Australian SMBs struggling to understand the Government’s ‘Modern’ Awards are now able to calculate payments using a spreadsheet based solution.
The Modern Award Payment Processing Tool (MAPPT), developed by industrial relations company SME Assistance Group, is designed to efficiently calculate an employer’s payroll in accordance with the new award scheme. The Federal Fair Work industrial system was created to simplify and cut the number of state and federal awards from 2,500 to 122.
Rather than simplifying things for SMBs, the transition is proving to be so complicated that most businesses are still struggling to work out how to actually apply the modern award’s expectations and are running the risk of non-compliance, according to Industrial Relations consultant and Director of SME Assistance Group Carolyn Tate.
“The old scheme still needs to be applied in decreasing percentages year on year until completely phased out (but) the transition process is so complicated that business owners have to seek specialist advice in order to get it right, but in many cases even the advisors are getting it wrong at the expense of the business owner, and that’s scary,” said Mrs Tate
“We designed (the MAPPT) solution to help both businesses and their advisors accurately process payments under the correct award so that they can avoid the administrative cost of dealing with the government, and the inevitable clobbering by fines that will come if the government prosecutes them,” added Mrs Tate.
Fines imposed on SMEs for underpayment of wages claims prosecuted by the government has already cost Australian SMEs over one million dollars during the 2009/2010 financial year, claims Mrs Tate.
“Fines applied to SMEs for underpayment of wages during the 2009 and 2010 financial year averaged $33,000 and for some companies this would have meant the end for them.”
“If we can help both businesses and their advisors manage this transition period then we could potentially be saving hundreds of businesses that might otherwise have gone to the wall, and that’s a great thing.”
