Aged Care Payroll & SCHADS Award Compliance: A Provider Guide

The difficult part of aged care payroll is often the handover: a changed visit, a missing timesheet or a classification decision reaches finance too late to resolve comfortably. A well-run pay cycle gives each exception an owner and connects the final amount to the work behind it.

This guide sets out a practical review process for home care teams using SCHADS. Confirm each worker’s award or agreement first; aged care is not one payroll stream. Our SCHADS guide explains the key coverage and shift-rule distinctions. Reviewed 25 September 2026.

Before reviewing hours, confirm the worker’s employment type, applicable instrument, classification, agreed hours and payroll-provider identity. Save the effective date of any change and the person who approved it.

Keep home care and SACS classification decisions distinct. Do not copy a level from a similarly named role or treat a worker profile as proof that the classification was assessed correctly. For exact rates, use the Fair Work Pay and Conditions Tool for the relevant work date and circumstances.

A useful onboarding check is simple: payroll and operations should be able to explain the same worker record without reconstructing it from emails.

Review missing attendance, changed start or finish times, leave and additional work before calculation. Record why an exception was accepted and which pay period it belongs to.

Use a clear cut-off with an owner for late corrections. A coordinator should be able to identify the affected shift; payroll should be able to identify the resulting adjustment. Keep the original record available when a correction is made.

The rostering guide covers the planning side. The payroll review needs the work that actually occurred.

Overtime is not simply everything above a universal weekly threshold. Clause 28 distinguishes full-time from part-time and casual employees, with daily, shift, span and averaging rules. Public holiday overtime is not a blanket 200%. Check the applicable provision in the current award.

For ordinary part-time or casual home care work, check the two-hour minimum payment and the separate rules for broken shifts. A 45-minute visit does not automatically mean 45 minutes of pay. Fair Work’s hours guidance explains the different arrangements.

Choose representative exceptions for review each cycle: an extended shift, additional hours, a short engagement and any overnight work. Document the expected treatment rather than relying on one weekly-hours alert.

Check payable travel time and any vehicle allowance as separate items. The allowance depends on required, authorised use of the worker’s own vehicle; a visit gap alone does not prove either entitlement. Use Fair Work’s travel guidance to assess the circumstances.

In Statura Care’s care worker app, workers can submit kilometre claims against a timesheet and add travel times or a duration. Kilometres and minutes remain separate and claims carry a review status. Ask to inspect a sample claim, its supporting note and the information your payroll process needs.

Before approving the handoff, compare worker identities, pay-period dates, hours and amounts with the reviewed source records. Resolve missing mappings and differences explicitly.

Keep a clear distinction between preparing payroll data, sending it, posting the provider pay run and confirming payment. A successful export is evidence of one step, not evidence that employees have been paid. Decide who owns each step and what confirms completion.

Retain the reviewed totals, handoff result and any correction reference together. That makes a later worker query easier to investigate.

Statura Care’s payroll workspace makes time completion, calculation, worker matching, provider handoff and reconciliation visible as separate stages. Posting remains in your payroll provider.

For a tailored demo, bring a sample fortnight and your current provider details. Follow a changed visit and travel claim, inspect a calculation blocker, then check the handoff and reconciliation steps. Use the software evaluation workbook to record what is demonstrated, the configuration required and the responsibilities your team retains.