Annualised Salaries and Modern Awards: Common Mistakes Employers Make

Paying a salary feels like a simplification. One figure, twelve or twenty-six equal payments, no arguments about timesheets. For an award-covered employee it is not a simplification at all: it is a promise that the employer will keep measuring what the award required and confirm that the salary actually covered it. The salary is the payment method. The award remains the obligation.

Most salary underpayments we see are not the product of bad faith. They come from a small number of structural errors: the wrong classification, a set-off clause that does not identify anything, no time records for salaried staff, outer limits that were never set, and a reconciliation that either never happened or was never authorised by the award clause the employer thought it was using. The Federal Court’s 2025 decision in the Fair Work Ombudsman’s proceedings against Woolworths and Coles, which principally concerns contractual offsetting, has made reliance on averaging across pay periods considerably more expensive where no award clause authorises it.

This article sets out the framework in the order an employer needs it. It links to our specialist articles on payroll audits and underpayment liability and on employee or contractor characterisation rather than repeating them.

Coverage, Application and Classification

Nothing about an annualised salary can be assessed until the instrument that applies is identified. Before any salary figure is set, an employer should be able to answer seven questions on paper.

1. Which entity employs the worker? Group structures, labour-hire arrangements and service companies routinely produce a mismatch between the entity named in the contract, the entity that pays and the entity that directs the work.
2. Is the worker an employee at all? Mischaracterising an employee as a contractor moves the whole analysis, and section 15AA of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) now directs attention to the real substance and practical reality of the relationship.
3. Does a modern award cover the employer and the employee? Coverage is determined by the award’s own coverage clause, by reference to the industry or occupation, and by whether the employee falls within a classification in the award.
4. Does the award actually apply? Coverage and application are different concepts. Under section 47 a modern award applies to an employee if it covers them and is in operation, but it does not apply where the employee is a high income employee, and it does not apply while an enterprise agreement applies to the employee.
5. Is there an enterprise agreement? An enterprise agreement that applies to the employee generally displaces the application of the award while it operates, although the award remains relevant: it supplies the reference instrument for the better off overall test at approval, and the base rate of pay under the agreement cannot be less than the award rate.
6. What is the correct classification? Classification depends on the actual duties performed, the level of responsibility, autonomy and supervision, and the qualifications required — not on the job title on the contract. “Manager” in a position description does not answer a classification question, and a wrong classification produces a wrong minimum rate, wrong allowances, and therefore a wrong salary.
7. What is the employment category? Full-time, part-time and casual employees are treated differently by annualised wage clauses. Many clauses, including the Clerks Award clause, are available only to full-time employees.

Only then does the final question make sense: is the annualised wage clause in the applicable instrument available to this employee at all, and if it is not, what other mechanism is the employer relying on?

The Four Mechanisms Compared

Four legally distinct mechanisms are commonly described in conversation as “paying a salary”. They have different sources of authority and different consequences when they fail.

Award Annualised Wage Clauses

Where an award contains an annualised wage clause, the clause is a complete regime for the arrangement it authorises. Two models emerged from the Fair Work Commission’s review of annualised wage arrangements.

• Employer-notification model. The employer may pay an annualised wage in satisfaction of identified award provisions without the employee’s agreement, provided it advises the employee in writing of the prescribed particulars, keeps the prescribed records and reconciles at the prescribed intervals. Awards in this group include the Clerks—Private Sector Award 2020, the Banking, Finance and Insurance Award and the Legal Services Award.
• Employee-agreement model. The arrangement requires the employee’s written agreement and is subject to additional constraints, which in the hospitality and restaurant awards include a minimum loading and caps on the overtime hours the arrangement may cover.

The practical warning is not to universalise. Requirements that are mandatory in one award do not exist in another, and outer limits, reconciliation intervals, eligibility and record requirements all vary. An arrangement built on the wrong award clause is not saved by having been carefully documented.

Worked Example: The Clerks Award Clause

Clause 18 of the Clerks—Private Sector Award 2020 is a useful illustration of the employer-notification model. It is used here as an example only; the current consolidated award must be checked for the employee in question.

• Eligibility. An employer may pay a full-time employee an annualised wage in satisfaction of identified award provisions, which include minimum rates, allowances, overtime, penalty rates, shiftwork provisions and annual leave loading. It is not available for part-time or casual employees.
• Written particulars. The employer must advise the employee in writing, and keep a record of, the annualised wage payable, the award provisions it satisfies, the method of calculation including each separate component and any overtime or penalty assumptions used, and the outer limit number of penalty-attracting ordinary hours and of overtime hours the employee may be required to work in a pay period or roster cycle without additional payment.
• Outer limits. Hours worked in excess of either outer limit in a pay period or roster cycle are not covered by the annualised wage and must be paid separately in accordance with the award.
• No disadvantage and reconciliation. The annualised wage must be no less than the amount the employee would have received under the award for the work performed. Each 12 months from the commencement of the arrangement, or on termination of employment, the employer must calculate the award amount for the period, compare it with the annualised wage actually paid, and pay any shortfall within 14 days.
• Time records. The employer must keep a record of start and finish times and unpaid breaks for each employee on an annualised wage, signed by the employee or acknowledged as correct in writing, including electronically, each pay period or roster cycle.
• Base rate for NES purposes. The base rate of pay is the portion of the annualised wage equivalent to the minimum rate for the classification, excluding incentive payments, bonuses, loadings, allowances, overtime and penalty rates. That matters for annual leave, notice and redundancy calculations.

The employee acknowledgment requirement is the one most often missed. An arrangement in which the employer sets outer limits but never collects signed or acknowledged time records is not compliant, and the absence of those records is precisely what makes a later reconciliation impossible to perform.

Contractual Salary Set-Off

Where no award annualised wage clause is used, or none is available, employers rely on a contractual salary said to be paid in satisfaction of award entitlements. That is a legitimate mechanism, but a narrow one, and the authorities are consistent about why.

• Appropriation. In Poletti v Ecob (No 2) (1989) 31 IR 321 the Full Court of the Federal Court held that where a payment is appropriated by the employer to a particular incident of employment, it cannot later be applied to satisfy an obligation of a different kind. A payment designated as ordinary-time wages cannot be re-labelled as overtime after the event.
• The two-limb test. James Turner Roofing Pty Ltd v Peters [2003] WASCA 28 restated the principle: a payment made simply for work covered by the award may be credited against the award entitlements arising from that work, but a payment appropriated to one incident of employment cannot be redirected to another.
• Correspondence of purpose. In ANZ Banking Group Ltd v Finance Sector Union of Australia [2001] FCA 1785 a termination payment calculated on a different contractual basis could not be set off against a specific award entitlement to which it was not referable. Being “extra” money is not enough.
• No borrowing between periods. Linkhill Pty Ltd v Director, Office of the Fair Work Building Industry Inspectorate [2015] FCAFC 99 confirmed that an over-award payment in one period cannot be used to offset an underpayment in a different period.
• Close correspondence with the entitlement claimed. In WorkPac Pty Ltd v Rossato [2021] HCA 23 the High Court approached the set-off argument as a question of contractual characterisation: a generic loading not tied by the contract to identified entitlements did not discharge those entitlements.
• Pay-period correspondence. Fair Work Ombudsman v Woolworths Group Limited; Fair Work Ombudsman v Coles Supermarkets Australia Pty Ltd [2025] FCA 1092 principally concerns contractual offsetting and the characterisation of payments across pay periods. On that reasoning, for a contractual set-off an overpayment in one pay period generally cannot be used to satisfy a shortfall in another, so pooling salary across 26-week or 12-month periods is unlikely to discharge the award entitlement. The decision does not displace the express machinery of a valid award annualised wage clause. The proceedings are continuing, including as to relief, and the reasoning and status should be checked in final form.

The drafting consequence is that generic wording — “your salary is paid in satisfaction of all award entitlements” — is close to worthless on its own. A clause that has a prospect of working identifies the instrument and the specific entitlements to be satisfied, states the components and assumptions on which the salary was calculated, corresponds with the pay period, and is supported by a payroll practice that actually tracks the entitlements as they accrue. Later or unrelated overpayments do not cure earlier shortfalls.

High Income Guarantees

A guarantee of annual earnings is often described loosely as “contracting out of the award by paying enough”. That description is wrong in both directions: the framework is statutory and formal, and it does not remove the rest of the employer’s obligations.

• The framework. Sections 328 to 333 contain the guarantee framework. Section 47(2) supplies the consequence: a modern award does not apply to an employee at a time when the employee is a high income employee.
• Formalities. Under section 330 the employer must give a written undertaking to pay a specified amount of earnings for a period of 12 months or more, the employee must agree to accept the undertaking and agree with the amount, the undertaking and agreement must be given before the start of the period and within 14 days after the day the employee is employed or a day on which terms and conditions are varied, and no enterprise agreement may apply at the start of the period.
• Threshold. Under section 329 the annual rate of the guarantee must exceed the high income threshold, which is prescribed under section 333 and indexed each 1 July.
• Guaranteed period. Under section 331 the period ends at the earliest of the end of the undertaking period, an enterprise agreement starting to apply, or revocation of the guarantee with the employee’s agreement.
• Earnings. Section 332 includes wages, amounts dealt with on the employee’s behalf or as directed, and the agreed money value of non-monetary benefits. It excludes payments whose amount cannot be determined in advance — the examples given are commissions, incentive-based payments and bonuses, and overtime unless guaranteed — as well as reimbursements and compulsory superannuation contributions. Discretionary and variable amounts therefore cannot simply be counted towards the guaranteed figure.

Figures verified for 2026–27. The high income threshold is $190,100 for the period 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027. The threshold is indexed each 1 July, so any guarantee, contract template or payroll rule that hard codes a figure must be reviewed annually against the Fair Work Commission’s current published amount.

Two errors recur. The first is assuming that earnings above the threshold are enough: without the written undertaking and the employee’s agreement, the award continues to apply in full. The second is treating a valid guarantee as a general exemption. It is not. The National Employment Standards, the contract, the general protections in Part 3-1, superannuation, work health and safety duties, discrimination law and the record-keeping and pay-slip obligations all continue to operate.

Individual Flexibility Arrangements

Every modern award and enterprise agreement must contain a flexibility term, and sections 202 and 203 govern what that term must do. An individual flexibility arrangement varies the effect of specified terms for an individual employee, and is available only for the matters the flexibility term permits — commonly arrangements for when work is performed, overtime rates, penalty rates, allowances and leave loading.

• It must be genuinely agreed, in writing, and cannot be a condition of engagement or continued employment.
• The employee must be better off overall than they would have been under the instrument, assessed at the time the arrangement is made.
• It must be signed, a copy given to the employee, and it may be terminated by written agreement or on the notice period the flexibility term specifies.
• An invalid arrangement does not reduce the underlying entitlement: the award applies as if the arrangement had not been made, and the shortfall becomes an underpayment.

An IFA is therefore a poor substitute for a properly constructed annualised wage arrangement across a workforce. It is an individual instrument, requiring individual assessment and individual records.

Obligations a Salary Cannot Absorb

A salary can be a mechanism for paying money. It cannot satisfy obligations that are not about money at all, and these are frequently overlooked in salaried workforces because nobody is watching a timesheet.

• Maximum weekly hours. Section 62 provides that an employer must not request or require an employee to work more than 38 hours a week, or the employee’s lesser ordinary hours, unless the additional hours are reasonable. The reasonableness factors include risks to health and safety, the employee’s personal circumstances, operational requirements, whether the employee is compensated, the notice given, and usual patterns in the industry. A salary is relevant to compensation but is not a licence.
• Breaks, rosters and notice. Award provisions on meal and rest breaks, minimum engagements, roster patterns and notice of roster changes apply to salaried award-covered employees in the same way as to hourly-paid employees.
• Consultation. Award and agreement consultation terms about major workplace change and changes to regular rosters or ordinary hours are procedural obligations that money does not discharge.
• Records and pay slips. Sections 535 and 536 and the Fair Work Regulations apply regardless of how the employee is paid.
• Deductions. Sections 324, 325 and 326 limit deductions, requirements to spend money and terms permitting either.

Public Holidays and Disconnecting

Two areas cause particular difficulty for salaried staff.

Public holidays. Section 114 entitles an employee to be absent from work on a public holiday. An employer may request an employee to work on a public holiday if the request is reasonable, and the employee may refuse if the request is not reasonable or the refusal is reasonable, having regard to matters including the nature of the workplace and the work, the employee’s personal circumstances, the notice given and the level of compensation. Simply rostering salaried staff on public holidays without a request, and without considering award penalty entitlements, is a common non-compliance.

Contact outside working hours. The right to disconnect provisions allow an employee to refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact, or attempted contact, from the employer or a third party outside the employee’s working hours, unless the refusal is unreasonable. Reasonableness turns on matters including the reason for the contact, how it is made and the level of disruption, whether the employee is compensated for being available or for working additional hours, the nature of the role and the employee’s level of responsibility, and personal circumstances. Salaried employees are not outside these provisions, and after-hours availability that is genuinely required should be addressed deliberately in the arrangement rather than assumed.

Pay Periods Versus Annual Reconciliation

The single most important recent development concerns timing, and it does not apply identically to both mechanisms. Section 323 requires amounts payable in relation to the performance of work to be paid in full, in money, and at least monthly. An award annualised wage clause supplies its own express machinery: it permits the specified award entitlements to be satisfied through the annualised wage, and provides for comparison and reconciliation at the interval the clause states. That authorisation is specific and limited. It does not extend to entitlements the clause does not cover, and it does not extend to hours beyond the stated outer limits, which must be paid separately in the relevant pay period or roster cycle. Nor does a reconciliation cure a failure to comply with the clause’s formation, written-particulars, record or acknowledgement requirements. A defect in the formation or required written particulars may mean that no valid annualised wage arrangement was established. Later record-keeping or acknowledgement failures are separate breaches that may prevent the employer from demonstrating compliance and expose it to enforcement consequences.

A contractual set-off has no equivalent authorisation. Fair Work Ombudsman v Woolworths Group Limited; Fair Work Ombudsman v Coles Supermarkets Australia Pty Ltd [2025] FCA 1092 principally concerns contractual offsetting and the characterisation of payments across pay periods. On that reasoning, an overpayment in one pay period generally cannot be used to satisfy a shortfall in another, so a practice of averaging contractual compliance across a 26-week or 12-month window is unlikely to discharge the obligation. The proceedings are continuing and the reasoning and status should be checked in final form. For employers, the practical implications are that:

• hours must be captured for salaried award-covered employees, both because an award clause requires acknowledged time records and because contractual set-off cannot be tested without them;
• under a contractual set-off, a periodic “true-up” is a remediation tool, not a compliance design; and
• where the award offers a compliant annualised wage clause, using the clause on its terms — including its written particulars, outer limits, records and reconciliation — is usually a stronger position than relying on a contractual set-off.

Two Worked Reconciliation Examples

The figures below are invented for illustration only. They are not current award rates and must not be used as a substitute for calculating the actual entitlement under the applicable award.

Example 1: annual reconciliation shortfall. An employer pays a full-time administrative employee an annualised wage of $84,000 under an employer-notification award clause. The written particulars record that the wage is calculated on an assumption of two overtime hours per week and sets outer limits of two overtime hours and no penalty-attracting ordinary hours per week. At the 12-month reconciliation the employer calculates the award amount from the signed time records:

• minimum rate for the classification: $72,000;
• overtime actually worked within the outer limits: $9,000;
• allowances engaged during the year: $1,600;
• annual leave loading: $1,260;
• total award amount for the period: $83,860 — no shortfall on these components.

The reconciliation is satisfactory on those components, and the clause permits them to be satisfied through the annualised wage. It is effective only within the clause’s permitted scope: it does not excuse a defective formation of the arrangement, missing or incomplete written particulars, absent or unacknowledged time records, any other requirement of the clause, or hours worked beyond the stated outer limits, which must be paid separately and are the subject of the second example.

Example 2: outer limits exceeded. The same employee works six overtime hours in a fortnightly pay period during a reporting deadline, against an outer limit of two overtime hours per week (four for the fortnight). The two excess hours are not covered by the annualised wage. Assuming an ordinary hourly rate of $36.00 and an overtime rate of time and a half:

• excess overtime hours: 2;
• overtime rate: $36.00 × 1.5 = $54.00;
• amount payable separately: 2 × $54.00 = $108.00;
• timing: payable in accordance with the award for that pay period, not deferred to the annual reconciliation.

A pattern of excess hours is also a signal that the outer limits, and perhaps the salary itself, were set on assumptions that do not match the work, and that the written particulars need to be revisited.

Example 3: a clause that identifies nothing. A contract states only that “your annual salary of $95,000 is paid in satisfaction of all entitlements under any applicable industrial instrument”, and the employer keeps no time records. The employee later claims unpaid weekend penalty rates. The employer cannot show which entitlements the salary was appropriated to, cannot show what was paid for the relevant pay periods, and — because of the record-keeping failure — carries the burden of disproving the employee’s allegations about hours worked.

Records, Pay Slips and the Reverse Onus

Records are not administrative housekeeping. They determine who bears the burden of proof.

• Section 535. Employers must make and keep prescribed employee records for seven years. Knowingly making or keeping a false or misleading record is separately prohibited.
• Section 536. A pay slip must be given within one working day of paying an employee, in the prescribed form. Knowingly false or misleading pay slips are prohibited.
• Fair Work Regulations 2009 (Cth). The Regulations prescribe general employment record content (including employer and employee names, employment status, start date and ABN), records of overtime hours where a penalty rate or loading is payable for overtime actually worked, copies of written averaging agreements, rules for correcting errors and prohibiting other alterations, and pay-slip content including gross and net amounts, the pay period, separately identifiable loadings, allowances, penalty rates, bonuses and incentive payments, deductions and their destination, and rate information.
• Award requirements are additional. Award annualised wage clauses commonly require records of start and finish times and unpaid breaks, with employee signature or written acknowledgment each pay period or roster cycle.
• Section 557C. Where the employer has failed to comply with the record-keeping or pay-slip obligations, and an employee or the Fair Work Ombudsman alleges a matter in proceedings for specified contraventions, the employer bears the burden of disproving the allegation unless it has a reasonable excuse.

A related trap is the “approved overtime only” policy. A policy requiring prior approval is legitimate as a management control, but it does not defeat an entitlement for hours the employer required, permitted or knew were being worked. Where salaried staff routinely work beyond their ordinary hours with the employer’s knowledge, the entitlement arises whether or not a form was completed.

Leave, Superannuation and Termination

A reconciliation is not limited to base pay and overtime. The recurring components are:

• Annual leave and leave loading. Whether loading is absorbed depends on the instrument and, for an annualised wage clause, on whether the clause identifies loading among the provisions satisfied. Leave is paid at the base rate of pay for the ordinary hours the employee would have worked, which is why the clause’s definition of the base rate matters.
• Accruals. Annual leave, personal or carer’s leave and long service leave accrue on the correct ordinary hours. A salary that has been treated as covering longer hours does not change the accrual basis.
• Superannuation. Superannuation is calculated on ordinary time earnings, so an underpayment of ordinary time components usually produces a superannuation shortfall with its own consequences under the superannuation guarantee regime.
• Reconciliation triggers. The annual interval, termination of employment, any variation to the arrangement or the classification, and any change in the award rate or allowances should each prompt a recalculation.
• Termination. On termination, the reconciliation must be performed for the part-year, notice and redundancy must be calculated on the correct base rate, and accrued entitlements paid out. This is where historical classification errors most often surface.
• Overpayments and clawbacks. Recovering an overpayment requires either the employee’s written authorisation for a deduction principally for the employee’s benefit, another lawful basis under section 324, or a separate recovery process. Unilateral deduction from future salary is a frequent contravention.

Underpayment and Criminal Exposure

Where a salary has not met award obligations, the exposure is layered. Our article on payroll audits and employer liability deals with the audit and remediation process in detail; in outline:

• Recovery period. Section 544 requires an application for an order in relation to a contravention to be made within six years after the day the contravention occurred, and section 545(5) confines orders relating to underpayments accordingly.
• What is recovered. The shortfall, associated superannuation, and interest, together with civil penalties in court proceedings.
• Accessorial liability. Section 550 treats a person involved in a contravention as having contravened the provision, which can reach directors, managers, payroll officers and external advisers on appropriate facts.
• Serious contraventions. Section 557A applies higher penalties where the person knowingly contravened the provision or was reckless as to whether the contravention would occur.
• Regulator action. The Fair Work Ombudsman may investigate, issue compliance notices and infringement notices, accept enforceable undertakings and commence proceedings.
• Criminal offence. Section 327A, in force from 1 January 2025, makes it an offence for an employer to engage in conduct that results in a failure to pay a required amount in full on or before the day it is due, where the conduct and the failure are intentional. It does not capture honest mistakes, and it does not apply to earlier conduct.
• Voluntary Small Business Wage Compliance Code. A small business employer that complies with the Code in relation to an underpayment is not to be referred for criminal prosecution for that underpayment. This is a different instrument from the Small Business Fair Dismissal Code, which concerns dismissal, and is discussed in our serious misconduct article.
• Cooperation and privilege. Self-identified underpayments are ordinarily better disclosed and remediated than left, but the sequencing, the scope of any audit and the management of legal professional privilege should be decided with advice before the first spreadsheet is circulated.

Staged Remediation Checklist

Where an employer suspects its salary arrangements are exposed, the following staging keeps the exercise controlled.

1. Stage 1 — scope. Identify the employing entities, the salaried populations, the instruments said to apply, and the mechanism relied on for each group. Preserve payroll, rostering and time-system data.
2. Stage 2 — instrument and classification. Confirm coverage and application, and classify a sample of roles from actual duties. Classification errors change every downstream calculation, so they are resolved first.
3. Stage 3 — mechanism audit. For award annualised wage arrangements, test the written particulars, outer limits, acknowledged time records and reconciliation history against the clause. For contractual set-off, test the clause wording, the identified entitlements and the pay-period correspondence.
4. Stage 4 — quantify. Rebuild entitlements pay period by pay period for a representative sample, then extrapolate deliberately and test the extrapolation.
5. Stage 5 — fix forward. Correct classifications, capture hours, reset outer limits on realistic assumptions, redraft the contract or issue compliant written particulars, and build the reconciliation into the payroll calendar with an owner.
6. Stage 6 — remediate back. Calculate the shortfall, superannuation and interest, decide on disclosure, communicate clearly to affected employees, and document the methodology so it can be explained later.
7. Stage 7 — govern. Diarise the 1 July award and threshold review, the annual reconciliation, and a periodic classification check on any role whose duties have changed.

Common Employer Mistakes

• Assuming that a generous salary is self-evidently compliant, without measuring the entitlement it is said to satisfy.
• Not knowing which of the four mechanisms the business is relying on, or mixing two of them in the same contract.
• Using an annualised wage clause for an employee the clause does not cover, such as a part-time or casual employee.
• Failing to give or keep the written particulars, including the calculation method and the outer limits.
• Keeping no time records for salaried staff, and so having no way to reconcile and no answer to a section 557C allegation.
• Relying on a contractual set-off and treating an annual true-up as a substitute for appropriating payments to the entitlements that accrued in each pay period.
• Ignoring hours beyond the outer limits instead of paying them separately in the relevant pay period.
• Assuming that paying above the high income threshold disapplies the award without a written undertaking and agreement.
• Counting bonuses, commissions or compulsory superannuation towards guaranteed annual earnings.
• Relying on a policy requiring pre-approval of overtime to defeat hours the employer knew were being worked.
• Deducting overpayments unilaterally from future salary.
• Setting a salary once and never revisiting it after the 1 July award variations.

How We Can Help

We advise employers, boards and finance teams on award coverage and classification, on choosing and documenting the right mechanism for salaried staff, and on remediating historical exposure with the least disruption possible.

• Reviewing coverage, application and classification for salaried roles, and documenting the reasoning.
• Drafting compliant annualised wage particulars, set-off clauses, IFAs and guarantees of annual earnings.
• Designing reconciliation and record-keeping processes that can be demonstrated years later.
• Scoping and conducting privileged underpayment reviews, and advising on disclosure, remediation and dealings with the Fair Work Ombudsman.
• Advising directors and officers on accessorial and criminal exposure and on governance controls.

Related Reading

• Wage underpayments, payroll audits and employer liability — the audit, remediation and enforcement process in detail.
• Employee or contractor — the characterisation question that precedes award coverage.
• Serious misconduct and summary dismissal — notice, final pay and the Small Business Fair Dismissal Code.
• Genuine redundancy and consultation — consultation obligations and redundancy pay on the correct base rate.
• Employment law for employers — how we work with employers on workplace compliance and risk.

Official Sources

• Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) — current compilation — including sections 47, 61, 62, 114, 202, 203, 323 to 326, 327A, 328 to 333, 535, 536, 544, 545, 550, 557A and 557C.
• Fair Work Regulations 2009 (Cth) — current compilation — including the record-keeping and pay-slip provisions in Part 3-6.
• Clerks—Private Sector Award 2020 (MA000002) — clause 18, annualised wage arrangements.
• Fair Work Ombudsman — annualised wages and salaries.
• Fair Work Ombudsman — offsetting and record-keeping for salaried employees — the regulator’s guidance following the 2025 Federal Court decisions.
• Fair Work Ombudsman — record-keeping and pay slips.
• Fair Work Commission — high income threshold — the current indexed amount.
• Fair Work Ombudsman — criminal prosecution and the Voluntary Small Business Wage Compliance Code.

Frequently Asked Questions