Documents · Glossary
What must a payslip include?
An Australian payslip must show the employer and employee names, the employer's Australian Business Number, the pay period, the date of payment, the gross and net amounts, any loadings, allowances, bonuses or penalty rates, the deductions and who they were paid to, and the superannuation contributions or the fund they went to.
Payslips are one of the few workplace documents with a legislated content list and a legislated deadline, and the penalties for getting them wrong are separate from any underpayment. They are also the first thing anybody looks at when a pay dispute starts.
Indunil Asanka · Co-founder
6 min read · Published
| Item | Always | When it applies |
|---|---|---|
| Employer name and ABN | Yes | |
| Employee name, pay period and date of payment | Yes | |
| Gross and net pay | Yes | |
| Hourly rate and hours worked | Where the employee is paid an hourly rate | |
| Loadings, penalty rates, allowances, bonuses | Where any were paid in the period | |
| Deductions, with the amount and who they were paid to | Where any were made | |
| Superannuation contributions and the fund | Yes | The amount, or the amount the employer is liable to pay |
| Leave balances | Not required on the payslip, but often shown |
The one working day rule
A payslip has to be given within one working day of payday, and that obligation does not depend on whether the employee asked for it or whether they are still employed. It applies to an employee who resigned the day before payday just as much as to a continuing one. Electronic delivery is fine and is now the norm, so an emailed PDF or a portal the employee can reach satisfies it, provided the employee can actually access and keep a copy. Two practical points follow. A portal an ex employee is locked out of on their last day does not satisfy the obligation for their final pay. And payslips have to be issued even when the net pay is zero, such as a period covered entirely by unpaid leave, because the record is what the rule is protecting.
Why itemisation matters more than the total
A payslip showing a single gross figure for a week of mixed ordinary and penalty hours is not compliant and, more importantly, is unusable. The whole purpose of the document is to let the employee check the arithmetic against the award or agreement that covers them. That means ordinary hours at the ordinary rate on one line, Saturday and Sunday rates on their own lines, overtime separately, and each allowance named rather than folded into a total. Deductions need the same treatment, with the amount and the name of the person or fund the money went to. Where a deduction is made for something the employer benefits from, the rules on what can lawfully be deducted are strict, and the payslip is the place the problem becomes visible.
Superannuation and year to date figures
The payslip has to show the superannuation contributions for the period, or the amount the employer is liable to contribute, along with the fund the money is going to where that is known. Showing the fund name matters because employees change funds and the payslip is the earliest place a misdirected contribution can be caught. Year to date columns are not required but are almost universal, and they are genuinely useful for the employee reconciling against their income statement at the end of the year. If year to date figures are shown, they need to be right, since a mismatch between the payslip and the reported income creates a query that is much more tedious to resolve than it is to prevent.
Record keeping sits alongside it
Payslips are one half of an obligation whose other half is employee records: hours worked, rates, leave taken and accrued, superannuation and the details of any agreement varying hours. Those records have to be kept for seven years, in a legible form, and they cannot be altered unless the alteration is to correct an error. The reason to mention it on a page about payslips is that a payslip is generated from those records, so an error in one is usually an error in both. An employer who cannot produce records when asked can find that assumptions are made against them in a dispute, which is a heavier consequence than the payslip rule itself carries.
Building the payslip as a document
A payslip is a one page record, so it takes a letterhead and never a cover. Covers are never added to a receipt or a document under three pages, and a payslip is squarely in that category. The earnings, deductions and superannuation sections work as three small tables rather than one wide one, since a wide table with eight columns is unreadable when printed. A key values block carries gross, net and the pay date at the top in one of four layouts. Documents hold no input fields, so every figure is written as content.
The payslip as the first document in a dispute
When a pay query becomes a claim, the payslip is where everybody starts, and its quality decides how long the argument lasts. A slip that names the award classification, the hourly rate and the hours at each rate lets both sides check the figure in ten minutes. A slip showing only a gross total means a reconstruction from rosters, bank statements and memory, and that reconstruction usually favours the employee because the employer holds the burden of proving what was paid and for what. It is worth adding the classification level even though it is not on the required list, since most disputes turn out to be about classification rather than arithmetic. Consistency also matters more than people expect. Changing the layout or the line naming halfway through a year makes comparison across periods harder for everybody.
Questions people ask
Can a payslip be handwritten?
Nothing requires it to be printed from a system, so a handwritten payslip containing all the required items is technically compliant. In practice it is a poor idea, because handwriting invites arithmetic errors, the employer keeps no easily searchable copy, and the document is harder to reconcile against the seven years of records that have to be kept anyway.
Do contractors get payslips?
No. A genuine independent contractor invoices for their work and the payslip obligation does not apply. Issuing payslips to somebody engaged as a contractor is one of the indicators that the relationship may really be employment, so it is worth checking which one it is rather than solving the paperwork question first.
Must leave balances be shown?
Leave balances are not on the required list for payslips, though employers must keep leave records and employees are entitled to be told their balance on request. Most payroll systems print balances anyway and employees expect it. If balances are shown they should be accurate, since a wrong figure on a payslip is often what triggers a dispute.
What if a payslip has an error?
Correct it and reissue, keeping both versions. Do not overwrite the original, because the record of what was issued at the time is the thing that matters if the period is later examined. Where the error caused an underpayment, fixing the payslip is only half the job and the shortfall needs paying with an explanation of the period covered.
Can payslips be emailed to a shared address?
They should go to the individual employee in a way only they can access, because a payslip contains personal information including bank and superannuation details. A shared team inbox or a printed pile in a staff room is a privacy problem even when everybody is comfortable with it, and it is one that becomes obvious only after something goes wrong.
Does a payslip have to be in English?
There is no requirement that it be in any particular language, but the employee has to be able to understand what they have been paid. Where a workforce reads another language, issuing a translated version alongside the English one is good practice, and it reduces the number of pay queries that turn out to be comprehension problems rather than payroll errors.
Make one with documents
The button opens the generator with this use case already described. Change the wording to match your own.
Create a document with OneCraftRelated questions
- What is a timesheet, and who approves it?A timesheet records the hours somebody worked in a period and is approved by a manager. What a timesheet holds, who signs it, and how it differs from a roster.
- What is an expense report?An expense report is the itemised claim a person submits for money they spent. How an expense report, an expense claim and a reimbursement differ.
- What is an employee handbook?An employee handbook collects a workplace's policies in one document. What it is for, whether it binds the employer, and how to keep it current.
Step by step in the builder: Create a document with AI, then Every document component and when to use it.
Written and checked by the OneCraft team. Last checked .