Tuesday, December 23, 2008

What Payments can the Superconnect Clearing House Accept?

I had a person ask me today "What type of payments does the Superconnect Clearing House handle?"

Firstly I must point out that the Superconnect Clearing House is a superannuation payment system. Any type of superannuation payment can be handled. There is the normal superannuation contribution that employers make on behalf of their employess and then there are others as well such as an employee's salary sacrifice payment.

An employee can also make payments on behalf of her/his spouse to a designated account within the employee's superannuation fund. There is also provision for volunatary payments made to a superannuation fund by the employer or by the employee.

Each of these different types of payments are made seperately within the Superconnect Clearing House so that the receiving fund can make note of what the payments are for and where the amounts should be credited.

There is more about this on our website at the Superconnect Site.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Working with "Do-It-Yourself" Funds

Suppose a new employee of your brings with him his own "Do-It-Yourself" fund. How do you handle paying contributions to such a fund? Is this OK to pay superannuation contributions to an employee's own fund?

Rather than choose a retail fund to receive and administer super contributions, some employees have chosen the option of setting up their own self-managed fund. Provided that the employee has established the DIY fund properly it is quite all right to pay super contributions into such a fund.

If you as an employer registers with Superconnect you will find it quite easy to make payments to any DIY fund as Superconnect specializes in working with DIY funds. You must however ensure that you obtain the correct details in order to make payments to such a fund. When you register with Superconnect you can obtain a list of information you will need when making payments to the DIY fund.

If an employee is considering establishing a DIY fund they need to know that running such a fund is not for the feint hearted. Running a fund requires that the employee needs to comply with legal and tax requirements, as well as making investment decisions and fund administration. Generally a lawyer or tax accountant can direct your employee to the right channels to establish a DIY fund.

Friday, December 5, 2008

Required Superannuation Record Keeping

There are record keeping obligations to which you must adhere as an employer making super contributions for and on behalf of your employees. Records of what you have paid needs to be kept in English, for five years, and if needed you should have the right software to access those records.

There are also specific records you need to keep in relation to the making of payments for the Superannuation Gurantee contributions. You need to keep such records for five years and you need to keep any documents that you used to calculate how much superannuation was paid for each person. You also need to keep records that affect your liability, such as advice from trustees about the funds to which you are contributing. These records can be examined by the Tax Office and there are penalties for failing to keep accurate records.

Also, if you incur any super guarantee charge you need to keep records showing how you calculated the charge and when such payments were made. There are penalties for not keeping records regarding the superannuation guarantee payments.

For further information about keeping superannuation guarantee contributions you should visit the Australian Taxation Office website page titled "Superannuation Record Keeping". As well you can visit the Superconnect Clearing House website to see how using the Superconnect system you can maintain elecronic records of super contributions.

Monday, December 1, 2008

Giving Employees the Correct Info


As you would already know the requirement to give employees a quarterly statement of how much super you paid into their chosen fund was discontinued in 2005.

However, you are required to tell your employees the default fund into which their super contributions will be paid within 28 days of them starting work with you. You are also required to add the name of the fund and the amount of super contribution on the employee's payslip if you are covered by the Workplace Relations Act.

These laws, relating to super contributions, are administered by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations. You can obtain further information about these laws by going to www.dewr.gov.au.