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Multiple awards and conditions combined with a seasonal workforce mean agribusinesses struggle with compliance.
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Fair Work blitz forces farmers to digitise payroll
29 September 2022
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Farmers are being forced to make the leap from traditional accounting to digital records and payroll following a series of inspections by the Fair Work Ombudsman in September.
It was just the latest in a blitz of almost 200 agribusinesses across four states since last December, which have revealed the difficulties farmers have in meeting payroll compliance requirements.
For example, site inspections of farming communities at Coffs Harbour and Grafton in NSW at the end of 2021 found 60 per cent were non-compliant with workplace laws, including breaches of record-keeping and payslip obligations.
Compliance changes add to a long list of problems for farmers that include supply chain issues, worker shortages and natural disasters. But it is one they can fix.
“Historically, agricultural businesses did most of their accounting through manual methods,” said Phil Bernie, co-founder of payroll and compliance platform KeyPay.
“The Fair Work Ombudsman has made it clear now it will be honing in on poor record keeping — time-sheets, punch cards and handwritten rosters are going to become things of the past if agricultural businesses want to avoid penalties.”
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He said the myriad employees, award rates and industry requirements involved in running an agricultural business meant it was virtually impossible for farmers to stay up to date.
“Farm and agricultural businesses rely on a transient workforce — international workers, seasonal workers, older workers — and all have different pay rates, award conditions and compliance issues,” Mr Bernie said.
“Payroll in the agriculture industry is often challenging and time-consuming, as large workforces completing tasks across wide operations often make payroll inefficient and error-prone. Automation will enable a stable and repeatable process for capturing payroll information and provides data effortlessly.”
KeyPay’s payroll platform had helped agricultural businesses large and small to overcome the complexities, take the guesswork out of pay scales, awards and compliance, and capture business data so it can adjust to environmental and governmental changes.
“The technology we have developed can help agricultural businesses grow confidence and boost productivity by streamlining workflow,” Mr Bernie said.
“Capturing data can provide insights into where productivity gains could be made and optimises decision-making when faced with a challenge caused by climate change or natural disaster.
“In addition to capturing all the information, we have built automation into the system so when farmers are out working, we can be doing the heavy lifting, and when they get to processing payroll, they are just checking that everything is correct rather than inputting all the data.
“For example, if a worker accidentally forgets to clock off, the system will alert the employer there is an anomaly and it can be rectified. Or if someone mistakenly puts they have picked 1,000kg of oranges rather than 100kg, the system will again create an alert.
“For a farm that has 200–300 workers, the person in charge of payroll can just focus on the exceptions the system identifies. The platform will automate their Single Touch Payroll, super payments, and timesheet approvals.”
Mr Bernie said an automated system could reduce accounting and bookkeeping from around six hours per week to about 30 minutes.
“The majority of employers want to do the right thing,” he said. “In the agricultural industry I have seen employers think they are doing the right thing by paying over the award rate but they don’t then realise that an increase above the award doesn’t cover everything.
“Once they move the base rate up, they also have to pay over and above on everything related to that employee, so even if they had the best intentions they will be pulled up on not being compliant.”
Sidney Mazzi (pictured), chief executive of Tātou Technologies, a New Zealand-based workforce management software company that works in partnership with KeyPay in New Zealand and Australia, said managing the complexities of an agricultural workforce was very challenging.
“Consistently paying workers accurately requires employers to have the right combination of systems,” he said. “Employee pay is only as accurate as the data going into the payroll system. Using Tātou and KeyPay’s integrated solution greatly increases the speed, accuracy, and transparency of timesheet management. Together we create a streamlined process for data sharing that makes payroll more efficient and reduces errors.
“What we have seen is that there is a lot of (agricultural workforce) data being kept with the use of pen and paper, which is very difficult to do accurately.
“Technology can be overwhelming but good technology can save time, especially if it is easy to use on the field and in the office to do payroll.
“It’s important that farm-based businesses know all the awards and who is doing what, and doing that with pen and paper is not very efficient or streamlined.
“In New Zealand there has been a crackdown on compliance issues for a few years and because farm work is often done on a piece rate it is challenging to ensure you are complying with all legislation.
“And I know that every year there is a greater need for seasonal workers as the industry is growing. The labour shortage is huge, and there are thousands of workers entering.
“Most farmers want to make the life of their workers the best they can and to do that there needs to be transparency to create trust and attract more workers, so payroll software that allows that is essential.”
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