Superannuation Tools

You need not be on your own to make decisions about your employees' eligibility to receive Superannuation Guarantee Contributions. The Australian Taxation Office provides a nice lot of decision and calculation tools that can be used online. Each of these tools are designed specifically for employers to make decisions and calculations relating directly to super contributions.

Perhaps one of the first tools you need to use is the tool to decide who is not eligible for super contributions. Of importance here is the decision tool to decide whether a worker is classified by the Australian Taxation Office as an employee or a contractor. If you are in doubt as to whether a worker is eligible for super payments you can also use the SG Eligibility Decision Tool.

To calculate the amount of super that should be paid for each of your workers the Superannuation Guarantee Contributions Calculator is a handy little tool. This can be used to list each of the payments and provides a list of Funds to which amounts of money should be paid.

Super is paid on ordinary times earnings. If you are not sure what your employee's ordinary times earnings is you can visit the page Using ordinary times earnings to pay super. You may also need to visit the page Changes You May Need to Make from 1 July 2008 to ensure you are calculating your employees' super contributions correctly. The Taxation Office also provides a thorough checklist to enable you to decide if certain payments made to your employees should be counted as ordinary times earnings.

A complete guide from the Australian Taxation Office is found in the pages titled, "Employers Superannuation Essentials."

Of course the simplest way to actually pay your employees' superannuation contributions is by using the Superconnect Clearing House. By using this tool you can keep track of all super contributions, maintain a list of all data required to make payments and you can add or delete entries to keep them up-to-date.