General Retail Industry Award Update - September 2021

This article is for the users who use the Retail Industry Award and require an update from 1 September 2021.

Annual Wage Review - General Retail Award Changes

Changes to Pay Rates and Allowances as part of the Annual Wage Review have been included in the WageEasy Retail Industry Award pdl file - General Retail Industry Award 2020_2021-09_UPDATE.Pdl. In addition, update to Awards for Superannuation Contribution and Quarterly Cap and Pay Rate decimal place settings are available.

Pay Rates

The pay rate changes take effect from the first full pay period in September. That is, the first pay period that starts on, or after, 1 September 2021. These changes have been included in the General Retail Industry Award 2020_2021-09_UPDATE.Pdl file. 

Allowances

The changes to Allowances take effect from the first full pay period in September.  That is, the first pay period that starts on, or after, 1 September 2021.

The update should be applied prior to processing your first full pay period in September. That is, the first pay period that starts on, or after, 1 September 2021.

To Only Update The New Pay Rates

1. Select the Base Pay Rates option only from the Download These Items section.
   

To Only Update The New Pay Rates And Allowances

1. Select the Allowances and Base Pay Rates option from the Download These Items section.

To Update All Items From PDL

1. This includes all Award conditions, Allowances and Pay Rates, select  Allowances, Awards and Base Pay Rates option from the Download These Items section.

More information about these changes is available at the FairWork website here and here. 

The current General Retail Industry Award is available here.

Important

If you have made any amendments to the standard award configurations as supplied in Wagemaster, you should be aware the updates will overwrite any of the customisations you have made to the related award configurations in your Wagemaster company file/s. These customisations include award provisions such as ordinary hours and penalty rates, state long service leave accrual rates or leave loading (particularly in salary awards). You can keep your customised award configurations and update the above-mentioned items manually; or, if manual changes have been made, please check and change these as required after applying the updated awards.

Additional Items

Pay Rate Decimal Places

1. Navigate to General > General > Pay Rate Decimal Places.
2. By default, Pay Rate decimal places are set to 4. See FairWork Act 2009 with regards to rounding to 2 decimal places.
3. All FairWork base pay rates are set to 2 decimal places in Wagemaster however where this Award setting is higher than 2, loadings will pay to this set number of decimal places.

Normal Times

1. Navigate to Normal > Normal Times > Public Holiday > Minimum Hours.
2. By default, there are no minimum hours set for Public Holidays in the current award configuration. Please check the Award for further details.
3. If applicable, also consider the impact to your period overtime settings if calculating over multiple pay periods. The date entered for the period start will be removed with the update.

Loadings

1. Navigate to Loadings > Day > Public Holiday > Hours 1, Loading 1 and Balance.
2. No value is set for Hours 1 and Loading 1, the Balance is set as per MA00004, eg. Casual 150%, FT & PT 125%.
   
3. For details on Superannuation ordinary time earnings (OTE) applicable to superannuation contributions, please refer to the ATO website here.

Long Service Leave

1. Navigate to Leave > Long Service.
2. Wagemaster Awards are provided with long service leave accrual rates based on 13 weeks over 15 years.
3. Please check State\Employer Association\EBA-ECA\FairWork legislation and amend accordingly if your employees are entitled to accrue long service leave at a rate other than 13 weeks over 15 years.
4. The table below is from the Parliament of Australia website that sets out the long service leave entitlements for each state and territory.

Important

If you have made any amendments to the standard award configurations as supplied in Wagemaster, you should be aware the updates will overwrite any of the customisations you have made to the related award configurations in your Wagemaster company file/s. These customisations include award provisions such as ordinary hours and penalty rates, state long service leave accrual rates or leave loading (particularly in salary awards). You can keep your customised award configurations and update the above-mentioned items manually.

Pre-Update

1. Backup your Wagemaster Company Files to File Manager - We recommend you take a backup of your Wagemaster company files prior to making any changes to your Wagemaster company files.
2. Updating GRIA PDL prior to processing first full pay to be processed in September 2021 Wagemaster Reference: Setup > Associations.
   Please Note
3. Save the General Retail Industry Award 2020_2021-09_UPDATE.Pdl file to your Desktop or another nominated folder path.

Update Instructions 

1. From Wagemaster, navigate to Setup > Associations.

2. Select General Retail Industry Award association icon > Edit and then click on the Internet tab.

3. Within the Internet tab, tick the items that you want to update i.e. Allowances, Awards, and Base Pay Rates. Do not tick Tax Tables & Rebates.

4. Click Update Now. 
   

5. You are now ready to update the selected components for any General Retail Industry Award associated items in your company file.
6. After clicking Update Now > Next and then Load from Disk File, click on the 3 dots (ellipsis) to navigate to the location (i.e. Desktop >General Retail Industry Award 2020_2021-09_UPDATE.Pdl file) that you saved.
7. Once you have located the file, select Open > Next > Finish. You should see folders moving across the screen with familiar names of awards in your association.
   

8. You should then close using the close door icon (not the red cross) and select Close in the Edit Association Details box.

9. Repeat this process for each company file.

10.  You are now ready to pay your employees.

11. If you do not have any manual items to transition within your awards then you have completed this task.

Please thoroughly check the interpretation applied and conditions set within the PDL files before changing employees onto any award items, in particular the award conditions, pay rates and allowance configurations and test for consistency with your own interpretation. 

More information about these changes and the General Retail Industry Award 2020 is available from FairWork: General Retail Industry Award 2020 - MA000004.

Wagemaster and Agrimaster cannot provide clients with business or industrial relations advice.

Wagemaster and Agrimaster cannot provide advice relating to the interpretation of these Awards.