A compliant Australian pay run is more than transferring net wages. It means reconciling employee changes, calculating PAYG withholding and superannuation correctly, reporting each pay event to the ATO through Single Touch Payroll (STP), and getting everything paid on time. People are relying on the figures: employees expect accurate payslips and the right money in their accounts on payday, and the ATO expects STP lodged on or before the day you pay. Miss a detail and the consequences are immediate and visible, from underpaid staff to a missed super payment that triggers the super guarantee charge.
When a firm runs payroll ad hoc, the same mistakes recur: a new starter’s TFN declaration never arrives, a pay rate change is applied a cycle late, the clearing account is never reconciled, or STP is processed without client sign-off on the totals. A repeatable process closes those gaps. Each pay cycle follows the same sequence, the same checks happen every time, and the work no longer lives in one bookkeeper’s head.
When to run it
Run this payroll checklist once per pay cycle for each client, whether that is weekly, fortnightly, or monthly. Start far enough ahead of payday to collect timesheets, process the run, and get client approval before STP lodgement, the bank file, and the super payment. Assign a clear owner (usually the payroll bookkeeper or account manager) so accountability for the run and its deadlines sits with one person.
How to run it in Tidyflow
Set this up once as a reusable job template in Tidyflow. Each step becomes a subtask your team checks off in order, so nothing is skipped between processing the run, lodging STP, and reconciling the clearing account. With workflow management you can make the job recurring on the client’s pay cycle, so the next run is created automatically without anyone remembering to start it.
The items your client needs to action (confirming new or terminated staff, supplying timesheets, and approving the payroll totals) go out as requests in the client portal. In the secure portal, clients upload signed forms and timesheets and confirm the run in one place, so approvals and documents stay attached to the job instead of scattered across email.
Common pitfalls
- Lodging STP late: the pay event must be reported on or before the day employees are paid, so build approval time into the cycle.
- Treating super as paid when it is only accrued: from 1 July 2026 Payday Super requires the contribution to be received by the fund within 7 business days of payday, so confirm super is actually paid for the run, not just accrued. Allow for clearing-house processing days inside that window, since the deadline is measured by when the fund receives the contribution.
- Skipping client approval before payment, then having to reverse or adjust a finalised run.
- Missing a TFN declaration or super choice form for a new starter, which affects withholding and contributions.
- Leaving the payroll clearing account unreconciled, so discrepancies carry into the next cycle unnoticed.