Completing your Rate Rise
Each year the Fair Work Commission raises the minimum wage by a percentage. The rate rise tool will assist you in updating your rates across the system for the required pay period.
In this article we'll cover:
- Important considerations before starting your rate rise
- Setting up a rate rise
- Selecting awards to increase
- Updating classifications
- Updating rates books
- Updating employee positions (on-award and above-award)
- Updating allowances
- FAQs
Please be aware of the following:
- The rate rise will be effective from July 1.
- The increased rate applies to the first full pay period after July 1.
- Regardless of the percentage increase, you should set your classifications to match the pay guide exactly.
- You may not add new or edit existing positions, awards, or rates books while a rate rise is pending. Doing so may result in a failed rate rise.
Resources
Subscribe to the Fair Work Commission to get updates on your awards.
Download a copy of the latest pay guides from Fair Work.
Register for our free On-Demand Masterclass which contains a specific portion on rate rises.
Watch our Rate Rise videos below for a high-level look at the process.
Additional Resources
To learn how to manage an Annual Wage Increase, watch the below videos. More detail is provided in each step in the article below.
Please note: You should watch both videos to ensure that you execute your rate rise effectively.In this video you'll learn more about:
- Key Facts about Annual Wage Increases.
- How to set the date for your rate rise in your platform.
In this video you'll learn more about:
- How to access the rate rise tool in your platform.
- Choosing the date and percent increase for your rate rise.
- Selecting the Awards to increase.
- Checking the classifications and editing where needed.
- How to edit the rates book for your rate rise.
- Checking the rates for your permanent employees.
- Checking the rates for your casual employees.
- Adjusting your Allowances including award, meal, shift and profile allowances.
After the successful Rate Rise Assistance Sessions, we are excited to announce the continuation of this service!
Would you like to do your rate rise this year with a Coach? This will provide you with a multitude of benefits if you feel you need extra support during Rate rise time.
- You will drive the rate rise tool so that you can learn the process, and your CS coach will be there to guide you through.
- Your session will be recorded - You can use this for future rate rises, so you won't need any help next time!
- It's Easy to book - Sign up in May/June through the form link in the Rate Rise Article. Keep in mind spaces will fill up fast, so get in early!
- A low fee of $350* for a session (1 hour duration) *GST exclusive. Pricing is effective as of May 2024. Pricing is subject to change.
If this is your first year with foundU, you're in implementation or are on our Enterprise package; there will be no cost. We will support you through your first Rate Rise if you need assistance in addition to the available resources.
Sign me up for Rate Rise Assistance!
Register your interest by filling out the form details below, and we will be in touch!
Using The Rate Rise Tool
Before you start, please consider the following:
- The rate rise applies to the first full pay period after the effective date.
- Print the new Pay Guide for your Award or have it on a second monitor for easy reference. You will need this for steps 2- 5 of the Rate Rise process. These will often be released a day or two before the effective date.
- Even if your business doesn’t pay an Award, you’ll still need to ensure that your agreement meets the minimum wage rates.
- Set aside an appropriate amount of time to complete the rate rise. For single awards, allow 30 minutes; if you have multiple Awards, please allow 30 minutes per Award. For businesses using charge rates, you should allow a few hours.
- If you need to edit or add new positions, awards, or rates books, do this before starting the rate rise or after it has been processed. Changes made to these things during a pending rate rise may cause errors or for your rate rise to not be processed.
Please note: Your rate increase will be processed overnight based on the date you choose to apply it, and will be updated in your platform by the next morning. If you're scheduling the rate increase, the earliest it can take effect is the day after you finish applying it.
Once the pay guides have been released and you've determined the pay period this will apply to you will be ready to start your rate rise.
To create a new rate rise:
- From the main menu, navigate to Payroll Settings > Rate Rise.
- Here you will see any incomplete rate rises in progress, any scheduled and any complete rate rises. You can use the badges in the top right to filter them by these statuses.
- Select + New rate rise.
Hot tip: You can see past rate rises from previous years by selecting the down arrow next to the year.
To use the rate rise tool, the first step is to enter important details such as the effective date as specified by Fair Work, the percentage increase, and the date you want the rate rise tool to be triggered.
Please note: Your rate increase will be processed overnight based on the date you choose to apply it, and will be updated in your platform by the next morning. If you're scheduling the rate increase, the earliest it can take effect is the day after you finish applying it.
Set up your rate rise.
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Select the rate rise date, if necessary.
- This value will default to 1 July 2024 which is accurate for all awards this financial year.
- Set the base rise percentage increase.
- Select how often payroll is processed.
- Click Next.
From the below tabs, select the timeframe you pay to view the appropriate instructions.
- Choose the date you will run a final payroll using the old rates.
- If you're completing your rate rise after you've run the final payroll at the old rate, you will be prompted to select the following:
- Choose the period end date of your final payroll. The day after this date will be used as the start of your first full pay period at the new rate.
- Select the date you want to schedule your rate rise. The earliest selection for this will be the next day as the rate rises will process overnight.
- Choose the date you will run a final payroll using the old rates.
- Choose the period end date of your final payroll. The day after this date will be used as the start of your first full pay period at the new rate.
- If you're completing your rate rise after you've run the final payroll at the old rate, you will be prompted to select the date you want to schedule your rate rise.
The earliest selection for this will be the next day as the rate rises will process overnight.
- Choose the date you will run a final payroll using the old rates.
- Choose the period end date of your final payroll. The day after this date will be used as the start of your first full pay period at the new rate.
- If you're completing your rate rise after you've run the final payroll at the old rate, you will be prompted to select the date you want to schedule your rate rise.
The earliest selection for this will be the next day as the rate rises will process overnight.
Finalise date selection
After selecting your date settings, you'll be given a summary of your selections on the review screen. This includes:
- The date you must run your final payroll using the old rates.
- An option to have an email reminder to ensure payroll is processed on this date. We highly suggest ticking this box. This email reminder will be sent to the admin who started the rate rise.
- The date your rate rise is processed (overnight on this date).
Select Continue with rate rise to finalise your choice.
Award Selection
After selecting your date settings, you'll need to select the awards to include in your rate rise.
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Select the awards to include in your rate rise.
- You can perform several rate rises if need be. Not all awards need to be updated in one go. A common use case for this approach would be a rate rise per client (if they have their own awards).
- Archived awards are included in the rate rise process. If you would like to keep the rates up to date, should you wish to reinstate these awards later.
- Update the Base Rate Increase if required.
- The base percentage increase can be different per award, please refer to the relevant award.
- Click Next at the bottom of the screen, when ready to continue.
Hot tip: You'll note the 'Processing on' and 'Effective Date' in the top right of your rate rise on this page. Select the edit pencil should you need to change the process date.
This section will make changes to the classifications in your Award. The rate rise tool will increase your current rate by the percentage you entered in the previous steps.
You will need to have the new Pay Guide for your Award handy and ensure that each rate in this step matches the rate in the pay guide to the decimal exactly.
To update your classifications:
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Select the down arrow to open the classifications.
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Edit each classification to match the pay guide.
- Only the base (permanent) rate will be need to be edited. The casual rate will auto-adjust based on your changes to the base rate.
- Each award selected will likely have multiple pages of classifications.
- You can edit these values in CSV format if you prefer by selecting Use CSV Import.
Please note: The CSV download will not reflect any manual edits that you have already made.
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Update Rate Overrides if you have any.
- These will be denoted by a yellow Override badge with an edit icon next to the relevant classification.
- A red exclamation circle will show on overridden rates that have fallen below the base rate. Please edit and adjust these to be in line with the Award rate or above.
- Scroll down to ensure you have selected and adjusted classification rates on all pages. Select Next once all classifications have been edited to match the pay guide.
If your business makes use of any of the following features, these can be updated on the Rates Book menu.
- Charge rates in rates books
- Overriden rates in rates books
- Charge rates for entitlements
- Rates book templates
If you need to make edits to your rates books, it is recommended that you use the CSV Import/export option. This will allow you to edit your pay and charge rates relatively quickly.
Warning: You can singularly edit rates or use the CSV option; however, you should choose one preferred method and continue with that method. If you've made some manual edits to the classification or rates books page- they won't be reflected if you export to do the CSV import/export.
To update rates in rates books templates and Operation rates books:
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Select Use CSV Import and select Export CSV.
- Edit the downloaded CSV file, updating your rates as required. Save the file.
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Select your file (or drag & drop), then select Import CSV.
Please note: All items on this page can be edited manually if you'd like, but because of the volume of records you're likely to have, this is not the best method.
The next 2 steps in the rate rise tool will detail all of the permanent and casual employees in your platform. These employees will be separated into 2 sections 'On-award rate' (getting a base increase), and 'Above award rate' (employees currently still above award).
On-award rate vs Above award rate
Open the tabs using the down arrow to review the employees in each of the 2 sections:
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On award rate - Employees in this tab will be getting an increase as a result of the rate rise as the base increase has been applied.
- Use the Display option to see the 'previous rate' and the 'increase amount'
- This includes positions that were above the award but would fall below after the increased rate.
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Above award rate - Employees in this tab are currently still paid above award (including the recent increase).
- Please edit the rates for these employees should you wish to pass along the new increase.
Key Information
- Current and future positions will be listed and updated.
- Positions assigned to pending employees will also be listed and updated.
- In either section, if need be, you may edit an employee's rate and increase it.
- You cannot decrease a position rate to below the new minimum rate.
As increases are not automatically applied to the above award employees, you may wish to also increase these employees by the rate increase, or a lesser amount. This can be done by a manual per employee amount, or via CSV in bulk.
To edit an above award rate:- Select the down arrow in the Above award section.
- Locate the employee you wish to increase and make the required changes in the editable rate field. Press enter or tab to see the change take effect.
- Review the Increase in the right-hand column.
- Make any more necessary edits, and select Next to move to the next section in the rate rise.
In the below example, we increase the existing above award rate of one of our employees Cheyne before continuing with the rate rise.
You'll now follow the same instructions on the next page to review your on-award and above-award casual employees.
Hot tip: A warning advising not to change position data will now display on the employee card of any employees with positions included in a scheduled rate rise. After the rate rise takes effect, this warning will no longer appear.
The last step of the rate rise is to update your allowances. The allowances you may need to increase include:
- Award Allowances
- Shift Penalties
- Meal Allowances
- Profile Allowances
You can see the number of allowances to update/check in each section as denoted by the blue number next to the down arrow.
Like the rates books, these can be updated manually but due to the potentially high volume of allowances (especially shift penalties and meal allowances), it is recommended to use the CSV Import.
To do so:
- Select Use CSV Import and select Export CSV.
- Edit the downloaded CSV file, updating your rates as required. Save the file.
- Select your file (or drag & drop) then select Import CSV.
- Select Finish rate rise to complete your rate rise.
After updating allowances and selecting Finish rate rise, the rate rise will be set in a pending state. Depending on when you started the rate rise and the options you selected at the start will determine when the rate rise will process. The earliest a rate rise will process is overnight.
Once the rate rise has been processed, your awards, rates books, rates book templates, timesheets, and employee positions will all be updated from the start of the selected pay period.
You can review all of your rate rises, scheduled or incomplete. You can also edit or delete rate rises that have not yet been processed.
From the main menu, select Payroll Settings > Rate Rise. Here you will see all of your rate rises.
- Any unprocessed rate rises may be edited if need be. If you need to go edit any step, all future steps will need to be completed again.
- For example, if you edit the classifications step, the rates books, employee tabs, and allowances will need to be re-completed.
- If editing a rate rise that has a process date in the past, you will need to go back to the first step and reset the date.
- You can also delete any unprocessed rate rises if needed using the delete icon.
- If you add a new rate rise, please note that any Awards included in a pending rate rise will not be available for the new rate rise.
FAQs
I have just employed some people and need to roster them for tomorrow. Can I do this with a pending rate rise?
There are 2 options here.
- Add the person and their position before you commence the rate rise.
- Add the person and their position after the rate rise has been processed.
New positions added during a pending rate rise will not be included in the rate rise.
What will happen to the shifts I have rostered? Do I need to hold off approving shifts until the rate rise is done?
The rate rise tool will handle all of this.
You can continue rostering & approving shifts without concern. The rate rise tool will update any shifts/timesheets for the correct period with the correct new rate.
Can the rate rise tool be used for an enterprise agreement?
Absolutely!
The rate rise tool can be used to increase the rates for any of the Award configurations you may have set up. We use the term 'Award' most commonly throughout the platform and in our communication but it extends to Enterprise Agreements, salaried positions, or any other type of custom arrangement.
Will the rate rise tool allow me to see and potentially increase above-award positions?
Yes, in the permanent and casual steps in the rate rise tool, you'll see a section for Above-award employees. These employees will not automatically have an increase applied, but you can increase them if you wish.
If you'd like to apply an increase to an Above-award employee, this can be done:
- Singularly - By updating the 'edit' column next to that employee.
- In Bulk- By using the CSV export/import option.
My employee says their new rate is wrong - What should I do?
Follow the below instructions.
- Check the employee's payslip to confirm the rate that they were paid.
- Check the Pay Guide to ensure that the rate paid to the employee is correct.
- If you can't work out what is wrong or how to fix it, note down everything and provide us all the details.