Payroll Settings - How to Apply Award Updates (Australia)

The following article outlines how you can successfully apply new Award Updates within your Payroll.

We have outlined the overall steps that need to take place & a detailed overview of each section can be found further down for each step. 

Please note - we do have a Managed Payroll Team who are able to provide billed assistance with Award Updates/Installation & Cross-Checking.

Award Update Overview

1. Prior to updating an Award, obtain a data extract of all current Pay Rate Templates, Pay Categories & Pay Rule Sets - to access your data extracts you can use this guide.
2. Review Award Update Articles by clicking on the 'Award Update Tile' on your dashboard & selecting 'More Information' to thoroughly read through all changes prior to installing.
3. Install Award: Before you install any award updates, it is imperative to review the Award Update Article to locate 'what is changing' changes are occurring & 'when it needs to be installed'.
4. For businesses with overridden Pay Rates or any custom configuration outside of standard Award Rates, please ensure you cross check these items and amend where necessary.
5. Configure Update Settings: CLICK HERE for a detailed understanding of these settings
6. Finalize Award Update
7. Reinstall Award (only required if the Award Update fails)
8. Check Pay Categories & Rule Sets to ensure they have not changed after the Award Update has finished 

IMPORTANT

• Award Updates cannot be undone.
• Ensure you have read all relative Award notifications to ensure you understand which awards need updating and when they are effective from.
• Prior to updating your Awards, you will have the option to update Rule Sets, update Pay Rates and re-apply leave allowance templates to linked employees.
• There are several options provided to users that allow you to 'tailor' the update according to your specific needs, these are:
  - Update rule sets;
  - Preserve custom rules: will only appear if custom rules have been created and activated within the award's pay condition rule set and the option 'Update rule sets' is set to "Yes";
  - Preserve disabled rules: will only appear if one or more rule within the award's pay condition rule set has been deactivated (this does not include custom rules that have been deactivated);
  - Update pay rates;
  - Re-apply leave allowance templates to linked employees;
  - Preserve custom work types: will only appear if an award work type setting has been customized;
  - Preserve custom leave allowance templates: will only appear if an award leave allowance template setting has been customized;
  - Preserve custom pay categories: will only appear if an award pay category setting has been customized. This also includes retaining the custom setting is a "Allowance - Other" pay category description has been added;
  - Preserve custom rule set period: will only appear if the rule set period pertaining to an award pay condition rule set has been customised
• Full Article which explains in detail each of the above options CLICK HERE
• If you would like our Managed Services Team to assist with reviewing/installing/cross checking your Award Updates, please email support@roubler.com so we can provide a quote/time for this to be completed.

Step 1: Obtain Data Extract 

• To ensure you have a copy of the existing settings you have in place prior to updating your Awards, you must export data extracts - this can be done by using this guide. As mentioned in the above, once you install an Award Update, it cannot be uninstalled. If this is installed incorrectly, having a backup copy of your data will assist you in manually correcting. 
• In addition to the above, current Rule Sets can be accessed via Management > Payroll > Payroll Settings and scroll down to find Pay Condition Rule Sets.
• The rule sets can be expanded using 'expand all' and copied and pasted into Word for future reference, see example below: 

  

  Screenshot the Rules Sets as per below and save into your word document (this step is helpful for when it comes to cross-checking the updates against the previous settings):

  

  Ensure you take a copy of all rule sets prior to making the update.

Step 2: Carefully Review & Apply Award Updates

• To access/review your Award Updates, head to Management > Payroll > Payroll Settings > Manage Awards
• Once on the Manage Awards screen, you will see a list of Awards awaiting updates. 
• To Action these updates, select the 'Actions' drop-down box & click 'Apply Updates'
• As mentioned above, prior to updating you will have the option to update rule sets, update pay rates and re-apply leave allowance templates to linked employees.
• Please select these options carefully as once the update has been installed it CANNOT be undone. 
• If you are unsure on what to select please reach out to your account manager prior to applying the update. 
• Please CLICK HERE for a full article which runs through each of the settings/options available
• As a general guide all custom rules and disabled rules should be preserved. 

Step 4: Finalize Award Update

• To finalize the Update, click on the green 'Install' button
• Click Accept button to confirm and complete the update process
  

Step 5: Reinstall Award (only required if the Award Update fails) 

• If for any reason the Award Update failed to install, please raise a support ticket with support@roubler.com and we will escalate to the pay engine to identify why this was unsuccessful
• Once we they have advised to retry, you are able to 'Reinstall' by following the below:
  - Head to Management > Payroll > Payroll Settings > Manage Awards
  - Click the 'Actions' button & select 'Reinstall' 
  - Click the 'Reinstall' button

Step 6: Check Pay Categories & Rule Sets

• Head to Management > Payroll > Payroll Settings > Pay Condition Rule Sets
• Check that these are correct and match exactly the same as they were prior to the update.
• To do so, compare the screenshots taken from earlier on in the process and compare against the updated version.