Payday Super:
Are you ready for 1 July 2026?
Payday Super is the biggest change to Australian payroll in over a decade. From 1 July 2026, employers must pay employees’ superannuation at the same time as wages – not quarterly. For businesses running MYOB Acumatica Payroll, the system is being prepared to support Payday Super through the 2025.1.5 and 2025.2.1 releases – but there are configuration steps and process changes your payroll team needs to work through well before go-live.
This guide is written for payroll teams running MYOB Acumatica Payroll and the people supporting them. It explains what Payday Super is, the key dates to plan around, and the practical readiness steps for MYOB Acumatica sites.
1. What is Payday Super?
Payday Super is a change to Australia’s Superannuation Guarantee (SG) rules that requires employers to pay super at the same time as salary and wages, every pay run, rather than the current quarterly cycle.
- Super must be paid each pay cycle (weekly, fortnightly, or monthly).
- Contributions must be received by the employee's super fund within seven business days of payday, with limited exceptions for new employees.
- Super is calculated on a new earnings base called Qualifying Earnings (QE), which combines Ordinary Time Earnings and several other payments.
- Employers must report both QE and super liability via Single Touch Payroll (STP) on every pay run.
Key resource links:
2. Who you'll need on your side
Payday Super is primarily a payroll change, but no payroll team can deliver readiness on their own. The right people to have in the conversation are:
- Your payroll team - leading configuration, validation, testing and day-to-day operation in MYOB Acumatica Payroll.
- MYOB - delivering the 2025.1.5 and 2025.2.1 Payroll releases that make MYOB Acumatica Payday Super-ready, and operating the MYOB Pay Super clearing house service.
- Your super clearing house - either MYOB Pay Super (the integrated service) or an external clearing house connected via SuperStream. Note the ATO Small Business Superannuation Clearing House (SBSCH) closes on 1 July 2026.
- The ATO - the source of truth for Qualifying Earnings, STP changes, Super Guarantee Charge (SGC) rules and the Payday Super timetable.
- Fair Work - for questions on employee classifications and contractor-vs-employee status, which directly affects who is entitled to super.
- Your bookkeeper or accountant - for reconciliation, BAS, SGC exposure, and cash flow planning under more frequent super payments.
- Your MYOB Acumatica partner (such as Comits) - coordinating your upgrade, configuration review and assisting end users with integration testing and go-live support.
3. Which MYOB Acumatica Payroll release supports Payday Super?
MYOB has introduced Payday Super readiness in the MYOB Acumatica 2025.1.5 and 2025.2.1 Payroll releases. These releases are being deployed by MYOB across May and June 2026 and include:
- support for Qualifying Earnings (QE) data reporting,
- structural changes aligned to ATO STP and SuperStream reforms,
- • foundations for paying super every pay run rather than quarterly,
4. Key dates for Payday Super
Payday Super becomes mandatory on 1 July 2026, but the lead-up dates matter just as much. Employers who leave preparation until June 2026 will struggle to test, validate and remediate in time.
| Date | What should be happening |
|---|---|
| 29 April – 7 May 2026 | MYOB EAP upgrades to 2025.2.1 (Limited EAP release). |
| May 2026 | MYOB upgrades sites to 2025.1.5 (General Availability). |
| June 2026 | MYOB upgrades to 2025.2.2 (General Availability). Optional upgrade to 2025.2.3 (EAP - Pay Super for Multi Entity). Optional upgrade to 2025.1.5 also available. |
| 1 July 2026 | Payday Super becomes mandatory. Any payroll paid on or after this date must follow the new rules, regardless of the pay period dates. The ATO SBSCH closes on the same day. |
| Post go-live | Monitor every pay run for failed contributions, fund rejections and STP errors. Respond within the seven-business-day window. |
5. Pre-go-live configuration in MYOB Acumatica
Upgrading to 2025.1.5 or 2025.2.1 is necessary but not sufficient. There is a short list of configuration and data-quality tasks that need to be completed in your tenant before the 1 July 2026 cut-over, and most of them are best worked through well ahead of go-live so issues are caught while there is still time to fix them.
5.1 Flag every pay item for Qualifying Earnings (QE)
This is the single most important task once you are on 2025.1.5 or above. Payday Super introduces a new earnings concept – Qualifying Earnings – that becomes the basis for both SG and SGC calculations. A new Liable for QE checkbox appears on the Pay Item Liabilities screen (MPPP1025) alongside the existing Liable for SG flag.
- On upgrade, any pay item already marked as Liable for SG is automatically also flagged as Liable for QE.
- New pay items you create afterwards will inherit the QE flag whenever Liable for SG is ticked.
- A small number of pay items may legitimately be SG-liable but not QE-liable; in most cases both flags should remain ticked.
Action before 1 July 2026: walk through every pay item manually and confirm the QE and SG flags align with current ATO guidance. The auto-flagging on upgrade is a useful starting point, not a final answer – pay particular attention to allowances, commissions, salary-sacrifice items, and any pay items used for contractor labour.
5.2 Audit employee super fund records
Tighter deadlines mean rejected contributions become a real compliance risk. For every active employee, confirm:
- a current super fund is recorded,
- the USI (or ESA for SMSFs) is correct, and
- the member number matches what the fund has on file.
This is work you can start immediately – there’s no need to wait for the upgrade. The ATO’s Super Fund Lookup and MYOB’s Super Funds List are useful sources for verifying USIs.
5.3 Reassess your contractor population
Payday Super broadens who is treated as an employee for SG purposes. Contractors paid mainly for their labour may now need super paid every time they are paid, even if their commercial arrangement hasn’t changed. Review your contractor ledger and identify anyone whose payment basis would bring them into scope under the new rules.
5.4 Sense-check your pay frequency
Because super now follows the pay cycle, a fortnightly or weekly payroll means a fortnightly or weekly super run. Some businesses are revisiting pay frequency purely for cashflow reasons – it’s worth at least asking the question before 1 July 2026.
5.5 Lock in your clearing house arrangement
The ATO’s Small Business Superannuation Clearing House closes on 1 July 2026, so any business currently relying on it needs to transition to a compliant alternative before that date. With MYOB Acumatica you have two practical paths:
- MYOB Pay Super – the integrated clearing house service that runs on SuperChoice and connects directly into MYOB Acumatica payroll. For most users this is the lowest-friction option.
- External clearing house – bring your own clearing house, configured via SuperStream.
If you are going down the MYOB Pay Super path, register and verify your employer bank account inside the Pay Super service well in advance – verification can take several business days, and you cannot submit contributions until it has cleared.
5.6 Be aware of the Maximum Contributions Base change
For pay items with the Employer Super type, the contributions-base threshold changes from a quarterly calculation to an annual calculation from 1 July 2026. MYOB Acumatica handles the switch automatically based on business date – no manual configuration is needed – but payroll administrators should know it’s happening because it affects how the cap is applied for high-income earners through the year.
A practical tip echoed by both the ATO and MYOB: where it’s feasible, start running pay-day-style super payments before 1 July 2026 so any process or data issues surface in a low-risk window rather than under live compliance pressure.
6. What changes in the payroll process
6.1 Super is paid every pay run
After each pay run is finalised, the payroll team:
- goes to the Create Super Batch screen (MPPP5005),
- selects the pay run that was just paid,
- submits the batch to MYOB Pay Super or the configured external clearing house.
There is no holding super until quarter end. Submitting the super batch becomes a standard step in finalising each pay run.
6.2 Tighter timeframes
- Payment timing: at the same time as salary and wages.
- Fund receipt deadline: within seven business days of payday.
- New employee exception: within twenty business days of the employee’s first payday.
- Fund allocation or return: super funds have three business days to allocate or return contributions.
- Errors and delays can trigger the Super Guarantee Charge.
The seven business days is to the fund, not to the clearing house. Clearing houses need processing time, so super needs to be submitted promptly after each pay run, not held back.
6.3 Improvements to the Create Super Batch screen
To help manage higher-frequency batches and adjustments, MYOB has improved the Create Super Batch screen (MPPP5005) in 2025.2.1. These improvements are available immediately on upgrade:
- a new Adjustment Type field shows whether each line is an original pay run, a negative adjustment, or a positive adjustment,
- negative and positive adjustment pairs are now linked – selecting or deselecting one part automatically does the same for the other,
- a new Adjusted Contributions tab gives a single place to see and manage all unpaid super adjustments for completed pay runs within the previous ninety days.
Under Payday Super, adjustments need to be processed and paid quickly to remain compliant – these changes make that materially easier.
6.4 Expanded STP reporting
Each pay run reports year-to-date Qualifying Earnings and year-to-date super liability via STP. Reporting of QE stops once the annual maximum contributions base is reached. STP reporting requirements for contractor payee types are not changing.
6.5 Tighter compliance
Late or missed payments attract:
- daily compounding interest from the day after the seven-business-day deadline,
- administrative uplift charges,
- Super Guarantee Charge exposure, including loss of tax deductibility on the late amount.
With more STP data flowing through every pay run, the ATO is expected to assess and enforce delays more actively than under the current quarterly model.
Payday Super FAQs
Does our existing payroll software support Payday Super?
Most major Australian payroll products — including MYOB Acumatica Payroll — are releasing Payday Super-ready updates through 2026. Whether your current install is ready depends on the version, release channel and integrations in use. A Comits readiness audit confirms this for your specific environment.
What happens if our super clearing house integration breaks on 1 July 2026?
Contributions still need to reach the employee’s super fund within seven business days of payday. If your clearing house integration fails, you remain liable, and missed contributions can trigger Super Guarantee Charge interest and penalties. We recommend monitoring, alerts and a documented manual fallback before go-live.
Do we need to worry about backing up our payroll data?
If you’re running MYOB Acumatica in the cloud, MYOB handles the backups for you — you don’t need to manage backup infrastructure yourself. Your focus should instead be on making sure the payroll data flowing into the system is accurate, that pay runs are reviewed before submission, and that someone in the team has a documented recovery process to restore service quickly if issues arise.
Will Payday Super affect our STP reporting?
Yes. From 1 July 2026, every pay run reports year-to-date Qualifying Earnings and year-to-date super liability through STP. Pay events become more frequent and more detailed, which is why STP gateway reliability and clean YTD figures both become critical.
What if we have contractors paid mainly for labour?
Contractors paid mainly for labour can already attract SG obligations under existing rules, and Payday Super extends those obligations to a per-payday cadence. Contractor setup in payroll should be reviewed before 1 July 2026.
We already use MYOB Acumatica with Comits — what changes for us?
If we already manage your MYOB Acumatica environment, your Payday Super readiness work fits inside your existing engagement. We coordinate the configuration changes, handle the version upgrade if required, and run the readiness checks as part of our ongoing service — you don’t need a separate engagement.
What is Qualifying Earnings (QE) and how is it different from OTE?
Qualifying Earnings is the new earnings base for super calculations under Payday Super, replacing Ordinary Time Earnings for super purposes from 1 July 2026. QE is generally broader than OTE in scope, so before go-live every earning code in payroll should be reviewed and flagged correctly as in-scope or out-of-scope for QE.
What is the Maximum Contributions Base and why does it matter?
The Maximum Contributions Base is the quarterly cap on the earnings against which compulsory super is calculated. Under Payday Super the cap still applies, but it has to be tracked across many smaller pay events instead of one quarterly figure — so payroll has to monitor each high-income employee’s year-to-date contributions and stop calculating SG once the cap is reached.
What happens if a contribution is missed or paid late?
Late or missed contributions trigger the Super Guarantee Charge, which includes the unpaid amount, an interest component and an administration fee — and unlike the current quarterly model, the SG charge clock starts ticking from each payday rather than each quarter. Reliable processing and quick remediation become much more important under Payday Super.
When should we start preparing for Payday Super?
Now. The pre-go-live configuration work — auditing super setup, reassessing contractors, locking in your clearing house, mapping QE vs OTE — is best completed well before 1 July 2026 so any issues surface during a quiet period rather than during your first live payday cycle. Most businesses should aim to be configured and tested by Q1 2026.
How do we enrol in MYOB Pay Super?
MYOB Pay Super is the integrated clearing-house service that connects MYOB Acumatica directly to SuperChoice for super payments. Setup involves confirming prerequisites (ABN, admin access, no outstanding super liabilities), registering the business, verifying the employer bank account, configuring pay items and employee fund details, then running a test submission before go-live. Bank account verification can take several business days, so this should be started well before 1 July 2026. For Comits-managed clients, we handle this enrolment as part of your readiness work.
Get your business Payday Super–ready
The 1 July 2026 deadline is closer than it looks. Businesses that begin the IT readiness work now will have time to upgrade, test and monitor properly. Those that wait until June 2026 will be relying on luck.
Note: Comits provides ERP consulting services for MYOB Acumatica and does not provide legal, accounting, payroll or taxation advice. The information here is general in nature only. We strongly recommend engaging your accountant, payroll professional or tax adviser to assess the impact of Payday Super on your specific obligations before go-live. This guide should be reviewed alongside the official ATO Payday Super resources, Fair Work guidance, and MYOB’s published release notes.