Friday, August 29, 2008

Using Superconnect: Fees

You know, Superconnect is one of the best kept secrets in the Australian business world. Not only does it save time and effort in making superannuation contributions but it also saves a huge amount of money.

Let's look at the costs of paying superannuation contributions for each employee of yours. What does it cost? If you are having to complete paper forms, write cheques, and mail payments it is costing you a fortune what with all that administration time of your employees as well. It has been estimated that for each cheque you write, and the associated forms related to that you are paying well into the $30 to $40 per cheque and the related forms requird by the superannuation fund administrators.

Now with your employees being able to choose their own superannuation fund, there is a possibility that for each employee you have you will need to cut a cheque and fill in the forms, one fund at a time. Now that is a costly administration nightmare.

Enter Superconnect. No longer do you have to compete this job one fund at a time. All that is taken care of through the Superconnect Clearing House. And what is more the cost is now in the cents per transaction rather than the $30 or $40.

Have a look at the costs of using Superconnect. It will surprise you how little it costs.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Using Superconnect: Payroll Data

Have you already entered all superannuation information to make contributions payments into your payroll system? Yes, is the answer most people give. That means you are already prepared to use the Superconnect System.

Regardless of your payroll system all you need to do to start using Superconnect is to register, and then nominate the payroll system you are using and send us an export of superannuation data from your payroll system. Then within a short time you will be sent an email giving you the details of where to get started.

Yes, that is right, you do not need to key in any details into the Superconnect System, all we need to make payments on your behalf is to upload your payroll export data and the Superconnect System will do the rest.

This means that the Superconnect System will ingest your file, extract the relevant information and setup a file ready to be sent to the Superconnect Clearing House. Before you send the file to the clearing house you can inspect the details of all payments and you can even make some modifications if needed. Then you simply send the data to the clearing house and all payments will be made on your behalf.

We call the system a "straight-through-processing" system, because the data you already have in your payroll system can be sent straight through from your payroll system to the relevant Superannuation Administrators. This eliminates any errors. There is no further keying in of data from your end and the Superannuation Administrators accept from the Superconnect Clearing House the data electronically. Gone is the need for paper forms to be filled in, no cheques to deliver and all is done for you.

To register on the Superconnect System to get started all you need is to go to this address and register: https://superconnect.com.au/employer/Reg.asp

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Using Superconnect: Improved Workflow

One of the more remarkable aspects of Superconnect is the way it simplifies your work-flow when preparing to make superannuation contributions.

Take full control of contribution payments and employee details using our intuitive interface. Superconnect helps you to easily manage superannuation payments by offering the following benefits:

  • contribution payment details extracted from your existing payroll software
  • keeps history of payments for all employees in one place
  • remembers the fund each employee is assigned to for each contribution type
  • remembers the super amount for a selected period
  • Direct Debit payments
  • full compliance with Choice of Fund
  • no-fuss DIY Fund payments
  • no more cheques or paperwork

You have control over all employee data and can process as-you-go saving time spent on reconciling employee contribution data at the end of the quarter. You control this online process and we retain all your records in your own secure instance within Superconnect.

Want to register to use Superconnect? Registration is free. Go to http://www.superconnect.com.au/employer/Reg.asp to register.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

More About Superconnnect Security

What I wanted to talk about today is the way we keep Superconnect a very secure site. The first thing you should know is that all communication you have with Superconnect is all encrypted.

To make sure you are on the correct site you should be aware of the address to which your browser is pointed. If the address shows as anything other than the following address, you may be on the wrong site. The address that should be in your browser when newly pointing to the Superconnect site is: http://www.superconnect.com.au/default.asp. Note this address has the "www" in it. While you can also arrive at the Superconnect site with an address missing the "www" we suggest that you always include the "www" to make sure you are on the correct site.

Second thing I need to mention is that if you receive an email that seems to be from Superconnect asking you to log into the Superconnect Clearing House please disregard that email. If you do receive a request in an email to log into the Suerconnect site you can rest assured that we will never send such an email to you. Most likely the email will have an erroneus address and when you input your username and password for the Superconnect site you will have just given away your details for scammers to use your access to Superconnect.

So never use a link from within an email to arrive at the Superconnect site. Always enter the address yourself and when you have arrived at the login page make sure that the little padlock is shown to be closed/locked.

In practice, if you ensure that you always use the exact address and making sure never to follow a link in an email that seems to be from Superconnect you will be very sure of your security when using our site.

Using Superconnect: Secure Access

So you have heard about this very direct way to forward superannuation contributions called Superconnect. But, you may ask, how secure is this method of paying superannuation contributions?

What you are really asking is whether all these employee details we will be entering into the system can be hijacked by anyone else on the web.

I can assure you that the Superconnect service is just as secure as doing Internet banking. Superconnect uses the same bank strength encryption as any bank uses. You can log onto the Superconnect service using Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari. When you do log on, make sure that the little padlock graphic is showing to indicate that you are working securely online.

So, in short, Superconnect makes it easy for employers to make contributions using a standard browser via an Internet connection. Access to Superconnect is protected by bank-strength 128-bit encryption.

Need we say anything more about security? Yes, there are some other aspects to security that we will mention in another entry to this blog. Next we will talk about links in emails we send to customers.

Friday, August 22, 2008

What if we don't do wages electronically?

Good news, even if you don't do wages electronically you can still use the Superconnect Clearing House to pay your employees' superannuation contributions. Superconnect offers you a web interface complete with an e-form to setup all information required to complete superannuation contributions.

And it gets better, all data you enter via the Superconnect Clearing House web form is saved in the system. So next month when it comes time to pay superannuation contributions, all the data is there and simply needs any updates, or if there are no updates or changes to the information, you simply use the data in the system to create this next month's payments.

Of course you can use the system to pay superannuation payments quarterly or monthly whichever you choose.

To complete a superannuation contribution on behalf of your employees you will need the following information to complete the payment: name of employee, address, date of birth (DOB), tax file number (TFN), occupation, salary, salary type, and you will also need to know the superannuation fund, product to which the employee is subscribed, and the amounts of each contribution.

Once you have all the information for an employee making a superannuation contribution payment is simple. Why not try the system yourself to see how it works. You can register to use the system and there is no payment required until you actually use the system to make a payment. So why not try it today?

Go to this url to register: www.superconnect.com.au/employer/Reg.asp

Thursday, August 21, 2008

What if you use a spreadsheet to do wages?

One of our prospective clients caught my attention the other day asking if Superconnect Clearing House could be used if payroll information is captured in an Excel Spreadsheet. That is a very good question.

And the answer is really simple. Yes, even if you only use a spreadsheet to capture payroll information, you can use that to make Superannuation Contributions on behalf of your employees. All you do is to supply the spreadsheet to the Superconnect technical department and we will map that to our database. From then on you simply can upload the spreadsheet when you are ready to make a payment and all the relevant data for superannuation contributions will be captured by the Superconnect system.

Superconnect offers you the capability of mapping any file type to the Superconnect system. Regardless as to whether you are using MicrOPay, KwikPay, Attache, WinPay, QuickenPayroll, or any other system, Superconnect can quickly map the ouput of your system to the Superconnect database.

During the registration process you will be able to provide Superconnect with a sample file from your system and this can easily be mapped. Why not register today and start saving yourself a whole lot of time and money?

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Who is Superconnect?

Superconnect is a business dedicated to provide superannuation solutions to businesses within Australia. It was initially started as EC-Pay Pty Ltd and now uses the trading name of Superconnect.

EC-Pay Pty Ltd was first established in 1999 and has followed a sound path of development to now have invested millions of dollars into its core on-line transactional capability. Parent company Max eCommerce Pty Ltd owns 100% of its shares.

The system facilitates on line banking strength secure and straight through processing of both data and financial superannuation contributions from an employer's payroll file and bank to the relevant super fund administrator and its bank. Trading as “Superconnect”, EC-Pay Pty Ltd has a range of customers performing hundreds of thousand of transactions annually.

So, what does this mean to you our potential customer?

What you should know is that Superconnect is dedicated to one thing alone, and that is operating its clearing house so that your superannuation contributions arrive at its destination fund administrator in a timely manner.

By using the Superconnect system you can rest assured that those contibutions will automatically be sent through the system, so that within a very short time, your contribution data is received electronically by the fund administrator and that the relevant money will be deducted from your bank and sent directly to the fund administrator's bank account.

Superconnect even sends transactions to "do-it-yourself" funds. Once we receive a request for money to be sent to a "do-it-yourself" fund, we verify that the fund exists, and we verify the method of communicating with that fund in order to send the data that supports the banking transaction.

Even though we only have one office at St Leonards in the north of Sydney, we offer a service to any business within Australia. If you want to know more about us please send an email to info@superconnect.com.au and we will provide you with more information about who we are and what we can do for your business.

Looking forward to your email.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Why Superconnect Clearing House Saves you Money and Time

If you are managing the payment of Superannuation Contributions you should have already realised how complex Superannuation payment has become. Because employees can choose whichever fund they desire, you will be increasing the complexity of making Superannuation contributions. Theoretically each employee can choose a different fund. What is more each employee can now choose to pay into their own "do-it-yourself" fund adding to the difficulty again.

This is where Superconnect Clearing House can help you. All you have to do is to collect all details in your normal payroll system. To make payments through the clearing house is easy. All you do is to export all the details of superannuation contributions from your payroll system and upload that to Superconnect. Superconnect can take any file format from any payroll system and once you have uploaded the data there is nothing more to do than authorise payment.

Once you have authorised payment, the total amount will be deducted from your bank and paid through to the correct Superannuation Fund Administrator. All details of payment will then be made available in your login section of the Superconnect System for you to check that everything has gone through.

Yes there is nothing more to do. Using Superconnect to make contribution payments is as easy as that.

Why don't you give it a test run? Go to https://www.superconnect.com.au/employer/Reg.asp.

Monday, August 18, 2008

How much is it costing you to pay Superannuation Contributions?

What happens in your business? Do you pay superannuation contributions manually. Like . . . do you write out cheques, combine those cheques with forms that you have had to fill out manually, and insert these into envelopes to be sent to superannuation fund administrators? If your business does that or something similar it is costing you a considerable amount of time, effort and ultimately money.

All that time, effort and money could be saved by using a clearing house. Essentially what a clearing house offers you is a place where you export all the contribution data, upload that file, and the job is done. It is that simple.

Once the clearing house receives that data it automatically creates contribution data and payment details. The clearing house automatically debits from your registered bank account the total sum of all the contributions. Those monies are cleared to be paid to each individual fund administrator and the relevant data is also electronically uploaded to the fund administrator's computing system. A message is sent back to you via the Superconnect site that the payments have been made and a confirmation that the fund administrator is in receipt of your data.

All of that is done for you automatically. You can even revisit the Superconnect site and see the transactions that have been successful.

AND what does it cost you to complete transactions this way? Just a few cents in fact. In fact, it is about 46 cents per member payment to send your contributions this way. Now that is a lot less than what you are currently paying to get the job done. It is that simple.

If you would like to register with Superconnect and test out how this can be done for you, please visit the Superconnect site and apply for use of the Superconect Clearing House at: www.superconnect.com.au

Friday, August 15, 2008

What is the Superconnect Clearing House?

Welcome dear readers to our blog, the blog all about the Superconnect Clearing House. First I think I should give you a link to our site so that you can explore and find out more for yourself. Yes, we are Australian and we offer employers a great way to save money, time and effort in administering Superannuation payments that are made on behalf of employees.

Here is the link to go to our website: www.superconnect.com.au.

What we can do for you is to provide employers a way to make superannuation payments simple. Do you have 20 to 500 employees? And you need to make superannuation payments on their behalf? And you make payments to a lot of do-it-yourself superannuation funds? And making superannuation payments is taking more and more time? Then Superconnect can definitely help you to save money, time and effort.

As the days unfold on this blogsite, I will tell you more about Superconnect and what it can do for your company. Keep reading this blog and you will learn how to save money when making superannuation payments. More soon.