with it, a request is paid up to the employee's balance.

To see how a day's leave was worked out, click Simulate above the payslip. See How leave and public holiday hours are worked out.

Staff see a week once it's locked. On the Roster Calendar, show the week with the range on 1 Week, click Lock, then Confirm. The Send Roster Notifications window opens: tick Microkeeper App, Email or SMS (10c per sms), choose All Rostered Staff or Only Updated Shifts, then click Send.

To notify staff again later, show the week and click More Actions > Send Notifications.

See Lock the week and notify your staff.

The Roster Calendar is your live roster: the shifts for each actual week, which your staff see once you lock the week. A Roster Template is a standard week you build once and reuse, such as a summer week, or Week 1 and Week 2 of a roster that rotates. Staff never see templates.

To roster a week from a template, open the template under Menu > Rosters > Roster Template and click Clone Template. In the Clone Roster window, choose Calendar under Clone to: and the week. You can also save a week from the Roster Calendar as a template, with More Actions > Clone Week, then Template.

See Clone a template into the Roster Calendar.

Check that:

• The date box shows the week you want, with the range on 1 Week.
• The Location is ticked under Locations, and you clicked Display.
• No filter is hiding shifts. Click Clear filters above the roster, and clear the Search box.
• The shifts have been added, or a roster template has been cloned into the week.

See Choose the dates and Locations to show.

Show the week on the Roster Calendar, click Unlock, then Confirm. Make your changes, then click Lock and Confirm again. Your staff can't see the week while it's unlocked.

If your business allows editing locked weeks, you can instead tick Edit Locked under the funnel button.

See Lock the week and notify your staff.

To hide the budget box, click Hide budget in its corner. Bring it back with Show budget.

To hide shift costs for yourself, click the funnel button and untick Shift Costs. To stop a manager seeing costs at all, untick Display Costs in their Access Control.

See Keep the roster to your budget.

On the Roster Calendar, click More Actions, then:

• Calendar View lays out the dates shown for printing. Choose the Locations, dates and columns at the top, then print it or save it as a PDF from your browser.
• PDF Export gives a plain list of one week's shifts. Show the week with the range on 1 Week first.

See Print or share the roster.

On the Roster Calendar, show the week with the range on 1 Week and the Locations you want, then click More Actions > Export CSV. The CSV file opens in Excel or Google Sheets.

For a roster laid out for printing, use Calendar View or PDF Export under More Actions instead.

See Print or share the roster.

Weeks begin from the start of the financial year, not the calendar year. Week 1 is the working week that includes 1 July, and some years have a Week 53.

Your working week follows Starting Day of Work. To check it, navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Global and click System Settings.

See System Settings.

Yes. Navigate to Menu > Rosters > Roster SMS, choose the year and week next to Roster Calendar, and click Display. Tick the staff to text under Selected, then click Send SMS. Each message lists their shifts for the week and asks them to reply OK.

Roster SMS shows in the menu once Display Roster SMS is set to SMS active in Roster Settings. Each SMS costs 10c from your SMS credit.

See SMS Rosters.

Each SMS costs 10c including GST, taken from your SMS credit. A message longer than 160 characters counts as more than one SMS.

To buy credit, click Add SMS credit on the Roster SMS page and enter between 100 and 100,000 SMS. Microkeeper adds an invoice for it in Billing.

See Can I send my staff an SMS of their roster and Buy SMS credit.

Yes. Each Location has its own section of the Roster Calendar, so you can roster staff at several sites, or several departments within one business.

Add a Location for each site or department you roster:

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Locations.
2. Click Add Location.
3. Enter the Title, for example "Sydney Restaurant".
4. Click Add.

Staff can be rostered at a Location when they're in its staff Group, which is All Staff for a new Location. See Add a Location.

To only let staff clock on near your business, set the Location's position, then set those staff to clock on by GPS at your Locations.

To set the Location's position, navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Locations.

1. Click the pencil button next to the Location, then the Geo-Fence tab.
2. In Search, type the Location's address and click the search button. This fills in Latitude and Longitude.
3. On the map, drag the red pin to the exact spot if it needs adjusting.
4. Click Update.

To set how each employee clocks on, navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees.

1. Click Edit next to the employee.
2. Under Employee Clocking, choose GPS location restricted.

As a default, the Geo-Fence is set to 70 metres from the position you choose, and staff set to GPS location restricted can only clock on inside this area. To change the distance, navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Global, click Timesheet Settings, and set GPS Radius, from 40 to 1000 metres.

See Only allow clocking at your Locations with GPS.

Your position is only recorded if your employer has set you to clock on with GPS, from your phone. When you clock on or off, your phone shares where you are, and that position is saved with the shift.

Inside the timesheet, a pin appears next to your timesheet entry. When your manager clicks the pin, a map opens showing where you clocked on or off, and how accurate the position was.

See Only allow clocking at your Locations with GPS.

The Welcome Letter can be sent to employees to tell them their login details: their username and a default password.

Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees.

You can send the Welcome Letter by email to everyone who hasn't had one, or send it to selected employees by email or SMS.

To send the Welcome Letter to everyone who has never received one:

1. Click the Welcome Letter button.
2. Click Send Email to Everyone.
3. Click OK to confirm.

Letters are sent in batches of 250, so click it again if you have more staff. This option needs Payroll - Full Access.

To send the Welcome Letter to selected employees:

1. Tick the box next to each employee's username.
2. Click the Welcome Letter button.
3. Click Send Email to Selected or Send SMS to Selected.

The tick box only appears for employees who still have their default password. If an employee has already changed their password and forgotten it, click Reset next to their username to give them a new default password, then send the letter.

See Send welcome letters, which also covers sending letters from the Onboarding Review.

Your payslips are in the Microkeeper app or on the Microkeeper website, under Pay. Your latest payslip is chosen for you. To see another one:

1. Tap Pay.
2. Choose the financial year. Choose last year for a payslip from before July.
3. Choose the pay date.
4. Tap View.

A payslip shows once your employer has paid it. If you can't see one you expect, check the financial year, then ask your manager. See Open a payslip.

Filter the Timesheet page by No Job. This works when your business uses Jobs.

1. Navigate to Menu > Rosters > Timesheet, and choose the week.
2. Click the funnel on the left to open Employee Filters.
3. Under Job, choose No Job. Only staff with a shift that has no Job are listed.

To show only the shifts with no Job, click Day, open the funnel on the right (Shift Filters), and choose No Job under Job. To add a Job to a shift, click the pencil beside it, choose the Job and click Update.

See Choose the week and staff to show.

Signing up to Beam, the super clearing house Microkeeper pays super through, can be done in Microkeeper.

1. Navigate to Menu > Payroll > Super, and choose the ABN. Or, in a pay run, click Complete Payrun, then 4. Pay Super.
2. Click Setup Beam to begin the sign up process. Beam's sign-up opens in a new tab.
3. Complete every step of Beam's sign-up, including choosing your default fund and accepting the direct debit terms on the last step.
4. Navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Bank Details, and click Verify next to the account super is paid from.
5. Navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Global > Super Settings, and set Super Frequency to Payrun.

After that, you pay super from each pay run's 4. Pay Super. See Sign up to Beam and Verify the bank account super is paid from.

A self managed super fund (SMSF) can be added on the Super Settings page.

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Super Settings, and click Self Managed Super Fund.
2. In the Add SMSF window, enter the Name of SMSF and its ABN.
3. Choose its Electronic Service Address. The employee, or the fund's accountant or administrator, can tell you which one it uses.
4. Enter the fund's bank account Title, BSB and Account number.
5. Click Add SMSF to confirm.

The Electronic Service Address is required. The Australia Post and SuperChoice ESAs have been retired, so Pay Super stops an SMSF that still uses one until you choose its new ESA.

Once added, the SMSF can be selected in the employee's profile under Super Fund Details. See Pay super to a self-managed super fund.

Microkeeper needs basic contact information, plus bank details, superannuation details, the rate of pay, tax settings and, for staff you paid in another system earlier in the financial year, their Opening Balances.

Your employees can give most of this themselves when they first log in and complete onboarding:

• Their tax file number declaration and tax file number.
• Their home address, bank account and emergency contact.
• Their email and mobile number, which they confirm.
• Their super fund and member number.

You set their pay, tax settings and Opening Balances in their Employee Profile. See What staff do when they log in.

The most basic information you need for each employee is their name, mobile number and email. For payroll you also need their start date, their employment type (full time, part time or casual), and their hourly rate or salary.

If your staff are already in an accounting or payroll package, such as Xero or MYOB, you can add them all in one go. Export your staff list as a spreadsheet and import it, or import them straight from Xero Payroll. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees, click Add Staff, then Import Staff via CSV or Import Staff via Xero.

See Before you add your staff and Import Staff.

Opening Balances hold an employee's leave hours and year-to-date earnings from before you started using Microkeeper. You enter them in the employee's profile.

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees.
2. Click Edit next to the employee.
3. Go to the Opening Balances section of their profile.
4. Find the column for the financial year the amounts belong to. To add a column for another year, click Show more years, choose the year and click Show Year.
5. Enter each amount in its row: dollar amounts for Pre Gross Earnings, Pre Superannuation, Pre Tax and Pre Net, and hours for each leave type.

Changes are applied the next time payroll is processed. You need Payroll access to see the Opening Balances section.

What do Opening Balances affect?

Leave opening balances are added to the employee's leave balance for that leave type, such as annual leave, personal/carer's leave and long service leave, and are included in future leave calculations. You can also enter a negative or positive number to adjust a balance.

Financial opening balances record amounts paid through the employee's previous payroll system:

• Pre Gross Earnings, Pre Tax and Pre Net are added to the year-to-date totals on the employee's payslips.
• Pre Superannuation is super other than the employer guarantee, such as salary sacrifice, paid so far this financial year. For most employees it is zero.

Pre Gross Earnings can also change the tax for a Working Holiday Maker, because their tax is worked out from their gross earnings so far in the financial year.

Opening Balances don't create a payment, and they aren't reported through Single Touch Payroll. When you change payroll systems during the financial year, your previous system has already reported those payments to the ATO, so Microkeeper reports only the payments you process in Microkeeper. If your previous system didn't lodge STP for the earlier part of the year, see Add earnings from before you started using Microkeeper.

For the other sections of an employee's profile, see The employee profile.

Pre-accumulated data is now called Opening Balances, on each employee's profile. An opening balance is a starting figure for a financial year, such as the leave balance from your previous payroll system.

Each pay run adds on top of the balance. For leave, the balance is the opening balance for the year, plus the closing balance from last year, plus the leave built up this year, less the leave taken.

To enter opening balances:

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees and click Edit next to the employee.
2. Go to Opening Balances. If the financial year isn't shown, click Show more years, choose the year and click Show Year.
3. Enter hours for each leave type, such as Annual Leave, and dollars for Pre Gross Earnings, Pre Superannuation, Pre Tax and Pre Net.

If you start at the beginning of a financial year, the dollar figures are 0 and only leave balances are needed. You can also enter a positive or negative number to adjust a leave balance. Changes are applied the next time payroll is processed.

See The employee profile.

To print payslips only for the staff who want a paper copy, tick Employee wants a printed payslip on each of their profiles.

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees and click Edit next to the employee.
2. Under Payslip Config, next to Printed Payslip, tick Employee wants a printed payslip.

Do this for each employee who wants one. When you click Complete Payrun, a Print Payslips step shows if anyone in the pay run is ticked. Click Print Payslips to print only those staff's payslips, or Download Payslips to save them.

See Complete the pay run and pay your team.

Employees can change their own bank account on the Employee Console, but splitting their pay across accounts is set on their profile by someone with payroll access. See Change your bank account.

To split an employee's pay:

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees and click Edit next to the employee.
2. Under Banking, in Split Payments, choose Fixed for a dollar amount or Percentage for a share of their pay.
3. Enter the amount and the Bank Account 2 details.

The rest of their pay, the Remainder, goes into Bank Account 1. You can add Bank Account 3 the same way. If the split amount is more than the employee is paid, the split doesn't happen that pay.

You can still roster them. When you choose the employee for the shift, they're listed under Unavailable, and once they're rostered the Roster Calendar colours the shift red. Dark red marks the part of the shift that clashes with their availability.

Hover over the colour in List view, or open the shift, to see why. To find every shift like this, use the Unavailable filter above the roster.

See When I roster somebody onto a particular shift the hours change to red and Check shifts against availability and leave.

Red means the employee is unavailable, already rostered at that time, or missing a skill the shift needs. Dark red is the part of the shift that clashes. Purple means they're on leave.

To see why, hover over the colour in List view, or open the shift. The filters above the roster, such as Unavailable, Overlapping and Missing skills, show every shift with the same problem.

See Check shifts against availability and leave.

Navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Locations.

1. Click Add Location.
2. Enter the Title, for example "Sydney Restaurant".
3. Click Add.

By adding a latitude and longitude to the Location, staff will be able to clock on at the Location by GPS. Click the pencil button next to the Location and open the Geo-Fence tab. In Search, type the address and click the search button to fill in Latitude and Longitude, then click Update. This applies to staff whose Employee Clocking is set to GPS location restricted.

See Add a Location.

Jobs stay in Microkeeper once they're added. When a Job's work is done, set it to Finished: nobody can choose it any more, and it drops off the Jobs list.

1. Navigate to Menu > Manage > Jobs.
2. In the Job's Status column, choose Finished. It saves straight away.

To see Finished Jobs again, choose Finished in the Status filter at the top of the list. To reopen one, change its status back to Active.

See Job status: Quoted, Active, Pending and Finished.

Cbus is in the list as "Cbus". The fund search matches any part of a fund's name, so type "cbus", or a longer part of any fund's name. Capitals don't matter. You can also search by the start of the fund's USI, SPIN or ABN.

On an employee's profile, search in Search funds via USI, SPIN, ABN or Name under Super Fund Details. The search starts after 3 characters and shows the first 5 matching funds in name order, so if you don't see the fund, type more of its name or search by its USI. Staff choosing their own fund in Super Setup search the same way.

If a fund still isn't found:

• For a self-managed super fund, add it on the Super Settings page first. See Pay super to a self-managed super fund.
• For any other fund, navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Super Settings and click Submit Missing Super Fund. Enter the fund's Unique Super Identifier (USI), which Lookup USI helps you find, and click Next. If the fund isn't found, enter its Superannuation Fund Name and click Submit. It's sent to Microkeeper to add, and Microkeeper replies by email within 3 business days.

See Enter an employee's super fund.

To pay a driving allowance for each km driven, create an Extra Rule that's added to a shift along with the km driven.

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Payroll Rules > Extra Rules and click Create Extra Rule.
2. Choose Selected with a quantity, then For the quantity typed on each shift.
3. In Title, enter "Driving Allowance". It's shown on the payslip.
4. Under Staff, choose who gets it.
5. Choose Fixed and enter the rate per km in Value, such as "0.50" for 50 cents.
6. Choose Class Allowance and STP Category Cents per KM.
7. Under Access, choose Staff and Manager if staff enter their own km, or Manager only.
8. Click Add.

To pay it, open the shift in Timesheets, click + under Extra Earnings, choose the rule, enter the km in Quantity and click Add, then save the shift. It's paid in the pay run that covers the shift.

The ATO's STP allowance guidelines say to report cents per km payments for a car's business travel as a cents per km allowance. The ATO also lists expense allowances expected to be spent in full on the work as not qualifying earnings for super, so Class Allowance doesn't earn super.

To pay a flat car allowance each pay instead, choose the Flat amount method and enter the weekly amount in Value. The ATO says a flat-rate car allowance that isn't based on the km travelled is reported as other allowances, so choose STP Category Other.

See Extra Rules.

To pay a mobile phone allowance each pay, create an Extra Rule with the Flat amount method. To pay back a phone bill the employee paid themselves, add it as a reimbursement instead. See How should reimbursements be added.

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Payroll Rules > Extra Rules and click Create Extra Rule.
2. Choose Flat amount.
3. In Title, enter "Mobile Allowance". It's shown on the payslip.
4. Under Staff, choose who gets it.
5. Choose Fixed and enter the weekly amount in Value, such as "20". Staff paid fortnightly are paid it twice.
6. In Apply After, enter the hours they must work in the pay run before it's paid, such as "1", or "0" to pay it every pay.
7. Choose Class Bonus and STP Category Tool.
8. Click Add.

The ATO lists allowances paid regardless of whether the employee incurred the expense as qualifying earnings for super, so Class Bonus earns super on it. The ATO's STP allowance guidelines report allowances paid to an employee who must supply equipment for work as tool allowances. If the allowance is expected to be spent in full on their work phone costs, choose Class Allowance instead, as the ATO lists those expense allowances as not qualifying earnings.

See Extra Rules.

Yes, you can run a pay run at any time. The ABA file is dated with the pay run's Payment Date, so set it to the day staff will be paid:

• When you start the pay run, enter the Payment Date in the New Payrun window.
• To change it later, while the pay run is unlocked, click the pencil next to Payment Date on the payslips page, or change it under Confirm Payment Date in Complete Payrun.

Once the pay run is started, managers without Payroll - Full Access can't change timesheets in its pay period. Staff with Payroll - Full Access can, and then reprocess the payslip.

The ATO says your STP report is due on or before payday, the payment date in your bank file. Lodge the pay run with Single Touch Payroll on or before its Payment Date. See the ATO's Rules of reporting through STP.

See Start a pay run.

Yes. An employee can be paid a different rate for some of their work, in two ways.

To pay a higher rate for a shift worked in a higher role, such as a waiter filling in as supervisor, use a Higher Duties rule:

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Payroll Rules > Shift Rules, and click the Higher Duties tab.
2. Click Add Higher Duty.
3. Enter a Code with no spaces, such as "SU1", and fill in the rest of the rule.

A manager then chooses the rule under Higher Duties on the shift in Timesheets. See Pay higher duties.

To pay a different rate for each Job, make a Rate Rule with a clause for each Job, and put the employee on it. See Pay a different rate for a Job.

An automated before tax salary sacrifice can be set up using an Expense Rule.

To set up the example above:

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Payroll Rules > Deductions Rules.
2. Open the Expenses tab and click Add New Expense Rule.
3. Enter the Title, as it will appear on the employee's payslip, such as "Salary Sacrifice".
4. In Staff, select the employee.
5. Choose Fixed.
6. Enter the Value, in this example "135".
7. For Class, choose Super.
8. Click Add Rule to confirm.

The salary sacrifice is paid to the fund in the Expense Super row of the employee's Super Fund Details. To fill that row with the same fund and member number as their employer super, click Auto fill all super in Super Fund Details.

See Salary sacrifice example.

Clone the week as usual, and choose next year before you choose week 1.

1. On the Roster Calendar, show week 52 with the range on 1 Week and the Locations you want to copy.
2. Click More Actions > Clone Week.
3. Under Clone to:, choose Calendar, then Single Week.
4. Under Calendar Week, change the year to the next one, such as 2027/2028.
5. Choose week 1.
6. Click Clone, check the shifts it will replace, then click Confirm Clone.

The clone replaces every shift at the Locations shown in week 1.

See How to roster for next financial year and Clone a week into other weeks.

Your roster is in the Microkeeper app or on the Microkeeper website, under Roster. The current week is shown first. To see other weeks, use the arrows beside Week. The right arrow turns blue once next week's roster is ready.

If you see Roster not set yet, your manager hasn't finished that week yet, so check back later. See See your shifts.

Don't worry, this happens. Open Time, tap the note button on that shift, type the time you finished, such as "Finished at 10pm, forgot to clock off", and tap Submit. Your manager sees the note and fixes your timesheet before you're paid.

Your company's policy may differ, so it's also worth telling your manager. Once a shift has been reviewed, you can't add a note, so talk to your manager instead. See Clock off when you finish.

Your timesheet is in the Microkeeper app or on the Microkeeper website, under Time. The current week is shown first, and it fills in as you work your shifts. Tap Last Week or Next Week to move a week at a time.

Each shift shows when you clocked on and off, your break and your hours. Reviewed means your manager has checked it, and Pending means they haven't yet. If something's wrong, tap the note button on the shift and tell your manager what happened. See Check your hours.

Microkeeper sends each pay run to Xero as a bill, ready to reconcile from your bank feed once you've paid wages with the ABA file. In Xero, the bill:

• is from Microkeeper
• has a reference starting Payrun-MK-PayCycle-, then the pay cycle and pay period
• is dated, and due, on the pay run's Payment Date
• is Awaiting Payment, under Bills to pay.

Its lines are your wages, super and PAYG withholding against the Xero accounts you chose, with amounts tax inclusive. When you pay wages with the ABA file, reconcile the payment in your bank feed against this bill.

See The payroll bill in Xero.

Microkeeper sends each pay run to Xero as a bill from Microkeeper, Awaiting Payment under Bills to pay. Its reference starts with Payrun-MK-.

When the wages you paid with the ABA file come through your Xero bank feed, Xero suggests the bill as a match for that bank statement line. Check it's the right pay run, then confirm the match to reconcile it. If Xero doesn't suggest it, use Find & Match to find the bill.

See How does payroll data appear in Xero and The payroll bill in Xero.

Payroll data doesn't sync to your accounting software on its own. Someone with Report and Payroll access sends or exports each pay run from Microkeeper once it's locked.

1. Navigate to Menu > Payroll > Payruns and open the pay run.
2. Click Complete Payrun, then 3. Export.
3. Check each line's account, and click Save Settings if you change anything.
4. Click the button for your accounting system, such as Send to Xero, Send to Reckon or MYOB Export.

Xero and Reckon receive the pay run straight away. For other systems, such as MYOB or QuickBooks, Microkeeper downloads a file for you to import.

To see the same lines for a period across several pay runs, navigate to Menu > Payroll > Reports and run Accounting Export - Previously Payroll Invoice.

See Send or export each pay run.

Each ABN connects to its own Xero organisation. Before you start, check the ABN's accounting system is Xero, and that your Xero login has Expenses (Admin) access in Xero, so Microkeeper can create bills.

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Global, then click ABN and Pay Cycles.
2. On the ABN, click Connect to Xero.
3. Log in to Xero and allow Microkeeper access.
4. If your login has more than one organisation, choose it in Select Organisation and click Connect.

The ABN then shows the organisation's name beside the Xero logo. Next, sync your Xero accounts from the ABN's Chart of Accounts.

See Connect an ABN to your Xero organisation.

The Xero integration sends your payroll from Microkeeper into Xero. Each ABN connects to one Xero organisation, and:

• Each pay run is sent to Xero as a bill, with its wages, super and PAYG withholding against your Xero accounts. You reconcile the wage payment in your bank feed against the bill.
• Your Xero accounts and tracking categories are synced into Microkeeper, so you can choose which account each line of a pay run goes to.
• If your staff are in Xero Payroll, you can import them into Microkeeper.

See Xero and Import staff from Xero.

Each ABN connects to Xero separately, so you disconnect it on that ABN's Chart of Accounts.

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Global, then click ABN and Pay Cycles.
2. On the ABN, click the Xero organisation's name. The ABN's Chart of Accounts opens.
3. Click Disconnect.

To remove Microkeeper from Xero as well, in Xero go to Settings > Connected Apps and click Disconnect beside Microkeeper.

See How do I connect to Xero and Connect an ABN to your Xero organisation.

You can recover your username with the Username Recovery tool. On the login page, tap Forgot Username?, enter your email address and tap Search. Microkeeper emails you the usernames linked to that email, so check your spam folder if it doesn't arrive.

If you can't get into that email, ask your manager to send your welcome letter again. See Log in with your welcome letter.

A Microkeeper account can be cancelled at any time on the Billing page.

Navigate to Menu > Settings > Billing and click Microkeeper Account Cancel Process at the bottom of the page. Choose your reason, choose whether Microkeeper keeps your account's data, and click Confirm Cancellation.

Note: Export all the reports you need before you cancel, as you lose access to them unless billing is restarted.

See Cancel your Microkeeper account.

To clean the scanner's window, use one of these:

• Press sticky tape on the window and peel it off, or
• Wipe the window gently with a cloth dampened with warm water.

Never use cleaning products, paper or anything abrasive, never spray or drip liquid on the scanner, and don't poke the window. Other cleaning methods void the warranty.

A cloudy window has usually been damaged by a cleaning product and can't read fingerprints. You can replace it with the Fingerprint Scanner Lens DIY Repair Kit. See Look after the fingerprint scanner.

For record keeping reasons, an employee can't be deleted. Instead, terminate the employee in their Employee Profile.

The best way to do this is on their last payslip: click Final on the payslip before you lock and lodge the pay run. This sets them to Employee Terminated, saves their Termination Date and Cessation Type, and marks the payslip as final so the ATO receives their final STP report. See Finalise an employee who leaves.

To terminate an employee from their profile instead:

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees.
2. Click the Edit button for the employee.
3. Under Active Status, set Active to Employee Terminated.
4. Enter the Termination Date.
5. Choose the Cessation Type.

Single Touch Payroll needs both the Termination Date and Cessation Type. If the employee is still employed but not working for now, set Active to Employment Paused instead. Paused staff aren't included in pay runs and don't need a Termination Date.

To link an accountant or bookkeeper to your business account, they first need a Microkeeper account of their own.

If your accountant hasn't done so already, ask them to register with Microkeeper and send you the username they log in with.

In your business account, navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Linked Users.

1. Click Add User.
2. In Username, enter your accountant's username.
3. Choose an Expiry. It starts at 14 Days, so choose a longer period, such as 3 Years, if they need ongoing access.
4. Tick I understand the access level implications.
5. Click Add User.

When your accountant logs in to their own account, they open their profile menu, click Business Switcher and choose your business.

Note: Your accountant has the same access in your account as they have in their own Employee Profile. Until you've confirmed their access level, assume they have full access to your account.

See Give your registered agent access to Microkeeper.

Your Final STP lodgement tells the ATO your employees' figures for the financial year are complete. In Microkeeper, you lodge your last pay run of the year as a Final Payrun, in place of its normal lodgement. It reports every employee paid in the financial year under that ABN, including staff who have left.

Before you start, check that every pay run for the year is processed and locked, and that your last one has a Payment Date on or before 30 June. Check that the year's total tax and total pay match your accounting software.

1. Process and lock your last pay run of the year as usual.
2. In the Complete Payrun menu, click 2. Submit to ATO.
3. Under STP Submission type, choose Final Payrun.
4. Under What Event Type is being lodged?, choose Submit.
5. Click Review Data. Check the details, then click I have reviewed data.
6. Tick the declaration and click Lodge STP.

The lodgement appears in the STP Log on the same page, with "Final" in the Final column. If you have more than one pay cycle, lodge the last pay run of each pay cycle as Final Payrun.

If you already lodged your last pay run as Normal Payrun, lodge the same pay run again with Final Payrun and Update. Update is available from the pay run's Payment Date.

The ATO says you need to make your finalisation declaration by 14 July each year, and lists later dates for closely held payees. See the ATO's Finalising your STP data.

See Lodge your last pay run of the year as Final.

Use Add RFBA (New) on the payslip to add the payment and expense RFBA items onto the employee's payslip automatically. The payslip must be in an unlocked pay run.

1. Open the Actions menu on the payslip.
2. Click Add RFBA (New).
3. Select Taxable or Tax Exempt.
4. Select Salary Sacrifice or Normal.
5. In Amount, enter the grossed-up RFBA amount.
6. Click Add RFBA.

Two payslip items will be entered into the payslip:

The two lines balance each other out, so the employee's net pay, tax and super don't change.

Breakdown of fringe benefit classes

Microkeeper has four fringe benefit classes. Your choices in Add RFBA (New) decide which one the expense line gets:

If you are unsure which class to select, confirm with your accountant, bookkeeper, or salary packaging provider.

The ATO explains how RFBA and salary sacrifice type O relate, and why they can differ, in Salary sacrifice, part of its STP Phase 2 employer reporting guidelines.

To check how much RFBA you've already reported this financial year, work out the adjustment, and add it to the last pay run of the year before your Final lodgement, see RFBA: How to record Reportable Fringe Benefit Amount for STP. For how each class is reported, see the Expenses codes.

The first pay run of the next financial year can be processed without closing off anything from the previous financial year.

You still need to finalise the previous year's STP data with a Final lodgement of your last pay run of that year. The ATO says finalisation is due by 14 July. Until it's done, in July Payruns shows a "No Final STP submission was detected" message for each pay cycle that needs it. See the ATO's Finalising your STP data.

To lodge it, see What the Final STP lodgement does and Finalise after your last pay run was lodged as Normal.

Make these checks in this order:

1. The tax totals match.
2. The Payment Dates of all pay runs fall within the financial year, 1 July to 30 June. The Payment Date decides which financial year a pay run is reported in.
3. The reports you're comparing cover the same date range.
4. In the STP data, each employee's income type, such as foreign resident or working holiday maker, is correct.
5. Sub-contractors are left out of the comparison. They aren't included in STP.

See Before you lodge your Final STP.

Add a reimbursement to the employee's payslip as a Deduction with a negative amount. It adds to their net pay without changing their gross pay, so it isn't taxed, doesn't earn super and stays out of gross pay in your payroll reports.

1. Open the employee's payslip in the pay run.
2. Click + in the Deductions heading. Add Deduction opens.
3. Enter the Title shown on the payslip, such as "Parking reimbursement".
4. Leave Bank as No Bank Account, so it's paid with their net pay.
5. Choose Type Fixed and Class NA. The other Classes are reported to the ATO as deductions through STP, and a negative one stops the lodgement.
6. Enter the amount as a negative number in Rate, such as "-15", and leave Multiplier as 1. Total fills in by itself.
7. Click Add Deduction.

The ATO says reimbursements for actual expenses aren't qualifying earnings for super, and its STP allowance guidelines say reimbursements aren't reported through STP.

A payslip line with Class Reimbursement isn't taxed either, but it's counted in Gross Taxable, so it shows in gross pay in your payroll reports. See Why does Gross Taxable include reimbursements.

See Change a payslip.

A pay run can be deleted while it's unlocked. If it's locked, unlock it first. See Unlock a pay run.

1. Navigate to Menu > Payroll > Payruns, click the Processed tab, then View next to the pay run.
2. Click Bulk Actions, then Delete Payrun.
3. On the Delete Payrun page, enter your password.
4. Click I AGREE, then CONFIRM.

You change a Group's name on the Groups page.

1. Navigate to Menu > Manage > Groups.
2. Click the pencil button next to the Group.
3. In Update Group, change the Group Name.
4. Click Update Group.

A pay cycle Group is named after its pay cycle, so to rename it, rename the pay cycle. See Edit, delete or restore a Group.

Yes. The business name, phone number, email and ABN on a payslip come from the ABN that pays the employee's pay cycle. To change them, navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Global and click ABN and Pay Cycles.

1. Click the pencil button next to the ABN's name. Update ABN opens.
2. Change the Business Name, Phone or Email.
3. Click Update ABN.

The owner's name and website on the payslip come from Business Contact: navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Global, click Business Contact, and change the Given Name, Surname or Website.

Your business address isn't printed on payslips. If you've uploaded a logo, it shows in place of the business name heading.

See Add each ABN's contact details and address.

If you've forgotten your password, click Forgot Password? on the login page. Enter your username and click Continue, then follow the steps to choose a new password.

If you've forgotten your username, click Forgot Username? on the login page. Enter your email and click Search.

See Getting started questions.

To rehire an employee, update their existing profile so the ATO knows they've started work again.

Step 1

Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees, choose Terminated Staff and click Edit for the person you're rehiring.

Under Active Status, set Active to Currently Employed.

Step 2

Clear the Termination Date and set the Cessation Type back to Employed.

Step 3

Set the Start Date to the day they start again, and check their other details, such as address, bank account and tax, are still current.

Step 4

Once the employee has been included in a pay run, review their current leave balances, such as personal and long service leave, and adjust any that shouldn't carry over from their earlier employment.

See Rehire an employee in Single Touch Payroll.

Yes. The filters at the top of Reports apply to every report you run, so you can run any report for one employee.

1. Navigate to Menu > Payroll > Reports.
2. Choose the Year, then the Period: a month, a quarter or Entire year. Or enter your own dates.
3. In Group, search for and choose the employee.
4. Choose View or CSV in the report's Export as... list.

Group can also be everyone, only active, paused or terminated employees, one Group, or staff in one state.

See Choose the period, pay cycles and staff for a report.

The Microkeeper app lets you lock the app with a 4-digit PIN or biometrics, such as a fingerprint or face recognition. The app lock protects the app on your phone, and is separate from your Microkeeper username and password.

If you've forgotten your PIN, reset the app:

• iPhone: delete the Microkeeper app, then download it again.
• Android: go to Settings > Apps > Microkeeper > Storage, and tap Clear Storage.

Then open the app and log in again with your username and password. You can set up a new PIN, or turn on biometrics, if you want to. See Get the app and log in.

This means the scanner read a fingerprint that doesn't match any fingerprint saved for your business. Enrol the employee's fingerprint again, then assign it to them.

1. In the Microkeeper Timesheets app, click the menu, then Enroll Employees.
2. The employee places the whole pad of their index finger in the centre of the scanner's window and holds it still, without rolling or sliding, until the light blinks. The app shows Enrolment Successful with a match ID.
3. Navigate to Menu > HR > NFC & Fingerprint.
4. Under Pending Fingerprints, find the match ID, choose the employee and click Set.
5. Click View active fingerprints and click Deactivate beside the employee's old fingerprint.

For a good read every time, press the finger high on the window and firmly, keep the scanner and fingers clean and dry, and use moisturiser on very dry fingers. Scars and wrinkles change a fingerprint over time, which is when enrolling again helps.

See Fingerprint and NFC troubleshooting and Look after the fingerprint scanner.

Each pay is taxed with the ATO's tax tables as if the employee earned that amount every pay period of the year. A pay that's larger than usual, such as one with overtime, back pay or a bonus, is taxed as if they earned that much all year, so it can look higher than their tax bracket. Their actual tax for the year is worked out in their tax return.

Tax is also higher when Tax Free Threshold Claimed isn't ticked, or HELP-HECS Loan is ticked, in the Employee Tax section of their profile. If you're an employee, ask your payroll team to check them.

See How does Microkeeper calculate PAYG Tax.

Every Microkeeper invoice is listed on the Billing page of your Microkeeper account.

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Billing.
2. Under Invoices, find the invoice by its Invoice Date.
3. Click View to open or print it.

Paid invoices are highlighted green, and unpaid invoices past their due date are highlighted red.

See Pay an invoice and view past invoices.

An employee's leave balance can be adjusted with the Opening Balances on their profile.

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees and click Edit next to the employee.
2. Go to Opening Balances. If the current financial year isn't shown, click Show more years, choose the year and click Show Year.
3. In the Annual Leave row, under the current year, add 24 to the amount there. If it's 0, enter "24".
4. Navigate to Menu > Payroll > Payruns, click the Processed tab, then View next to the most recent unlocked pay run the employee is in.
5. Above the employee's payslip, click Actions, then Recalc Leave.

Recalc Leave updates the employee's balance on that payslip. If there's no unlocked pay run, the change is applied the next time payroll is processed.

To take hours off a balance, enter a negative number, such as "-36".

For banked leave, such as Rostered Day Off or Time Off In Lieu, click Actions on the payslip, then the Amend option for that leave type, instead.

See Review the payslips.

A note can be added to a payslip with Notes.

1. Click Actions above the employee's payslip.
2. Click Notes.
3. Enter your note, then click Close. The note saves when you close it.

The note shows on the payslip when the employee views it. To add a note to every payslip in the pay run, click Bulk Actions, then Notes.

See Review the payslips.

You can download your employees' details as a CSV file.

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees.
2. Click Export Employees.
3. Choose All Employees, Active Only, Paused Only or Terminated Only.

The export includes the staff in the Group you've chosen on the Employees page. You need Settings access to see Export Employees.

See Find and manage staff on the Employees page.

You can reset your MFA if you've lost access to your authenticator app or need to reset your MFA for any reason.

On the MFA login page, under Lost Authenticator Access?, click the Reset MFA link.

On the MFA Reset page, click the Send SMS button and enter the 6 digit PIN sent to your mobile. If your mobile number is outside Australia and New Zealand, the PIN comes by WhatsApp instead of SMS.

After your MFA has been reset, you get an email confirming it, and you can set up MFA again from Profile > Setup MFA. See Getting started questions.

You don't need to send payslips. Once you lock a pay run, each employee can see their payslip on the Employee Console, on the Microkeeper website or app.

To keep or give someone a copy, open the pay run and click Complete Payrun. Under 1. Pay Your Team, Download Backup saves every payslip in the pay run as a file you can open and print.

For staff who want a printed payslip, tick Employee wants a printed payslip in their profile's Payslip Config. A Print Payslips step then shows in Complete Payrun and prints theirs. Employees can also save their own payslip as a PDF with their browser's Print.

See Can I email payslips and Complete the pay run and pay your team.

Yes. The Payment Date can be changed on any unlocked pay run.

1. Navigate to Menu > Payroll > Payruns, click the Processed tab, then View next to the pay run.
2. In the payslips sidebar, click the pencil next to Payment Date.
3. Enter the new payment date.

You can also change it under Confirm Payment Date when you click Complete Payrun.

The Payment Date is the date on the ABA file, and it decides which month and financial year the pay run is reported in. If the pay run is locked, unlock it first. See Unlock a pay run.

To report to the ATO for STP, connect your Microkeeper Software ID to the ATO's Access Manager. You only do this once.

To find your Software ID, navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Global, click STP Settings, and copy the number in ATO/SBR 'BMS ID' 'Software ID'.

Then, on the ATO's Access Manager for business software users:

1. Select My hosted software services.
2. Select Notify the ATO of your hosted service.
3. Search for the ABN 75909758040.
4. Select the ABN link of THE TRUSTEE FOR MICROKEEPER UNIT TRUST.
5. Enter your Software ID and select Next.
6. Read the notification statement, then select Save.

Access Manager then lists Microkeeper as your software service provider, with your Software ID.

See Add your Software ID in the ATO's Access Manager.

Yes. Roster a split shift as two separate shifts on the same day.

1. Navigate to Menu > Rosters > Roster Calendar.
2. Add the first shift for the employee, for example "07:00" to "11:00".
3. Add a second shift for them on the same day, for example "16:00" to "20:00".

See Add a shift. In the timesheet, a split shift is also two shifts on the same day.

If your award pays a split shift allowance, set it up as an Extra Rule. See Pay a split shift allowance.

To terminate an employee, mark their last payslip as final with the Final button, before you lock and lodge the pay run.

1. Navigate to Menu > Payroll > Payruns and process the pay run as normal.
2. Click Final above the employee's payslip. The One Tap Terminate window opens.
3. Check the Rate and the leave hours to pay out, such as Annual Leave and Leave Loading. For other leave you can pay out, such as long service leave, click its Payout button.
4. Check the Termination Date.
5. Choose the Cessation Type, such as Voluntary or Redundancy.
6. Click Terminate. It shows once you've chosen a Cessation Type.

The employee is marked as terminated in Microkeeper, their leave is paid out on the payslip, and the payslip is marked as final for Single Touch Payroll when you lodge the pay run.

See Finalise an employee who leaves.

You can remove a file uploaded to a skill by deleting it on the File Manager page.

Navigate to Menu > Settings > File Manager.

To delete a file, click the Delete Files button, then click the trash can that appears next to the file you want to remove.

The Delete Files button only shows for people with Settings access. Files access on its own lets you see files but not delete them. See Payroll and admin options in Access Control.

Group certificates, later called payment summaries, have been replaced by income statements. The ATO says you don't need to give employees payment summaries for information you report and finalise through Single Touch Payroll. See the ATO's PAYG withholding payment summaries.

Instead, your employees get an income statement in ATO online services through myGov. See the ATO's Access your income statement.

To finalise in Microkeeper, lodge your last pay run of the financial year as Final Payrun. The ATO says to make your finalisation declaration by 14 July. See the ATO's Finalising your STP data.

Once the ATO accepts your Final lodgement, your employees' income statements are marked "Tax ready" in myGov, and they can lodge their tax return.

For the steps, see Lodge your last pay run of the year as Final.

Clone a week into the next financial year from the Roster Calendar. Weeks are numbered from the start of each financial year, so you choose the year first, then the week.

1. Navigate to Menu > Rosters > Roster Calendar.
2. Show the week you want to copy, with the range on 1 Week and the Locations you want to copy.
3. Click More Actions > Clone Week. The Clone Roster window opens.
4. Under Clone to:, choose Calendar, then Single Week.
5. Under Calendar Week:, choose the next financial year, such as "2027/2028", then the week.
6. Click Clone.
7. Check how many shifts the week will replace, then click Confirm Clone.

Multi Week only lists weeks in the current financial year, so clone into next year's weeks one at a time with Single Week. To clone from a roster template instead, open it under Menu > Rosters > Roster Template and click Clone Template; the same window opens.

See Clone a week into other weeks.

Only if the law changes the rate. When it does, Microkeeper updates the Super Guarantee Rate for you, for pay runs paid on or after the date the new rate starts. The rate has been 12% since 1 July 2025.

To check the rate your business uses, navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Global and open Super Settings. Super on each payslip is this rate of the employee's qualifying earnings.

See How Super Works.

Payroll reports are on the Reports page.

1. Navigate to Menu > Payroll > Reports.
2. Choose the Year and Period, the pay cycles, and the staff in Group.
3. Choose View or CSV in the report's Export as... list.

The reports you see depend on your access, and most need Payroll access.

See Find the right report for your question.

Change the Employment Type

An employee's Employment Type can be changed in their Employee Profile.

Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees > click Edit on the employee > under Payment and Employment, change the Employment Type to Full Time, Part Time or Casual as required.

Reviewing Entitlements

Review the employee's entitlements whenever you change their Employment Type, because they decide the leave the employee builds up. They're under Entitlements on the same profile.

For Full Time or Part Time staff, set Entitled Annual Leave and Entitled Personal Leave in weeks. The Fair Work Ombudsman lists 4 weeks of annual leave a year under the National Employment Standards, and 10 days of paid sick and carer's leave, which is 2 weeks for someone who works 5 days a week. Your award or agreement may give more.

For Casual staff, set Entitled Annual Leave and Entitled Personal Leave to 0. Fair Work says casual employees don't get paid annual leave or paid sick and carer's leave.

See Set the default entitlement for new staff.

Paying out leave

If the employee is changing to Casual and has leave balances, the Fair Work Ombudsman says to check the rules that apply to you, including rules about paying out unused annual leave. You can pay out or clear a balance on their payslip by adding a leave payment that brings the balance to 0.

To pay out annual leave:

1. On the employee's payslip, click Add Leave.
2. Choose Annual.
3. Click Cash Out.
4. Enter the employee's current annual leave balance in Hours.

To clear a personal leave balance without paying it:

1. On the employee's payslip, click Add Leave.
2. Choose Personal.
3. Change the Class to Bonus.
4. Change the Rate to 0.
5. Enter the employee's current personal leave balance in Hours.

A leave payment with the Class Bonus comes off the balance without building up more leave. See How a leave payment's Class changes balances.

You don't need to. The ATO says you don't have to give employees payment summaries for payments you report and finalise through Single Touch Payroll. Their income statement in myGov takes its place. See the ATO's PAYG withholding payment summaries.

To finalise, lodge your last pay run of the financial year as Final Payrun. The ATO says to finalise by 14 July. Once the ATO accepts it, your employees' income statements are marked "Tax ready" in myGov, and they can lodge their tax return.

See How do I process Group Certificates in Microkeeper and Lodge your last pay run of the year as Final.

An employment termination payment (ETP) is paid because employment ends, such as payment in lieu of notice or a golden handshake. Unused annual leave and long service leave aren't ETPs: the Final button pays them out as Unused Leave on Termination. The tax-free part of a genuine redundancy payment is Lump D, not an ETP.

To add an ETP to the employee's final payslip:

1. Click the plus button to the right of Payments. The Add Payment window opens.
2. Enter the Title, the amount in Rate and "1" in Hours.
3. In Class, choose Extra. It's taxed, but doesn't earn super or build up leave.
4. In STP, choose the ETP type, such as Type O - Taxable. The STP Reporting Codes describe each type.
5. Click Add Payment.
6. Click Final to terminate the employee. STP reports the ETP with their Termination Date.

Check the Tax on the payslip matches the ATO's withholding rates for termination payments. To change it, click the pencil next to Tax and save.

See Staff Changes in Single Touch Payroll.

To resubscribe a manager to their email notifications, navigate to Menu > Manage > Notification Config.

1. Click Email Test Facility.
2. Choose the manager, leave Basic Test selected, and click Test.
3. If the manager has unsubscribed, Microkeeper says so. Click Click here to subscribe them again.

Managers can also resubscribe themselves: in a previous Microkeeper manager email, they click the unsubscribe link, then click Subscribe on the page that opens.

See Test that a manager gets emails.

The tax taken from every pay can be increased or reduced with the Tax Offset Amount on the employee's profile.

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees and click Edit next to the employee.
2. Under Employee Tax, enter the amount in Tax Offset Amount: a positive amount takes more tax, and a negative amount takes less.

For weekly and fortnightly pay cycles, enter a weekly amount. For monthly pay cycles, enter a monthly amount, and for semi-monthly, a semi-monthly amount.

To change the tax on one payslip only, click the pencil next to Tax on the payslip. See Change a payslip.

Each pay run's lodgements are listed in the STP Log on its Single Touch Payroll ATO Lodgement page.

1. Navigate to Menu > Payroll > Payruns.
2. On the Processed tab, click View next to the pay run.
3. Click Complete Payrun.
4. Click 2. Submit to ATO.

The STP Log is above Prepare to Lodge STP. It lists every lodgement for the pay run with its Message ID, Final, Event, Timestamp, Reference ID, Status and Amended columns. Reload the page to see the latest status, and click View in the ATO Message column to read the ATO's message.

For the pay run statuses on the Payruns page, see Check the STP lodgement result.

Only the current Super Admin can nominate a new Super Admin.

Navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Global and click Business Contact. In Super Admin, choose the new user.

The new Super Admin must have Settings access, so only users with Settings access are listed.

See Business Contact settings.

Microkeeper keeps a list of the public holidays for every state in Australia, and pays them automatically in the pay run. Each employee gets the public holidays of their state.

Review the list on the List of Australian public holidays page.

Public holidays that are paid don't come off an employee's annual or personal leave balance.

To add a date, such as a local show day, or to skip one:

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Payroll Rules > Public Holiday Rules.
2. Under Public Holiday Dates, click Add Date to make a day a public holiday, or Skip Date to stop one being a public holiday.
3. Choose the Group or Employee, or ALL.
4. Choose the State, or ALL.
5. Choose the Date, and click Add Date or Skip Date.

See Add or skip a public holiday date.

Company logos are set in the general settings.

Navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Logo Upload.

1. Click Upload.
2. Choose your logo. It must be a .jpg file under 700 KB.

The new logo replaces any old one, and shows at the top of payslips in place of your business name. To show your business name again, click Remove Logo.

The tax on a payslip can be changed by clicking the pencil next to Tax at the bottom of the payslip. Enter the new amount and click the save button.

The payslip then shows "Tax figure has been modified to revert click X". Click the X to go back to the tax worked out from the tax table.

Reprocessing the payslip works the tax out again, so if you reprocess it, enter your amount again.

To take more or less tax from every pay, use the Tax Offset Amount under Employee Tax on the employee's profile instead.

See Change a payslip.

Give the payment the Class Extra. An Extra payment is taxed, but doesn't attract super, doesn't build up leave, and doesn't count towards ordinary or overtime hours.

To add it to one payslip, click + in the Payments heading, fill in the payment, choose Extra under Class, and click Add Payment. To pay it every pay run, choose Extra under Class on the pay rule, such as an Extra Rule.

See the Payments Classification Chart.

To set up a manager in Microkeeper:

1. Designate an employee as a manager.

• Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees > click Edit for the manager > in the Employee Profile, scroll to Access Control.
• Under Manager Options, choose the features they need, such as Roster - Full Access, Timesheet - Full Access and Leave requests.
• Leave Location - Staff chosen, so they only manage the staff of their own Locations.

2. Designate the staff the manager is in charge of. This decides who they see in the roster, timesheets, leave requests and other areas.

• Navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Locations.
• Click the pencil button next to the Location they manage, then click the Access tab.
• Check the Group is the Group of staff who work at this Location. See Groups.
• In Managers, click Select Manager and tick the manager. A manager can look after several Locations.
• Click Update.

3. Designate who receives email notifications for particular staff.

• Navigate to Menu > Manage > Notification Config.
• In the Primary column, click the blue pencil button on an employee's row to choose their main manager.
• To send one type of email to another manager, click the grey plus button in that type's column.

See Make someone a manager and Set each employee's Primary manager.

A pay run can be processed outside the usual pay cycle with an ad hoc pay run. It lets you create a missed payslip from an earlier pay period, or blank payslips to fill in yourself.

Navigate to Menu > Payroll > Payruns.

1. Click Ad Hoc Payrun, then choose the pay cycle.
2. Under Ad hoc, choose Ad hoc - Full Payrun or Ad hoc - Blank Payslips:
   • Ad hoc - Full Payrun works out the payslips from timesheets, the same as a normal pay run.
   • Ad hoc - Blank Payslips skips the calculations and creates blank payslips ready for you to add lines.
3. Under Staff, choose All Staff, Paid Staff or Select.
4. Choose the Year and Run, and check the Payment Date.
5. Click Payrun.

See Pay an ad hoc pay run.

Timesheets are locked once a pay run that includes the employee has been started for that pay period, so hours can't change after payroll has worked them out.

Only staff with Payroll - Full Access, set under Access Control on their profile, can change timesheets in that period. After changing one, reprocess the employee's payslip so it uses the new hours. See Reprocess a pay run after changes.

If the pay run has already been paid and hours were missed, pay them in an ad hoc pay run. See Pay an ad hoc pay run.

The Microkeeper Store sells Fingerprint Scanners, NFC Scanners and NFC key tags, iPad stands and mounts, and Clocking Stations.

To open the store from Microkeeper, use either menu:

• Navigate to Menu > More > Store.
• Click your profile picture at the top right, then Store.

You can also go straight to shop.microkeeper.com.au.

Microkeeper already includes the standard public holidays. To add another date as a public holiday:

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Payroll Rules > Public Holiday Rules.
2. Under Public Holiday Dates, click Add Date.
3. Choose the Group or Employee the date applies to, or ALL.
4. Choose the State, or ALL. A state limits the date to staff based in that state.
5. Enter the Date as dd/mm/yyyy, or pick it from the calendar.
6. Click Add Date.

When you process payroll for that period, the date is treated as a public holiday for those staff. To stop a standard public holiday applying, click Skip Date instead.

See Add or skip a public holiday date.

You pay super from the pay run it belongs to, so you can pay one employee's super from that pay run's Pay Super page. Use this for super that wasn't paid with everyone else's, such as when the employee's fund details were missing.

1. Check the employee's Super Fund Details show their current fund and member number.
2. Navigate to Menu > Payroll > Payruns, click View on the pay run, then Complete Payrun and 4. Pay Super.
3. Click New Super Submission.
4. Choose Manually select staff, and select the employee.
5. Click Prepare Super Report, check the amount, then click Submit Super and pay it as usual.

Repeat this for each pay run with super still owing. If the employee was left out of a payment with Staff without errors, you can instead tick it on the Refunds / Skipped tab and click Redo Selected.

See Prepare a super submission and Redo refunded or skipped super.

Microkeeper has two parental leave types: Paid Parental Leave, for parental leave you pay under your award, agreement or policy, and Unpaid Parental Leave, to record time off without pay. Both are off until you turn them on.

To turn a parental leave type on:

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Global, click Entitlement Settings, then Configure Leave Types.
2. Click the pencil on the Paid Parental Leave or Unpaid Parental Leave card, and turn the switch at the top right on.
3. Under Active for, choose Permanents + Casuals or Permanents Only.
4. For Paid Parental Leave, choose who it's paid to under Paid for, and check the STP Category is Paid Parental (Qualified Earnings=0).
5. Untick Staff can request if only managers should record it.
6. Click Update Leave Configuration.

To record the leave for an employee, navigate to Menu > HR > Leave Review, click New Leave Request, choose the leave type under Select Leave Form and the Employee, and enter the dates. Then review and approve it. A request can cover up to 4 months, so make one request for each block of up to 4 months.

Approved Paid Parental Leave is paid in the pay run like other leave, for the employee's Contracted Hours, at their base rate as Normal hours, so super is calculated on it. The ATO lists employer-paid parental leave as not qualifying earnings for super, and says you may have extra super obligations under an award or agreement. The Paid Parental STP Category reports its qualifying earnings as $0. See the ATO's What payments are qualifying earnings.

To pay the government's Parental Leave Pay, which Services Australia sends you to pass on to your employee, use an Extra Rule instead.

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Payroll Rules > Extra Rules, click Create Extra Rule, and choose Flat amount.
2. Enter a Title, such as "Parental Leave Pay". It shows on the payslip.
3. Under Staff, choose the employee.
4. Choose Fixed, and enter the weekly amount Services Australia funds as the Value. Staff paid fortnightly are paid it twice.
5. Set the Multiplier to "1".
6. Choose the Class Extra and the STP Category Paid Parental (Qualified Earnings=0).
7. Click Add.

When the payments end, delete the rule, or set its Value to 0.

Services Australia says you pay Parental Leave Pay in the employee's normal pay cycle, and you don't have to pay super contributions on it. For a child born or adopted from 1 July 2025, it says the ATO pays the employee a super contribution instead. See Services Australia's Providing Parental Leave Pay as an employer.

See Change a leave type and Request leave for an employee.

Custom Fields can be added to store and collect information that isn't in the Employee Profile already. They're included in the Standard and Enterprise plans.

Navigate to Menu > Settings > Custom Fields.

Click the Add New Field button and set up the custom field:

• ID: a short unique name that identifies the field, in lowercase letters, numbers or underscores, such as "favourite_pizza". It can't be changed later.
• Name: a short name for the field, as staff see it.
• Note: a description of what to enter, shown to staff during onboarding.
• Onboarding: whether staff fill in the field during onboarding: Yes - Compulsory, Yes - Optional or No - Admin only.
• Validation: what answers are accepted, to filter out unwanted answers. The options are:
  • Alphanumeric and spaces
  • Date dd/mm/yyyy
  • Yes or No
  • ID Only numbers
  • ID Alphanumeric
  • Yes, No or Prefer not to say

Click the Add Field button to save your new Custom Field. See Add a custom field.

Approved leave requests in the pay period are paid on the payslip automatically. To pay leave without a leave request, such as leave being cashed out, use Add Leave on the payslip.

1. Navigate to Menu > Payroll > Payruns, click the Processed tab, then View next to the pay run.
2. Above the employee's payslip, click Add Leave, then the type of leave, such as Annual Leave.
3. For annual leave and long service leave, choose the Leave Payment Class: OTE for leave taken in the usual way, or Cash Out for leave cashed out.
4. In the Add Payment window, enter the Hours to pay. You can also change the Rate and Multiplier.
5. Click Add Payment.

Cash Out pays the leave with Class Bonus and STP Category Cash Out Leave In Service, so it comes off the employee's balance without building up more leave. See How a leave payment's Class changes balances.

Fair Work says annual leave can only be cashed out with a written agreement each time, and the employee must keep at least 4 weeks of annual leave afterwards. Awards and agreements can add other limits. See Fair Work's Cashing out annual leave.

Choose who to include when you prepare the super submission. Navigate to Menu > Payroll > Payruns, click View on the pay run, then Complete Payrun and 4. Pay Super.

1. Click New Super Submission.
2. Choose Staff without errors to leave out staff whose details need fixing, or Manually select staff and select the staff to include.
3. Click Prepare Super Report, then pay it as usual.

Pay the staff you left out from the same pay run once their details are fixed, with Manually select staff. Staff left out with Staff without errors are also listed on the Refunds / Skipped tab, where you can tick them and click Redo Selected.

See How can I pay Super to a single employee and Prepare a super submission.

You add a doctor's certificate to your personal leave request after you've submitted it. You can do this from the Leave section of your Employee Console:

1. Tap Leave.
2. Tap the arrow beside your request to open it.
3. Beside Upload a file, tap the upload button.
4. Give the file a name, then choose a file or take a photo of the certificate.

Your certificate then shows under Files Attached on the request. You can attach evidence to other kinds of leave the same way.

See Upload a doctor's certificate.

Fair Work says all employees, including part-time and casual staff, can take 10 days of paid family and domestic violence leave in each 12 months. It's available in full straight away and doesn't accumulate from year to year. See Fair Work's Family and domestic violence leave.

Fair Work says payslips must not mention this leave, so this example pays it as ordinary hours of work:

1. In the pay run, click + in the Payments heading of the employee's payslip.
2. Enter a Title that doesn't mention the leave, such as "Ordinary Hours". Don't start it with a leave type's name, such as Annual Leave, as that comes off that balance.
3. Enter their Rate and the Hours they would have worked, and choose Class Normal.
4. Click Add Payment.

You still need to keep a record of the leave taken, so keep it where only your payroll team can see it.

See Change a payslip.

Reportable Employer Super Contributions (RESC) can be added on an employee's payslip using Add Super.

1. On the payslip, open the Actions menu and click Add Super.
2. For Type, select RESC.
3. Enter the Amount to be added to the payslip.
4. Click Add Super.

This will be reported as super type R for STP reporting.

Salary sacrifice into super is reported as RESC too, so it doesn't need adding this way. See Other super on the payslip.

Staff can complete a VEVO check during their onboarding, once VEVO Checks are turned on. To turn them on, navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Global and set VEVO Checks to VEVO On.

The VEVO step shows in onboarding when one of the following happens:

• The employee answers No to Are you an Australian citizen?
• Their tax file number declaration is set to Working Holiday Maker.
• Their tax file number declaration is set to Foreign Resident.
• Their Overseas Country is set to a country outside Australia.

The employee is then shown a VEVO Check form. They choose their document, such as Passport or ImmiCard, enter its number and country, tick I agree to have a VEVO Check performed and save.

The VEVO Check is performed in real time, and the employee sees the result straight away. See How staff complete a VEVO check in onboarding.

Yes, expired visas can be managed on the VEVO Checks page.

Navigate to Menu > HR > VEVO Checks and set Show to Expired.

Any visas that have expired are shown here. To follow up staff before their visa expires, choose Expiring in 30 days instead. See Follow up expiring visas and VEVO changes.

Yes, a VEVO check can be rerun on the VEVO Checks page.

Navigate to Menu > HR > VEVO Checks. Set Show to a list that includes the employee, such as All Active, and click the down arrow button on their row to see more details.

In the details area of the VEVO check, click the Run button to rerun the VEVO check. See Read a VEVO result.

Some staff are eligible to work indefinitely. Others can only work until their visa expires, and some visas need their work rights checked every 3 months.

Microkeeper makes these future checks automatically, and if a change is detected, it's flagged for review:

• At the start of each financial quarter (1 January, April, July and October), Microkeeper checks again the staff whose visa needs a check every 3 months.
• Each day, Microkeeper checks visas that have just expired or expire the next day.

When a result needs review, managers who get HR emails in Notification Config receive a VEVO Alert: Working Rights Review Needed email. On Menu > HR > VEVO Checks, set Show to Requiring Action to see them. See Follow up expiring visas and VEVO changes.

VEVO Checks cost $2 per check plus GST. They're billed monthly, for the checks run in the previous month.

An employee whose visa needs a check every 3 months costs $8 plus GST a year for the quarterly checks, plus $2 plus GST for the first check during onboarding. Staff whose visa doesn't need regular checks are usually only checked once, unless their visa expires or you rerun the check.

See Turn on VEVO Checks.

A VEVO check can be added for an existing employee on the VEVO Checks page.

Navigate to Menu > HR > VEVO Checks.

Click the Add VEVO Check button.

In the window that opens, choose the employee. Staff are listed if they're a Foreign Resident or Working Holiday Maker, or their Overseas Country isn't Australia. If they have no Overseas Country, choose it and click Save Country.

Choose the document type, enter its number and click the button to add the check. The document types are Passport, ImmiCard, Document for Travel to Australia (DFTTA), Visa Evidence Card (PL056) and Titre de Voyage.

See Check an existing employee.

STP is due on or before payday, so lodge each pay run with the Submit event type on or before its Payment Date. Microkeeper still offers Submit for up to 30 days after the Payment Date so you can catch up on a missed lodgement, but that doesn't move the ATO's deadline.

Submit is turned off in two cases, and you lodge with Update instead:

• The pay run already has a successful Submit. Microkeeper shows "When a Submit event is present only Update is eligible".
• The pay run was never lodged and its Payment Date is more than 30 days ago. Microkeeper shows "A Submit event must be within 30 days of the Payment Date".

Choose the event type under What Event Type is being lodged? on the pay run's 2. Submit to ATO page. Normal Payrun is the STP Submission type, not the event type, so keep it selected when you lodge an Update during the year.

See Lodge a Pay Run with STP.

Use a Deduction Rule to deduct Child Support from an employee's pay automatically each pay run.

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Payroll Rules > Deductions Rules.
2. Click the Deductions tab.
3. Click Add New Deduction Rule.
4. In Title, enter the title for the employee's payslip, such as "Child Support - J Smith".
5. In Staff, choose the employee the notice is for.
6. In Fixed or Percentage, choose Fixed.
7. In Value, enter the weekly amount, such as "482". On a fortnightly pay cycle, Microkeeper deducts twice this amount each pay. On a monthly or semi-monthly pay cycle, it deducts this amount each pay.
8. In Bank Account, choose the account to pay it to in the ABA file, or No Bank Account if you pay it another way.
9. In Class, choose Child Support (PEA) or Child Support (72A), to match the notice.
10. Click Add Rule.

The two classes work differently:

• Child Support (PEA): Microkeeper reduces the deduction when needed so the employee's after-tax pay doesn't fall below the Protected Earnings Amount (PEA). Microkeeper keeps the PEA up to date, using the amount for the calendar year of the pay run's Payment Date.
• Child Support (72A): the PEA protection doesn't apply.

Services Australia says the PEA applies to a Notice to Commence Child Support Deductions, but not to deductions under a section 72A (garnishee) notice. Your notice from Services Australia tells you which applies. See Services Australia's Protected Earnings Amount when deducting child support and Deductions under a section 72A (garnishee) notice.

To pay the deduction automatically, first add the Child Support deposit account. See Set up a bank account for automatic deduction payments.

See Child Support example.

Gross Taxable on a payslip is the total of all its payments, less Total Expenses. A payment with Class Reimbursement is one of those payments, so it's counted in Gross Taxable. The payroll reports, including the Payroll Breakdown, Payroll Summary by Run and Payroll Employee by Run, add up the same Gross Taxable figure.

The reimbursement isn't taxed. PAYG tax is worked out on the payments less expenses, without Reimbursement and Tax Free Allowance payments, so the employee's tax is right.

To keep reimbursements out of gross pay in your reports, add them to the payslip as a Deduction with a negative amount instead of a payment. A negative Deduction adds to the employee's net pay after tax, and doesn't change their Gross Taxable.

1. In the pay run, on the Payslips tab, find the employee's payslip.
2. Click + in the Deductions heading. Add Deduction opens.
3. Enter the Title shown on the payslip, such as "Parking reimbursement".
4. Leave Bank as No Bank Account, so it's paid with their net pay.
5. Choose Type Fixed.
6. Choose Class NA. The other Classes are reported to the ATO as deductions through STP.
7. Enter "-15" in Rate, and leave Multiplier as 1.
8. Click Add Deduction.

See How should reimbursements be added.

Unreachable means the ATO's servers didn't confirm they received your lodgement. A lodgement that stays Submitting for more than 72 hours also changes to Unreachable.

You have two options:

1. Check the ATO's Online services for business, under Employees > STP reporting, to see whether they received it but didn't send a response back.
2. Lodge the pay run again with the same settings as last time.

For what each status means, see Check the STP lodgement result.

Use a Deduction Rule to take a set amount from an employee's pay after tax, each pay run.

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Payroll Rules > Deductions Rules.
2. Click the Deductions tab. Deductions are taken after tax.
3. Click Add New Deduction Rule.
4. In Title, enter the title for the employee's payslip, such as "Repayment Deduction".
5. In Staff, choose the employee.
6. In Fixed or Percentage, choose Fixed to deduct a set amount each pay run.
7. In Value, enter the weekly amount, such as "50". On a fortnightly pay cycle, Microkeeper deducts twice this amount each pay. On a monthly or semi-monthly pay cycle, it deducts this amount each pay.
8. In Bank Account, choose an account to pay the amount to in the ABA file, or leave No Bank Account if it stays with your business.
9. In Class, choose NA.
10. Click Add Rule.

The deduction then appears on the employee's payslip under its title each pay run. When the plan is paid off, edit or delete the rule so it stops.

See Add an expense or deduction rule.

This error comes from Xero when your Xero plan won't accept another bill. Microkeeper sends each pay run to Xero as a bill, and Xero's smaller plans only allow a set number of invoices and bills each month. Once you reach that limit, Xero refuses the pay run with this message.

To send the pay run:

1. In Xero, check your plan's monthly limit and upgrade your plan if you need more.
2. In Microkeeper, click Send to Xero on the pay run again.

See Xero.

Xero shows this message when your Xero plan has reached its limit for the month. Microkeeper sends each pay run to Xero as a bill, and each bill counts towards the limit.

Xero's Ignite plan limits how many invoices and bills you can enter, and Xero's Ignite plan page points you to its Grow plan for more. To send the pay run:

1. Upgrade your plan in Xero.
2. In Microkeeper, open the pay run's Complete Payrun, then 3. Export.
3. Click Send to Xero again.

See Send a pay run to Xero.

The connection between Microkeeper and Xero has stopped working. To fix it, disconnect Microkeeper from Xero on both sides, then connect again.

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Global, then click ABN and Pay Cycles.
2. Open the ABN's Chart of Accounts and click Disconnect.
3. In Xero, go to Settings > Connected Apps and click Disconnect beside Microkeeper.
4. Back on the Chart of Accounts in Microkeeper, click Connect to Xero.
5. Log in to Xero and allow Microkeeper access.

Then send the pay run to Xero again.

See Xero troubleshooting.

The bill Microkeeper sent to Xero for this pay run was voided in Xero. A voided bill can't be updated, so sending the pay run again fails. Send it as a new version instead:

1. Open the pay run's Complete Payrun, then 3. Export.
2. In the list beside Send to Xero, change v1 to v2.
3. Click Send to Xero.

Xero gets a new bill with v2 at the end of its reference. Use v3 to v5 only if the version before can't be updated either.

See Send a pay run to Xero again.

Microkeeper works out PAYG withholding with the ATO's tax tables for the pay period: weekly, fortnightly or monthly. Each pay is taxed as if the employee earned that amount every period of the year, so the tax on one pay can look higher than their tax bracket. Their actual tax for the year is worked out in their tax return.

Tax can be higher than you expect when:

• Tax Free Threshold Claimed isn't ticked.
• HELP-HECS Loan is ticked, which adds a study loan repayment.
• Tax Offset Amount is a positive amount, which takes extra tax each pay.
• Tax Rate Fix Percent isn't 0, which uses that percentage instead of the tax table.
• Tax Scale is Working Holiday Makers or Foreign Resident, which have their own rates.
• One pay is larger than usual, such as back pay or a bonus.

These settings are in the Employee Tax section of the employee's profile. If you're an employee, ask your payroll office to check them. Payroll can navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees, click Edit next to the employee, change the setting, then click Reprocess above their payslip in a pay run that isn't complete.

See Tax Treatment Codes.

A broken shift allowance, also called a split shift allowance, is paid with an Extra Rule. The Extra Rule only pays it on days a Max Spread Rule joins the employee's shifts into one split shift, so the employee also needs a Max Spread Rule. Without one, no allowance is paid. See Add a Max Spread Rule.

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Payroll Rules > Extra Rules.
2. Click Create Extra Rule.
3. Choose the Split shift method.
4. Choose Per Split Shift, or Per Split Shift, Max once per day to pay it no more than once a day.
5. In Title, enter the title for the payslip, such as "Broken Shift Allowance".
6. In Staff, choose ALL, a Group or one employee.
7. In Fixed or Percentage, choose Fixed.
8. In Value, enter "19".
9. Choose the Class and STP Category for the allowance. See the Payments Classification Chart and STP Reporting Codes.
10. Click Add.

If your award pays the allowance as part of the employee's rate instead, choose Percentage. The Value is a decimal of their hourly rate: "0.5" pays half an hour of their rate.

See Pay a split shift allowance.

The ATO shows this message when it can't link the employee to your business. The ATO says you can request an employee's stapled super fund once you've lodged a TFN declaration or an STP pay event that includes them.

To fix it:

1. Lodge a pay run that includes the employee with STP, then request their stapled super fund again.
2. In the request, enter the employee's Username as their payroll ID, as that's the ID Microkeeper sends to the ATO. For example, if John Smith's username is john_smith, enter "john_smith". Their username is in the Username column of Menu > Settings > Employees.
3. Check the name, date of birth and tax file number in the request match their Microkeeper profile.

Once the ATO gives you their fund, enter it on the employee's profile. See Set Up Super.

To add a Group to your Microkeeper account:

1. Navigate to Menu > Manage > Groups.
2. Click Add Group at the top of the Groups list.
3. Enter the Group Name, for example "Kitchen Staff", "Front of House" or "Management". It can be up to 30 characters and must be different from your other Groups.
4. In Auto Add, choose Auto Add if new employees should be added to this Group automatically, or leave it Off.
5. Choose the Access: All for a Group used everywhere (the usual choice for a small business), Payroll for one used by payroll, such as the Group your pay rules apply to, Rosters for one used outside payroll, or Contracted Hours for a Contracted Hours Group.
6. Click Add Group.

The page shows Group Added. The new Group is empty until you add staff to it: tick the Group in the Groups list, click Display under Employee Allocation, and tick each employee who belongs in it.

See Create a Group and Choose a Group's Access.

You don't need to change anything. Microkeeper pays super to an employee under 18 for any pay run where they work 30 hours or more a week, counting their ordinary and overtime hours: 30 hours for a weekly pay run, 60 for a fortnightly one and about 130 for a monthly one.

The ATO says employees under 18 are eligible for super guarantee in a week they work more than 30 hours, whatever they're paid. See the ATO's Work out if you have to pay super.

See How is the superannuation for under 18 year old employees calculated and Who gets super.

The ATO says employees under 18 are only eligible for super guarantee in a week they work more than 30 hours. See the ATO's Work out if you have to pay super.

In Microkeeper, a casual or part time employee under 18 gets super for a pay run where they work 30 hours or more for each week in the pay period. The hours are counted for the whole pay run: for a fortnightly pay cycle, that's 60 hours in the fortnight. Only hours paid with the Class Normal or Overtime count.

An employee under 18 whose Employment Type is Full Time gets super on every payslip, whatever hours they work.

See Who gets super.

After adding a bank account to Microkeeper, you need to verify it to unlock all available banking features.

Navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Bank Details.

Any bank account that hasn't been verified yet shows a Verify button.

Click Verify, then Send Codes. Microkeeper sends two small deposits, each under $1, to your bank account.

These deposits usually appear in your bank account straight away, although this can vary with your bank.

The two deposit amounts are your two-part verification code. For example, if the deposits are $0.48 and $0.60, the verification codes are 48 and 60. Enter the two codes in Microkeeper to complete the verification.

Once the bank account has been verified, the Verify button is replaced with a green tick and Verified.

See Verify the bank account super is paid from.

You can set an employee's rostered shifts to show "Until Required" instead of an end time, in their Employee Profile.

Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees > click Edit for the applicable employee.

Under Employee Display, untick Show end time next to Roster End Time.

The employee's roster now shows "Until Required" instead of the end time of each shift. You still set an end time on the shift in the roster, and their hours come from when they clock off. See Roster questions.

This can happen when Roll Start Time Forwards is on and the employee clocks on and off close together, before their rostered start. Roll Start Time Forwards moves an early clock on forward to the rostered start, but it doesn't change the clock off.

To fix the shift, change its clock off time:

1. Navigate to Menu > Rosters > Timesheet.
2. Click the pencil beside the shift to open Edit shift.
3. Change the clock off to the time the employee finished.
4. Click Update.

If the employee clocked on and off by mistake and then clocked on again, the shift isn't needed: delete it with the bin in Edit shift instead.

Roll Start Time Forwards is set in Menu > Settings > General > Global, under Timesheet Settings. See Change or delete a shift.

Pay workers compensation with Class Workers Comp Entitlements. Each state's workers compensation law decides whether an employee builds up leave while they're on it, and Microkeeper follows the rule for the state in the employee's Timezone:

• Victoria, NSW, the ACT and Tasmania: annual leave and long service leave, but not personal leave.
• Queensland and WA: annual leave, personal leave and long service leave.
• South Australia: personal leave and long service leave, and annual leave for the first 52 weeks.
• Northern Territory: no leave.

In South Australia, once an employee has been on workers compensation for 52 weeks, pay their hours with a Class that doesn't build up annual leave.

See Workers Comp Entitlements by state.

Workers compensation payments can be paid automatically each pay with an Extra Rule.

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Payroll Rules > Extra Rules, and click Create Extra Rule.
2. Choose the Flat amount method.
3. Enter the Title shown on the payslip, such as "Workcover A Patel".
4. Under Staff, choose the employee, "Ava Patel".
5. Choose Fixed, and enter her hourly rate in Value: "25".
6. Enter "0" in Apply After, so it's paid whatever hours she works.
7. Enter the hours each week in Multiplier: "38".
8. Choose the Class Workers Comp Entitlements.
9. Choose the STP Category Workers Compensation.
10. Click Add.

The rule now pays 38 hours at $25 on each payslip, classed as Workers Comp Entitlements. These hours build up leave in the states that require it. See Workers Comp Entitlements by state.

The ATO's STP Phase 2 reporting quick reference guide lists workers compensation where no work is performed as paid leave, type W, which is the Workers Compensation STP Category. For an employee who is at work performing duties, the ATO says the payment is reported as gross, so choose Gross. See the ATO's STP Phase 2 reporting quick reference guide.

See Pay a set amount each pay.

You can add a leave request for an employee on the Leave Review page.

1. Navigate to Menu > HR > Leave Review.
2. Click + New Leave Request.
3. Choose the leave type under Select Leave Form.
4. Choose the Employee, then click Next.
5. Enter the start and end dates and times, and a comment if needed.
6. Tick I agree and click Submit.

You can use any active leave type, including ones staff can't request themselves. The request is marked as filled in by you.

See Request leave for an employee.

You can choose how much detail staff see on their payslips in Global Settings.

Navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Global, and under Payroll Settings, find Payslip Display.

Payslip Display has six options. Each one you tick splits the payslip's payments into more lines. For a simpler payslip, tick fewer boxes. For a detailed breakdown, tick more.

Payslip Display only changes what staff see. See Payroll Settings.

You can add shifts to the Timesheet from a CSV file, with one row for each shift. The dates in one file can span up to 31 days, and the file must be a .csv of 1 MB or less.

To import timesheets:

1. Navigate to Menu > Rosters > Timesheet.
2. Click CSV Export.
3. Click Import CSV and choose the file.
4. Check the message at the top of the page, which shows how many shifts were added, removed and skipped, and any names or codes that couldn't be matched.

Microkeeper matches each column by its heading in the first row, so the columns can be in any order and you can leave out the optional ones. Headings ignore capitals, spaces and symbols, so "Clock On", "clock on" and "Start" all work for the start time. If the first row doesn't have Employee, Date, Start and End headings, Microkeeper reads the columns in the order of the table below instead. The first row is never imported, so keep a heading row either way.

The columns:

Automated and Skippable Break Rules apply to imported shifts the same way they apply to any shift, so you only need the Break column for Selectable breaks. Imported shifts are approved.

A file from CSV Export > Export CSV on the same page has the right headings, so you can change it and import it back. It keeps each shift's Location, Role, Job, note, Higher Duties, Extra Rules and breaks.

A spreadsheet adds the double quotes around Drive@50,Meal when it saves the file as a CSV.

You can only import shifts for employees you manage. Unless you have Payroll access, the import is refused if payroll for any of the dates has already started.

See Import timesheets from a spreadsheet.

Super on leave loading can be turned on in each employee's profile, under Entitlements.

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees, and click Edit for the employee.
2. Under Entitlements, find Super on Leave Loading.
3. Select Apply Super.

With Apply Super, the Annual Loading line on their payslips gets the Class Bonus, which earns super. With No Super, it gets the Class Extra, which doesn't.

The ATO says annual leave loading counts as qualifying earnings, so super is paid on it, unless the loading is to make up for overtime the employee can't work while on leave. See the ATO's Super on annual leave loading.

See Change how super is worked out for an employee.

Microkeeper invoices are paid by credit card or PayPal. The card on file is charged on the 10th of each month.

To pay from your bank account, use PayPal. PayPal says you can link an Australian bank account to your PayPal account, and PayPal takes payments directly from it. To pay an invoice with PayPal:

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Billing.
2. Under Invoices, click Checkout next to the invoice.
3. Click PayPal and follow PayPal's steps.

See Pay an invoice and view past invoices.

To find a Job's JID, its unique Job ID:

1. Navigate to Menu > Manage > Jobs.
2. In the list of Jobs, hover over the number in the Job's ID column.

A popup shows the JID, for example "JID: 1234". The number in the column itself is only the row number, and the 3rd Party ID column holds the Job's ID in another system, if you've entered one.

See Jobs.

A Personal File is a document for one employee, kept on their employee profile, such as a letter of offer with their own pay and hours, a position description, a performance review or a disciplinary letter. You complete it for them and publish it, and they read it, and sign it if you ask them to, from their Employee Console under Skills & Files.

To issue a Personal File:

1. Open the employee's profile and go to Personal Files.
2. Click the + button.
3. Under Create from, choose Blank File, a template, or a file you've already issued to this employee.
4. Check the Title and Category, and click Add Personal File. The file opens as a Draft, which the employee can't see.
5. Complete the document or add an attachment, and choose the Action: Reference Only (they read it), Sight and Sign (they read and sign it), Critical (they sign it before they can clock on) or Admin Only (hidden from them).
6. Set Status to Published and click Save. Unless it's Admin Only, the employee is emailed that they have a file to complete.

Once the employee signs a file, its content can't be changed; you can only change its Category and Status. To hide a file from the employee and the profile's list without deleting it, set its Status to Archived.

You need HR - Full or HR - Config access to see Personal Files on a profile. For a document every employee in a Group signs, or one the employee uploads, such as a certificate, use a skill instead. See Skills or a Personal File.

See Personal Files.

Leave loading is set on each employee's profile.

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees.
2. Click Edit next to the employee.
3. Go to the Entitlements section of their profile.
4. In Annual Leave Loading, enter the loading as a percentage, such as "17.5".
5. Under Super on Leave Loading, choose Apply Super if super is paid on the loading, or No Super if it isn't.

Each annual leave line on the employee's payslip then gets an Annual Loading line. Check your award or agreement for the loading rate and whether super is paid on it.

See Pay annual leave loading.

Talk to your manager about your parental leave first. Fair Work says you need to give your employer at least 10 weeks' written notice before your unpaid parental leave starts, or as soon as you can if that isn't possible. See Fair Work's Applying for parental leave.

To request it in Microkeeper:

1. On your Employee Console, tap Leave, then Request Leave.
2. Choose Unpaid Parental Leave.
3. Choose the Start Date and End Date.
4. Read the terms, tick I agree, and tap Submit.

A request can cover up to 4 months, so for longer leave, make one request for each block of up to 4 months.

If Unpaid Parental Leave isn't in your list, your employer hasn't turned it on. Ask your manager: they can turn it on or record the leave for you. Unpaid Leave Request is also for time off without pay.

If you manage leave, turn Unpaid Parental Leave on in Leave Configuration, then record the leave from Menu > HR > Leave Review with New Leave Request. See Change a leave type and Request leave for an employee.

Access Control is the section of an employee's profile that decides which parts of Microkeeper they can use when they log in. Each person has their own settings, so you can give each manager the access their role needs. An employee with no options ticked uses the Employee Console only.

To open it, navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees, click Edit next to the employee and scroll to Access Control. Each option saves as soon as you change it. You need Payroll and Settings access to see this section.

The options are in two columns:

• Manager Options decide what someone can do for the staff they manage.
• Payroll/Admin options give access to whole areas of the business.

Manager Options

Payroll/Admin

Payroll/Admin options cover the whole business, not only the staff someone manages. The one limit is that a pay cycle can be set so only selected payroll staff can run it. See Which pay cycles payroll staff can run.

To open the profile of someone who has Employees, Roster, HR, Payroll or Settings access themselves, you need Payroll - Full Access and Settings. Without both, Microkeeper shows "Full admin access required for this user".

Allocated Staff List

The Allocated Staff List shows which active staff a manager manages, so you can check their Location option and Locations are set up the way you meant.

1. In the manager's Access Control, click Show Allocated Staff List.
2. Review the staff in the Allocated Staff window that opens.

Each row shows the employee's name, a Location pill with the Location they're managed through and, if the manager can run pay cycles, a Pay Cycle pill. When there's more than one, the pill shows a count, such as "2 Locations". Hover over a pill to see each one. To narrow the list, use the Locations and Pay Cycles filters or Search Employees. The count above the list shows how many staff match.

See Managers and Access for how access and Locations work together, and how to make someone a manager.

A manager's access is decided by the Locations they're assigned to. Each Location's managers can only do the tasks their Access Control allows for the staff of the Locations they manage, on the roster, timesheets, leave requests and other areas.

To limit a manager to certain Locations:

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees and click Edit for the manager.
2. Under Access Control, choose Location - Staff.
3. Navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Locations.
4. Click the pencil button next to a Location they manage.
5. Click the Access tab.
6. Check the Group is the Group of staff who work at this Location. The manager manages everyone in this Group.
7. In Managers, click Select Manager and tick the manager.
8. Click Update.

Managers with Location - All in their Access Control have manager access to every Location and every employee.

See Which staff a manager manages.

A Rest Step Up pays a shift at a different rate when the employee didn't get enough rest between it and their last shift. In payroll version 9 it's set up as a Rest Rule, on the Rest Rules tab of Shift Rules.

The Step Up condition has a lower and an upper limit, in hours of rest. For example, with 4 and 10 hours, the rule applies when the rest between the end of one shift and the start of the next is more than 4 hours but less than 10 hours. The lower limit stops the gap in a split shift counting as rest.

When a Rest Rule applies, it pays the shift instead of the Higher Duties, Worked PH, Leave and Normal Rules. The last shift of the previous pay period counts, so a short rest across two pay runs is still paid.

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Payroll Rules > Shift Rules.
2. Click the Rest Rules tab.
3. Click Add Rest Rule.
4. In Title, enter "Short Rest OT".
5. Choose who it applies to under Group/Employee, Employment Type and Day.
6. Under Type, choose Time of Day.
7. Under Period, enter Start "00:00" and End "24:00", so it covers the whole shift.
8. Leave Rate at "0", so it uses the employee's rate.
9. In Multiplier, enter "2".
10. Under Class, choose Overtime.
11. Choose the STP Category.
12. Under Step Up, enter Between "4" and "10" hours.
13. Click Add Shift Rule.

For what each Class does, see the Payments Classification Chart. See Pay more when there's too little rest between shifts.

Yes. Pay the employee their annualised salary by setting them to Salary, then turn on Shadow Payrun to compare it with what they would have earned from their timesheet hours and your Payroll Rules.

Fair Work says awards with annualised wage arrangements usually require you to compare the annualised wage with what the employee would have been paid under the award, every 12 months or when the arrangement or employment ends. See Fair Work's Annualised wages and salaries.

Shadow Payrun is available for employees set as Salary, Salary Ratio Fixed or Salary Ratio Dynamic. On each of their payslips, it shows two sections side by side:

• what the employee would be paid from their timesheet hours, with all Payroll Rules applied
• their standard salary calculation.

This lets you:

• compare their salary with the hours they actually worked
• find large differences between contracted hours and hours worked
• report on these differences over time with the Shadow Comparison report.

Turn on Shadow Payrun

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Global.
2. Click Payroll Settings.
3. Under Shadow Payrun, choose Shadow Payrun - Annualised Salary.

Choose each employee's Shadow Rate Rule

The Shadow Rate Rule sets the rate the timesheet calculation uses, to compare against their salary.

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees.
2. Click Edit next to the employee.
3. Go to the Payment and Employment section of their profile.
4. Under Salary, choose the Rate Rule in the Shadow Rate Rule list.

View the payslip

The employee's payslip then shows two sections:

• The grey section at the top is the timesheet calculation, with all Payroll Rules applied.
• The white section below it is their standard salary pay.

Report on the differences

Navigate to Menu > Payroll > Reports and open the Shadow Comparison report. It breaks down each employee by pay run, comparing their salary calculation with the shadow timesheet calculation.

Yes, terminated staff can still log in to their Microkeeper account, but with limited access.

Their Employee Console is restricted so they can see their payslips. Their clocking is turned off, and any manager or admin access they had in Access Control no longer applies while they're terminated. See Employee status: employed, paused or terminated.

A once-off commission or bonus can be added as a payment line on the employee's payslip.

1. Click + in the Payments heading of her payslip. The Add Payment window opens.
2. Enter the Title shown on the payslip: "Commission".
3. Enter the amount in Rate: "5000".
4. Leave Hours blank, so the earnings are the Rate times the Multiplier.
5. Enter "1" in Multiplier.
6. Choose Bonus under Class.
7. Choose Gross under STP.
8. Choose the Tax Method: PAYG for the standard tax table, or Method A or Method B(ii). For Method A or B(ii), choose the period it's paid for under Payment for, such as 1 Month.
9. Click Add Payment.

With Class Bonus and STP Category Gross, the commission attracts super and is reported to the ATO as bonuses and commissions. See the Payments Classification Chart and STP Reporting Codes.

The ATO's Schedule 5 tax table says to use Method A or Method B(ii) to work out the tax on a commission or bonus that relates to more than one pay period. See the ATO's Working out the withholding amount.

Payments can be uploaded in bulk from a CSV file, in the Bulk Actions of an unlocked pay run.

1. Click Bulk Actions at the top of the pay run.
2. Click Payment.
3. Click Import Payments via CSV and choose your file.
4. Check the lines it fills in, and the total.
5. Click Add Payments to add them to the payslips.

To get a file with the right columns, click Template / Export. The first row is the column headings, and each row after it is one payment. The columns, in order:

For example:

See Make the same change for many staff.

Payslips aren't emailed. Staff see their payslips on the Employee Console, on the Microkeeper website or app, once you lock the pay run.

To send payslips yourself, save them as a PDF:

1. Open the pay run and click Complete Payrun.
2. Under Create a backup, click Print Backup. The payslips open in a new tab.
3. Use your browser's print, and choose Save as PDF.

Download Backup also saves a copy of the pay run's payslips. See Complete the pay run and pay your team.

Staff can save or print their own payslips too. See Save or print a payslip.

Yes, you can. Microkeeper sends a PIN to check the number is yours. For numbers outside Australia and New Zealand, the PIN comes by WhatsApp instead of SMS, so you need WhatsApp on that number.

1. Tap Profile, then the pencil beside Mobile Number.
2. Choose your country from the list.
3. Enter your number, tick Confirm mobile number and tap Save.
4. Enter the PIN from WhatsApp and tap Save.

Other text messages from Microkeeper are only sent to Australian and New Zealand numbers. If the PIN doesn't arrive, check the number and try again, or talk to your manager.

See Your Payslips and Details.

Yes, selecting an Electronic Service Address (ESA) is required to add an SMSF in Microkeeper, in Menu > Settings > General > Super Settings. Beam uses it to send the SuperStream data with each contribution you pay through Pay Super.

Choose the ESA the fund currently uses. The employee, or the fund's accountant or administrator, can tell you which one it is. The Australia Post and SuperChoice ESAs have been retired, so Pay Super stops an SMSF that still uses one until you choose its new ESA.

The ATO says contributions an employer makes only to a related SMSF don't have to go through SuperStream. If that's you, you must still select an ESA during the setup, but the selected ESA will not change how you pay those contributions to the SMSF directly. See the ATO's How Payday Super affects SMSFs.

See Pay super to a self-managed super fund.

The leave types you can request depend on your employment type and how your employer has set up leave. Annual leave and long service leave only show if you build up a balance of them, so casuals usually don't see annual leave. If a type you need is missing, ask your manager. They can check your details, or request the leave for you.

If you manage leave, check these for the missing type:

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Global, click Entitlement Settings, then Configure Leave Types, and click the pencil on the leave type's card.
2. Check the switch at the top right is on, and that Active for includes the employee's employment type: Permanents + Casuals, or Permanents Only for full and part time staff.
3. Check Staff can request is ticked under Access. Without it, only managers can record that type.
4. For Annual Leave or Long Service Leave, navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees, click Edit for the employee, and check Entitled Annual Leave or Entitled Long Service Leave under Entitlements is above 0. Check their Employment Type is right too.

To record leave of a type staff can't request, navigate to Menu > HR > Leave Review and click New Leave Request. You can use any active leave type there.

If the Request Leave button is greyed out for everyone, leave requests aren't available on your organisation's current plan.

See Choose who can request a leave type.

You can email the staff who haven't completed a skill from Skill Review.

1. Navigate to Menu > HR > Skill Review.
2. Click Notify Staff. The Status filter changes to Skill Missing.
3. In the skill list beside Staff, choose the skill you want staff to complete. The staff in the skill's Group who haven't submitted it are listed.
4. Click Send Email Notification.

Each employee listed is emailed with the subject "Pending Skill to complete", naming the skill and asking them to log in to Microkeeper to complete it. Staff who use the Microkeeper app also get a notification on their phone.

See Follow up missing and expiring skills.

You can add shifts to the Timesheet from a CSV file, with one row for each shift. The dates in one file can span up to 31 days, and the file must be a .csv of 1 MB or less.

To import timesheets:

1. Navigate to Menu > Rosters > Timesheet.
2. Click CSV Export.
3. Click Import CSV and choose the file.
4. Check the message at the top of the page, which shows how many shifts were added, removed and skipped, and any names or codes that couldn't be matched.

Microkeeper matches each column by its heading in the first row, so the columns can be in any order and you can leave out the optional ones. Headings ignore capitals, spaces and symbols, so "Clock On", "clock on" and "Start" all work for the start time. If the first row doesn't have Employee, Date, Start and End headings, Microkeeper reads the columns in the order of the table below instead. The first row is never imported, so keep a heading row either way.

The columns:

Automated and Skippable Break Rules apply to imported shifts the same way they apply to any shift, so you only need the Break column for Selectable breaks. Imported shifts are approved.

A file from CSV Export > Export CSV on the same page has the right headings, so you can change it and import it back. It keeps each shift's Location, Role, Job, note, Higher Duties, Extra Rules and breaks.

A spreadsheet adds the double quotes around Drive@50,Meal when it saves the file as a CSV.

You can only import shifts for employees you manage. Unless you have Payroll access, the import is refused if payroll for any of the dates has already started.

See Import timesheets from a spreadsheet.

A registered tax or BAS agent lodges STP from the business's Microkeeper account, using their own Microkeeper login. Microkeeper then lodges under the agent's ABN and agent number. The business and the agent each set up a few things first.

If you're the business, first give your agent access:

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Linked Users.
2. Click Add User.
3. In Username, enter your agent's Microkeeper username.
4. Choose an Expiry long enough for them to lodge every pay run.
5. Tick I understand the access level implications, then click Add User.

Then add your agent's details to your ABN:

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Global, then click ABN and Pay Cycles.
2. On your ABN, click the pencil next to STP via Employer.
3. Choose STP via Tax Agent.
4. Enter your agent's ABN in Agent ABN.
5. Choose RAN - Registered Agent Number or TAN - Tax Agent Number, and enter the 8-digit number in Agent Number.
6. Click Update Agent.

If your agent lodges for more than one of your ABNs, do this on each one.

Then send your agent your Software ID. On Global, click STP Settings and copy the number next to ATO/SBR 'BMS ID' 'Software ID'. Your agent needs it to tell the ATO they lodge for you through Microkeeper.

If you're the agent, first tell the ATO you lodge for this client through Microkeeper:

1. Log in to the ATO's Access Manager for your practice.
2. Select My hosted software services, then Notify the ATO of your hosted service.
3. Search for the ABN "75909758040" and select THE TRUSTEE FOR MICROKEEPER UNIT TRUST.
4. Enter your client's Software ID, select Next, then Save.

The ATO lists 1300 85 22 32 for registered agents who can't notify it online. See the ATO's Registered agents providing a payroll service.

Then lodge each pay run from your own login:

1. Open your profile menu, click Business Switcher and choose your client's business.
2. Open the pay run's Complete Payrun menu and click 2. Submit to ATO.
3. Lodge as usual. The declaration has an As a Tax Agent section with your ABN and RAN or TAN.

See Lodge STP as a Registered Agent.

Leave is paid from the employee's Contracted Hours: the hours they'd normally work each day. Hours they clocked that day come off first, then a public holiday is paid, and approved leave pays what's left within the times the leave request covers. Days with no contracted hours pay no leave. If you're an employee and your leave looks wrong, talk to your manager.

To find what's wrong, click Simulate above the employee's payslip, then check:

1. Roster: the Roster Type and the contracted hours for each day of the leave. If they're wrong, change the employee's Contracted Hours on their profile. For Roster Calendar, check they're rostered on those days; a deleted shift means no leave is paid for that day.
2. Leave Requests: only approved requests are listed. If the request is missing, approve it in Menu > HR > Leave Review. Hover over the grey i to check its start and end times cover the days, and click View to change it.
3. Timesheet: no clocked shift on a leave day they didn't work. Clocked hours are paid as worked and come off the leave. If the shift shouldn't be there, delete it on the Timesheets page.

Once it's fixed, click Reprocess above the employee's payslip to update it.

See Check how leave was worked out with Simulate.

A line on a payslip can be deleted while the pay run is unlocked.

1. Click the pencil on the payslip line. The Update Payment window opens.
2. Click Delete.
3. Confirm the deletion.

Reprocessing the payslip works out its lines again from timesheets and pay rules, so a line you deleted can come back. Lines you added yourself stay deleted.

See Change a payslip.

Most app problems come from your phone's location or your login, and you can usually fix them yourself.

• User denied the request for Geolocation or Location information is unavailable: turn on Location in your phone's settings, allow Microkeeper to use it while you're using the app, and turn on precise location.
• Accurate location can not be determined: your location needs to be accurate to under 500 metres. Step outside or near a window, turn on Wi-Fi, and try again.
• Login details failed: on Android, clear the app's cache in Settings > Apps > Microkeeper > Storage. On iPhone, delete the app and download it again. Then log in again.

If you still can't clock on, tell your manager the time you started, so your hours are right.

See Let Microkeeper use your location, Fix problems logging in to the app and Fix a location problem when clocking.

Employees' addresses can be shown on their payslips by turning it on in Global Settings.

Navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Global, and under Payroll Settings, set Address on Payslip to Address in window for snail mail.

The employee's address is shown at the top of their payslip, placed to show through the window of a standard envelope. This setting applies to all employees. See Payroll Settings.

The Brand (Owner/Director/CEO/etc) is the Primary manager you choose for people at the top of your business who have no manager of their own, such as owners, directors or the CEO. Notification emails about them go to your business email, from Business Contact in Global Settings.

At least one person should have The Brand as their Primary manager, and Microkeeper reminds you if nobody does. To set it:

1. Navigate to Menu > Manage > Notification Config.
2. Hover over the employee's row. On a phone or tablet, tap the row.
3. In the Primary column, click the blue pencil button.
4. Choose The Brand (Owner/Director/CEO/etc).

The Brand can only be a Primary manager. If someone should get a type of email about this person, add them as a manager for that type.

1. Hover over the CEO's row.
2. In the Payroll Message column, click the grey plus button.
3. Choose the payroll officer.
4. Do the same in the Leave Requests column.

See Set each employee's Primary manager.

A meal allowance is an Extra Rule. To pay it on the shifts a manager ticks, such as when an employee works overtime that day:

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Payroll Rules > Extra Rules and click Create Extra Rule.
2. Choose Selected on the timesheet, then For every shift the rule is selected on.
3. In Title, enter "Meal Allowance". It's shown on the payslip.
4. Under Staff, choose who gets it.
5. Choose Fixed and enter your award's amount in Value, such as "20".
6. Choose Class Allowance and STP Category Overtime Meal.
7. Under Access, choose Manager only, or Staff and Manager.
8. Click Add.

To pay it, open the shift in Timesheets, click + under Extra Earnings, choose the rule, then save the shift. It's paid in the pay run that covers the shift.

The ATO lists expense allowances expected to be spent in full on the work as not qualifying earnings for super, so Class Allowance doesn't earn super.

To pay it automatically on long shifts instead, choose the Based on shifts worked method and For every shift worked, and enter the shift length that earns it in Apply After, such as "9.5". It's paid on each shift with at least that many paid hours, after unpaid breaks.

See Extra Rules.

You can add or update Jobs from a CSV file. The columns must be in the order below, and the first row is a header row, which isn't imported. The easiest way to get the right columns is to start from an export of your current Jobs.

To import Jobs:

1. Navigate to Menu > Manage > Jobs.
2. Click CSV Transfer > Export CSV to download your Jobs with the header row.
3. Edit the rows you want to change. For a new Job, add a row and leave JID blank.
4. Click CSV Transfer > Import CSV and choose the file. It must be a .csv of 1 MB or less.
5. Check the Jobs list and each Job's Status.

Each row updates the Job with the same JID, or if there isn't one, the Job with the same JobID, then the Job with the same title. A row that matches none of these is added as a new Job. A row with no title is skipped. After the import, the page shows how many rows were added (Insert) and how many were matched by Microkeeper ID, Third Party ID or Title.

The columns, in order:

Put any value that contains a comma in double quotes. Export CSV puts every value in double quotes already.

The import doesn't set the Deadline or the employees for Individual access, so set those on the Jobs page afterwards. See Add a Job.

A payment can be added to any payslip in an unlocked pay run with the + button in the Payments heading.

Click +, on the right of the Payments heading. The Add Payment window opens. Fill in:

• Title: the title shown on the employee's payslip.
• Rate: the rate to pay.
• Hours: the hours to pay. Leave it blank for a set amount, so the earnings are the Rate times the Multiplier.
• Multiplier: the multiplier of the rate.
• Class: decides whether it attracts super, builds up leave and is taxed. See the Payments Classification Chart.
• STP: how it's reported to the ATO. See STP Reporting Codes.
• Tax Method: choose PAYG for standard payments.
• Date, Location, Role and Job: shown if your Payroll Breakdown records them.

Click Add Payment. The Expenses and Deductions headings have a + button too.

Lines you add stay on the payslip when it's reprocessed. See Change a payslip.

Your business bank accounts are where wages are paid from in the ABA file, and where super is direct debited from. Add them before you set up your pay cycles.

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Bank Details.
2. Click Add Bank Account, then choose Withdrawal.
3. Enter a Nickname you'll recognise, for example "Sydney Wages".
4. Enter the Account Name, BSB and Account Number.
5. Enter the APCA code your bank gives you for ABA files, sometimes called a User ID or Direct Entry number, and choose your bank in Bank Code.
6. In Group, choose All if the account pays wages and super, Wages for wages only, or Super for super only.
7. Enter a Reference, for example "SYD WAGES". It appears on bank statements. Keep it to 12 characters or fewer, or the ABA file won't generate.
8. Click Add Bank Account.

Before you pay super from the account, verify it: click Verify next to it, then Send Codes, and enter the two amounts under $1 that arrive in the account. See Set Up Super.

Then choose the account as the Wage Bank Account on each pay cycle. Deposit accounts are for money you pay to someone else, such as child support deductions.

See ABNs and Pay Cycles.

To resolve the error message "Super Frequency is missing Global Settings" on Menu > Payroll > Super:

1. Click the Global Settings link in the message, or navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Global > Super Settings.
2. Set Super Frequency to how often the business pays super.

The options are:

• Payrun: super is paid with every pay run. Choose this if you pay super from each pay run's 4. Pay Super.
• Monthly: super is paid once a month.
• Quarterly: super is paid once a quarter.

From 1 July 2026, the ATO's Payday Super rules say super is paid for each payday. See Pay super on payday and Sign up to Beam.

Before your first STP lodgement, add Microkeeper as your hosted software in the ATO's Access Manager, using your Software ID. You only do this once.

To find your Software ID, navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Global, click STP Settings, and copy the number in ATO/SBR 'BMS ID' 'Software ID'. It's also shown, with a Copy button, in the Software ID Setup panel on 2. Submit to ATO in Complete Payrun.

Then log in to the ATO's Access Manager for business software users:

1. Select My hosted software services.
2. Select Notify the ATO of your hosted service.
3. Search for the ABN 75909758040.
4. Select the ABN link for THE TRUSTEE FOR MICROKEEPER UNIT TRUST.
5. Enter your Software ID and select Next.
6. Read the Notification statement, then select Save.

Access Manager then lists Microkeeper as your software service provider, with your Software ID.

See Add your Software ID in the ATO's Access Manager.

To test whether an employee receives notifications, send them a test notification from the Employees page.

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees.
2. Find the employee.
3. Click the Apple or Android logo in their Push column.

Their phone should show a "Push successful" notification. If there's no logo in their Push column, they haven't yet downloaded the Microkeeper app, allowed notifications and logged in to the app.

Employees can test it themselves too: in the app, tap Profile > Your Devices, and tap Test Push beside their phone. If notifications don't arrive, they turn notifications on for Microkeeper in their phone's settings, then log out of the app and back in. See Turn on notifications.

An Extra Rule that uses a code pays an allowance when its code is typed in the note of a shift on the timesheet. The code is the first word of the rule's Title. A rule titled "MEAL Overtime Meal Allowance" pays its Value once for each time "MEAL" is typed as a word in a shift's note in the pay run. Capitals don't matter.

A code ending in @ pays for a number typed after it. A rule titled "Drive@ Car Allowance" with a Value of $0.88 pays 50 x $0.88 when a note says "drive@50".

Codes are being retired. Code rules you already have are still paid. The Code lookup method, and the per hour option Hours when a code is in the note, only show when you create a rule if your business already has a code rule.

Replace a code with a rule ticked on the shift

A Selected on the timesheet rule does the same job without a code: a manager ticks the allowance on the shift.

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Payroll Rules > Extra Rules.
2. Click Create Extra Rule.
3. Click the Selected on the timesheet method.
4. Enter "Overtime Meal Allowance" in Title. It's shown on the payslip.
5. Under Staff, choose ALL.
6. Choose Fixed.
7. Enter "20" in Value.
8. Enter "0" in Apply After.
9. Choose Class Allowance.
10. Choose STP Category Overtime Meal.
11. Under Access, choose Manager only, or Staff and Manager to let staff tick it on their own shifts.
12. Click Add.

For a code that's paid per hour, choose Per hour worked and Hours when the rule is selected on the shift instead. For an @ code, choose Selected with a quantity, and enter the amount per unit in Value.

To pay the new rule, open the shift on the timesheet, click + next to Extra Earnings, choose the rule and click Update. See How do I add a code to a Timesheet.

See Extra Rules that use codes.

An employee's leave entitlements are set in the Entitlements section of their profile.

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees.
2. Click Edit next to the employee.
3. Go to the Entitlements section of their profile.
4. Change the entitlement for the leave type.

• Entitled Annual Leave: how many weeks of annual leave the employee is entitled to each year, such as "4".
• Entitled Personal Leave: how many weeks of personal leave the employee is entitled to each year, such as "2".
• Entitled Long Service Leave: "1 out of" a number of weeks: the weeks of employment for each 1 week of long service leave.

Entitlements are in weeks, and 0.2 weeks is 1 day. Leave types you've added yourself also show here as Entitled followed by the leave type's name.

Leave builds up a little in each pay run, as a share of the ordinary hours paid in it. With Accrual Fixed to Weekly Ordinary Hours under Pro-Rata/Fixed Entitlements, it builds up from the employee's Weekly Ordinary Hours instead. A change applies from the next pay run you process.

To set the entitlement new staff start with, see Set the default entitlement for new staff.

How an employee is paid is set under Salary, in Payment and Employment on their profile.

Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees, click Edit next to the employee, and under Payment and Employment, choose an option under Salary:

See The employee profile.

You can withhold extra PAYG for an employee for their HELP-HECS in the Employee Tax section of the Employee Profile.

Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees > click Edit for the employee> in the Employee Profile, under Employee Tax -

Select the HELP check box under the HELP-HECS Loan option.

Once enabled the HELP-HECS amount will be withheld on the employees payslip.

The Tax area of the payslip will be updated with Tax - with HELP-HECS.

The Pro-Rata/Fixed Entitlements setting in an employee's profile decides which hours their leave builds up from.

• Pro-Rata Leave Accrual (Proportional to hours worked): the employee builds up leave from the ordinary hours paid on each payslip. If they work more or fewer hours than their contracted hours, their leave changes to match. This suits most employees.
• Accrual Fixed to Weekly Ordinary Hours: the employee builds up the same amount of leave each pay run, from the Weekly Ordinary Hours set in their profile, whatever hours they worked.

For Pro-Rata, only payslip lines with the Class Normal build up leave, plus Workers Comp Entitlements in the states that require it. Overtime, Bonus, Extra and Allowance lines don't. See the Payments Classification Chart.

To change the setting:

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees.
2. Click Edit next to the employee.
3. Go to the Entitlements section of their profile.
4. Under Pro-Rata/Fixed Entitlements, choose Pro-Rata Leave Accrual or Accrual Fixed to Weekly Ordinary Hours.

See Choose how a leave type builds up.

To add a Job to a shift in the timesheet, edit the shift.

1. Navigate to Menu > Rosters > Timesheet.
2. Click the pencil beside the shift. The Edit shift form opens.
3. Choose the Job.
4. Click Update.

The shift now shows the Job. See Change or delete a shift.

You sign up to Beam from Microkeeper.

1. Navigate to Menu > Payroll > Super, and choose the ABN.
2. Click Setup Beam. Beam's sign-up opens in a new tab.
3. Click Start.
4. Work through Beam's four steps, Your details, Payment method, Default fund and T&C, clicking Next at the bottom of each.
5. When you see "Congratulations!", click Back to Microkeeper.

Before you pay super, verify the bank account super is paid from in Menu > Settings > General > Bank Details.

See How do I get started using Microkeeper for Superannuation and Sign up to Beam.

You pay super from each pay run, once the pay run is complete.

1. Navigate to Menu > Payroll > Payruns, click View on the pay run, then Complete Payrun and 4. Pay Super.
2. Click New Super Submission.
3. Choose the staff, usually All staff (Recommended), and click Prepare Super Report.
4. Fix any errors the report lists, then click Submit Super and follow the payment steps.

Menu > Payroll > Super lists every super payment for a financial year. Click a payment's pay run to open its Pay Super.

See Paying Super.

Super contributions that have been refunded are redone from the pay run the super was paid from.

1. Navigate to Menu > Payroll > Payruns, click View on the pay run, then Complete Payrun and 4. Pay Super.
2. Open the Refunds / Skipped tab. It lists super a fund refunded, and staff left out of a payment, each with its message.
3. Fix the employee's details the message points to, such as their super fund or member number.
4. Tick the payments to redo, and click Redo Selected.
5. Check the report, action any errors, and pay it as usual.

To find refunds across all pay runs, navigate to Menu > Payroll > Super, choose the ABN and click Refunds. This list can be filtered by financial year. For a refund from a pay run's super, click Redo to open that pay run's Pay Super, then follow the steps above.

A refund of super paid from Menu > Payroll > Super, rather than from a pay run, is redone from this list. Click Redo, and a Super Contribution report is prepared for the refunded amount and employee. Action any errors and click Submit Super to process the refund.

See Redo refunded or skipped super.

The ATO lists codes to enter in place of a tax file number when an employee doesn't give you one. Enter the code in the employee's Tax File Number TFN field, from Menu > Settings > Employees and Edit next to the employee.

• 000000000: The employee chooses not to quote a TFN, or doesn't provide one within 28 days.
• 111111111: The employee has applied for a TFN but hasn't received it yet.
• 333333333: The employee is under 18 and earns $350 or less weekly, $700 or less fortnightly, or $1,517 or less monthly.
• 444444444: The employee receives a social security or service pension or benefit, and claims an exemption from quoting a TFN.
• 987654321: The employee quoted a TFN with letters in it, or a TFN that doesn't fit in the field.

The ATO explains these in its TFN declaration payer information. Staff who don't have a TFN should apply for one straight away. Hover over the i next to the Tax File Number TFN field to see the codes in Microkeeper.

See Set up a new employee for Single Touch Payroll.

When an employee leaves without working their notice, add a payment in lieu of notice to their final payslip.

1. On the employee's payslip, click the plus button to the right of Payments. The Add Payment window opens.
2. In Title, enter "Payment in Lieu of Notice".
3. Enter their Rate and the notice period in Hours.
4. In Class, choose Bonus. It's taxed and earns super, but doesn't build up leave.
5. In STP, choose Type O - Taxable. If the notice is paid because of a genuine redundancy, choose Type R - Taxable instead.
6. Click Add Payment.
7. Click Final to terminate the employee. STP reports the payment with their Termination Date.

Check the Tax on the payslip matches the ATO's withholding rates for termination payments. To change it, click the pencil next to Tax and save.

See STP Reporting Codes.

No. The Beam super clearing house is included in your Microkeeper subscription at no additional cost, including when you pay super from every pay run.

See Sign up to Beam.

Yes. You can view and export the STP data before you lodge it, on the pay run's Single Touch Payroll ATO Lodgement page. Each lodgement sends year-to-date amounts, so to see the figures for the financial year so far, open the latest pay run.

1. Navigate to Menu > Payroll > Payruns.
2. On the Processed tab, click View next to the latest pay run of the financial year.
3. Click Complete Payrun.
4. Click 2. Submit to ATO.
5. Under Prepare to Lodge STP, choose the STP Submission type and the event type under What Event Type is being lodged?, as you would to lodge.
6. Click Review Data to see the data on screen, or CSV Export to download it as a spreadsheet.

Review Data shows Employee STP Data, one row per employee with their year-to-date amounts, and Show Business Data shows the business details being sent. Reviewing or exporting the data doesn't lodge anything.

See Check the STP data before you lodge.

When you start a pay run, the New Payrun window lists pending leave requests under Payment Date, with the message "These Pending Leave Requests fall within this Pay Period:".

The check includes leave requests that start on the day after the pay period ends, because a night shift on the last day of the period can run into the next day.

If no one worked a night shift into the next day, you can leave the request for the next pay run, or click Leave Request to review it now.

See Start a pay run.

An employee's payslip can be worked out again with Reprocess, above their payslip.

1. Click Reprocess above the employee's payslip.
2. Click Confirm Reprocess.

Changes to any of these are then used on the payslip:

• Timesheet
• Employee Profile
• Global Settings
• Payroll Rules
• Groups

The lines Microkeeper worked out are worked out again, so changes you made to them by hand, including a tax amount you changed, are lost. Lines you added to the payslip stay.

To reprocess everyone in the pay run, click Bulk Actions, then Reprocess. Tick I understand and click Confirm Reprocess Payrun.

See Reprocess a pay run after changes.

You can submit a skill on behalf of an employee from Skill Review, such as when you have their certificate yourself.

1. Navigate to Menu > HR > Skill Review.
2. Click Submit on Behalf. The Submit Skill on Behalf window opens.
3. Under Skills, choose the skill.
4. Under Employee to Submit For, choose the employee.
5. Click Submit On Behalf. The skill opens in a new tab.
6. Complete the skill as the employee would.
7. Submit it.

See Submit a skill for an employee.

Set a salaried employee to Salary on their profile. Each pay run then pays their Weekly Ordinary Hours at their Default rate, whatever their timesheets show.

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees, and click Edit next to the employee.
2. Under Payment and Employment, enter their Weekly Ordinary Hours, such as "38".
3. Type their yearly salary into the Salary calculator, such as "79040". It fills in the Default rate.
4. Under Salary, choose Salary.

Enter the hours for one week, even if you pay fortnightly or monthly: Microkeeper multiplies them for the pay period. If the employee has a Rate Rule, its rate is used instead of the Default rate.

See What are the pay type options in for an employee and Set the employee's pay before their first pay run.

Add Super adds a one-off super amount to a payslip, as either Super Guarantee (SG) or a Reportable Employer Super Contribution (RESC). A negative amount takes super off.

To add concessional (before tax) or non-concessional (after tax) super that the employee contributes, use an Expense or Deduction Rule instead. See Expense and deduction classes.

1. Above the employee's payslip, click Actions, then Add Super.
2. Choose the Type: SG for Super Guarantee, or RESC for Reportable Employer Super Contributions.
3. Enter the Amount of super to add, or a negative amount to take off.
4. Click Add Super.

For SG, two "Fix Super" lines are added to the payslip to work out the super. For RESC, a "RESC" line and a "RESC Liability" line are added. Each pair cancels out, so it doesn't change the employee's pay.

See Other super on the payslip.

Each employee can clock on and off with a different method of your choice.

These options are set in the Employee Clocking section of the Employee Profile.

Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees > click the Edit button for the employee you want to set up > Employee Profile > Employee Clocking, and choose their level:

Each level also allows the ways listed above it. Staff you add with Add Employee start on NFC / Fingerprint, so change it for staff who clock from their phone. See Choose how each employee clocks, and Facial Recognition to set up the iPad.

The Primary Manager can be changed on the Notification Config page.

Navigate to Menu > Manage > Notification Config.

1. Hover over the employee's row to show its buttons. On a phone or tablet, tap the row.
2. In the Primary column, click the blue pencil button.
3. Choose the manager. It saves straight away.

For owners and directors who have no manager, choose The Brand (Owner/Director/CEO/etc). See Set each employee's Primary manager.

A novated lease is an agreement between an employer, an employee and a lease provider, where the employer makes the lease repayments and deducts them from the employee's pay.

Set up the repayments as Deductions Rules. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Payroll Rules > Deductions Rules.

To set up the before tax (pre-tax) part:

1. Open the Expenses tab and click Add New Expense Rule.
2. Enter the Title, such as "Pre-Tax Novated Lease".
3. Under Staff, choose the employee.
4. Choose Fixed.
5. Enter the amount to deduct in Value: the weekly amount for weekly and fortnightly pay cycles, or the amount for each pay for monthly and semi-monthly.
6. Under Class, choose the Fringe Benefit option that matches how the lease is treated for fringe benefits tax: Fringe Benefit Exempt - Salary Sacrificed or Fringe Benefit Taxable - Salary Sacrificed.
7. Click Add Rule.

To set up the after tax (post-tax) part:

1. Open the Deductions tab and click Add New Deduction Rule.
2. Enter the Title, such as "Post-Tax Novated Lease".
3. Under Staff, choose the employee.
4. Choose Fixed.
5. Enter the amount to deduct in Value, the same way as above.
6. Choose NA as the Class.
7. Click Add Rule.

The amounts are then deducted automatically in each pay run. See Expense and deduction classes.

Yes. When an employee requests Personal Leave, they answer Do you have a Doctor's Certificate? If they answer yes, they can upload it straight after they submit the request.

If they get the certificate later, they open the request under Leave on their Employee Console and tap the upload button beside Upload a file. A manager reviewing the request can also add the file with the upload button under Uploaded Files.

See Can employees submit doctor certificates with their personal leave and Upload a doctor's certificate.

This message means the Electronic Service Address (ESA) entered for the employee's self-managed super fund (SMSF) doesn't recognise the fund's ABN, so the contribution details couldn't be delivered to the fund. Beam shows it as warning WRN098.

1. Ask the employee for their SMSF's correct ESA and ABN.
2. Navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Super Settings.
3. Click the pencil next to the SMSF.
4. Check the ABN, and choose the correct Electronic Service Address.
5. Click Update SMSF.

If the SMSF still uses the retired Aus Post or SuperChoice ESA, change it to the one the employee gives you. If the fund refunds a contribution, it shows on the Refunds / Skipped tab of Pay Super, where you can redo it once the details are fixed.

See Warning from Beam WRN098 and Pay super to a self-managed super fund.

Pay a first aid allowance with an Extra Rule, so it's added to each pay run for your first aiders.

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Payroll Rules > Extra Rules and click Create Extra Rule.
2. Choose Flat amount if your award pays it weekly, or Based on days worked and For every day worked if it pays per day.
3. Enter the Title, such as "First Aid Allowance". It's shown on the payslip.
4. Under Staff, choose a Group of your first aiders, or one employee.
5. Choose Fixed and enter the rate from your award in Value. For Flat amount, enter the weekly amount.
6. Enter "0" in Apply After.
7. Choose Class Bonus and STP Category Tasks. Bonus earns super, but doesn't build up leave.
8. Click Add.

To check it, look at the next pay run's payslips for your first aiders.

See Add an Extra Rule.

Yes. When the ATO publishes new tax tables, usually from 1 July, Microkeeper updates its tax calculations. You don't need to change anything.

Microkeeper works out the tax on each payslip with the tables for the financial year of the pay run's Payment Date. A pay run with a Payment Date on or after 1 July uses the new year's tables, even if its pay period started in June.

The tax on a payslip also depends on the employee's own tax details, such as whether they claim the tax-free threshold or have a study loan. If the tax on a payslip looks wrong, check those details first.

The ATO lists the current tax rates for Australian residents, and the tax tables employers use to work out how much tax to withhold.

Yes, sub-contractors can be paid super in Microkeeper.

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees, and click Edit for the sub-contractor.
2. In the Employee Profile, under Payment and Employment, find Employment Type.
3. Select Sub-Contractor with Super.

The ATO says a contractor paid wholly or principally for their labour is treated as an employee for super guarantee, so you pay them super. See the ATO's Work out if you have to pay super.

See Who gets super.

You can filter the Timesheet page by Group if your Access Control includes Location - All.

1. Navigate to Menu > Rosters > Timesheet.
2. Click the funnel on the left to open Employee Filters.
3. Under Group, choose the Group.

If you don't see Group, ask an admin to set your Location access to Location - All under Access Control on your employee profile. Managers with Location - Staff see only the staff at the Locations they manage. See Choose the week and staff to show.

The default fund can be changed in your Beam settings.

1. Navigate to Menu > Payroll > Super, and choose the ABN.
2. Click Beam Settings.
3. Follow the prompts to reconfigure the default fund.

You can also start from Menu > Settings > General > Global > Super Settings: click Beam Config next to Default Super Fund.

Your current default fund shows under Default Super Fund in that section, and on each ABN's card in ABN and Pay Cycles. See Sign up to Beam.

Yes. When employees request Personal Leave, they answer Do you have a Doctor's Certificate? If they answer yes, they can upload the file straight after they submit the request.

If they don't have the file yet, they can upload it later from their Employee Console: they tap Leave, open the request, and tap the upload button beside Upload a file. Until it's uploaded, the Employee Console reminds them under Leave Requiring Action.

Staff can attach files to other kinds of leave the same way, such as a funeral notice for Compassionate Leave.

A salary is a fixed amount an employer pays an employee regularly.

In Microkeeper this is most commonly set up as a fixed hourly rate multiplied by a fixed number of hours each pay period.

To set up an employee on a salary, navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees and click Edit next to the employee. Under Payment and Employment:

1. Enter their hourly rate in Default under Rates.
2. Enter their Weekly Ordinary Hours, for example "38". Use their weekly hours, whether they're paid weekly, fortnightly or monthly.
3. In Salary, choose Salary.

The Salary calculator then shows their yearly salary. You can also type the yearly salary into the Salary calculator to work out the hourly rate.

Payslips for a salaried employee use their Weekly Ordinary Hours instead of their timesheets. They can still clock their hours, so you can compare the hours worked with the hours paid.

See Set the employee's pay before their first pay run.

A timesheet is the record of an employee's worked hours during a pay period.

In Microkeeper this is a record of each shift's start and finish time. Microkeeper then calculates the total length of the shift for you.

Employees can then have their earnings calculated from their timesheets for a pay period, including overtime, penalty rates and more.

See How Timesheets Work.

A roster is a timetable showing the dates and times employees are required to work, given to employees in advance.

In Microkeeper, each rostered shift has a start and end time, and can include the Location, Role and Job the employee is expected to work in.

See How Rostering Works.

A payslip is a document with the details of an employee's pay for each pay period.

Common items on a payslip are:

• Hourly rates
• Hours worked at each rate
• Superannuation calculations
• Gross payments
• Tax deducted
• Net pay
• Leave balances
• Year-to-date gross earnings, tax and net earnings

See Review the payslips.

A pay run is the process of paying your employees for work done in a pay period.

In Microkeeper, a pay run calculates each employee's pay from their approved timesheets or salary, your pay rules, and any leave and public holidays in the pay period, then works out their super and tax.

See Payroll workflow in Microkeeper.

If an employee's clock-on times are different from their local time, the Timezone on their employee profile is probably wrong. Microkeeper records their clock times in the timezone on their profile, and uses Victoria time if it's blank.

To fix it, update their Timezone:

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees.
2. Click Edit next to the employee.
3. Under Address, choose the state they work in from Timezone.

The change applies the next time the employee logs in, so ask them to log out and back in. Shifts already recorded keep their times; correct any wrong ones on the Timesheet page.

You need Payroll access to see the Timezone field. See The employee profile.

Each employee's clock times use the Timezone on their profile, which is the state they work in. When you add an employee, Microkeeper fills it in from the state in their address, or from your business's Timezone if their address has no state.

To change it, navigate to Menu > Settings > Employees, click Edit next to the employee, and choose their state under Timezone in the Address section. You need Payroll access to see it.

For public holidays only, you can use the state of the Location they work at instead: choose Timezone from Location State under Get Timezone in Menu > Settings > General > Global.

See Why is the clockin time different from the employees local time.

When the business that employs your staff changes to a new ABN, add the new ABN in the same Microkeeper account and move your staff to a pay cycle under it. Your employees keep their profiles, and each ABN lodges Single Touch Payroll (STP) for the pay runs paid under it.

The ATO says that when your business structure changes your ABN, you finalise your STP reporting under the old ABN, which you can do up until 14 July, and start reporting under the new ABN from zero year-to-date amounts. In Microkeeper, the new ABN's year-to-date amounts start from its first pay run. See the ATO's When STP reporting can cease.

Add the new ABN

1. Navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Global, then click ABN and Pay Cycles.
2. Click Add ABN.
3. Enter the new ABN in Enter ABN.
4. Click Add ABN / Branch Code. A card for the new ABN appears.
5. Click the pencil button next to the new ABN's name.
6. Enter its Phone and Email.
7. In Super Bank Account, choose the account the new ABN pays super from.
8. Click Update ABN.
9. On the new ABN's card, click the pencil next to No address set.
10. Enter the new ABN's address and click Save.
11. On the new ABN's card, click Add Pay Cycle.
12. Set up the pay cycle, choosing its Wage Bank Account, and click Add Pay Cycle.

For each field of a pay cycle, see Add or change a pay cycle.

Before the new ABN's first pay run, add Microkeeper as its hosted software in the ATO's Access Manager, and sign it up to Beam for super. See Add your Software ID in the ATO's Access Manager and Sign up to Beam.

When the old ABN has paid its last pay run, move your staff across: click the number in the new pay cycle's Staff column and tick the staff it pays. This takes them out of the old pay cycle, so do it after the old pay cycle's last pay run is processed.

Once the old ABN's STP is finalised, archive the old pay cycle: click the pencil at the end of its row, choose Archived under Active, and click Update Pay Cycle. It stays in your reports.

Choose when to change

For more on ABNs and pay cycles, see ABNs and Pay Cycles.

To resolve Validation errors from Beam - ERR051 - The SMSF is not an active fund at this time. Please confirm with the employee that the provided ABN is correct. - USI (fund name):

1. Check with the employee that the ABN they gave for their self managed super fund (SMSF) is correct.
2. You can also use the ATO's Super Fund Lookup to check the fund exists and is active.
3. If the ABN is wrong, navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Super Settings and click the pencil next to the SMSF.
4. Correct the ABN and click Update SMSF.

If the employee has moved to a different fund, change it in their profile's Super Fund Details instead. Then submit the super again. See Enter an employee's super fund.

To resolve Warnings from Beam - WRN098 - The ESA service provider has advised that the ABN for this self managed super fund is unknown to them. Please obtain the correct ESA from the employee. - USI (fund name):

1. Confirm ESA details: contact the employee to confirm the Electronic Service Address (ESA) their SMSF uses. Their accountant or SMSF administrator can also tell you.
2. Update the SMSF: navigate to Menu > Settings > General > Super Settings, click the pencil next to the SMSF, choose the correct Electronic Service Address and click Update SMSF.
3. Verify with the fund: if the warning continues, contact the SMSF to check that all its details, including the ABN and ESA, are accurate and up to date.

This warning doesn't stop you from paying the super. See Pay super to a self-managed super fund.