Employment Hero Super Calculating Wrong? Checks for 2026-27

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Checked against Employment Hero’s Help Centre and current Australian guidance on 13/08/2026.

The short version

1. From 1 July 2026, super guarantee is calculated on qualifying earnings and paid for each payday.
2. A fund generally must receive the contribution within seven business days after payday, subject to limited exceptions.
3. Employment Hero defaults and rate automation still need checking, especially for leave loading and manually changed super rates.

Full detail below.

Why is my Employment Hero super calculating wrong?

The first question changed on 1 July 2026. For earnings paid before that date, employers calculated super guarantee against Ordinary Time Earnings (OTE) under the quarterly system. For earnings paid from 1 July 2026, the ATO requires employers to use qualifying earnings and pay super for each payday.

Qualifying earnings include OTE, salary-sacrificed amounts that would otherwise qualify and all employee commissions. The main addition is a commission paid wholly for work outside ordinary hours; that commission was not OTE but is now part of qualifying earnings. The SG rate remains 12%.

If the amount in Employment Hero looks wrong, check four inputs before changing a percentage:

• whether each payment belongs in qualifying earnings
• the super rate on the pay category, template and employee record
• leave loading and other system-generated categories
• whether the employee has reached the annual maximum contribution base

A wrong input can produce a plausible pay run, so the absence of an error message is not proof that the calculation is right.

Qualifying earnings replaced OTE from 1 July 2026

OTE still matters because it forms most of the new base and remains the rule for earnings paid up to 30 June 2026. It is also the reference point for reconciling an older underpayment. The payment date decides which regime applies.

Payment	Qualifying earnings from 1 July 2026?
Ordinary hours, casual loading and shift penalties	Yes
Most paid annual leave and leave loading not tied to lost overtime	Yes
Overtime where ordinary hours are clearly identified	No
Expense reimbursements and allowances expected to be fully spent	No
All commissions, including those earned wholly outside ordinary hours	Yes
Salary sacrifice amounts that would have qualified before sacrifice	Yes

This table is a starting point, not an award interpretation. An award or enterprise agreement can require extra super on a payment that the legislation excludes from the minimum SG base.

The practical Employment Hero check is the complete pay-category export. Review every active and dormant category against the ATO table and the relevant industrial instrument. Correct the configuration, then reconcile every affected pay run. Changing the current setting does not repair an earlier shortfall.

Payday Super makes fund receipt part of the payroll control

Under Payday Super, the contribution generally needs to be received by the employee’s fund within seven business days after payday, with enough information for the fund to allocate it to the member. Limited exceptions apply, including a longer period for some new employees.

That is a receipt deadline, not a submit-by date. A rejected contribution or slow clearing-house process can leave a payment late even when payroll sent the file on payday. The managed process therefore needs to cover three points: the contribution generated in the pay run, the payment accepted by the clearing house or fund, and any exception resolved before the deadline.

For the wider legislative and payroll-system changes, see what changed for payroll on 1 July 2026.

Why Employment Hero’s super rate may not update automatically

Employment Hero Payroll classic selects Automatically Update Super Rates by default. That setting starts the update process; it does not override every record.

Employment Hero’s guidance says a pay category will not be updated when its super rate is 0% or differs from the legislated rate for the current year. An override on a pay-rate template or employee Pay Rates page can also stop the automatic change.

This creates a specific trap. If someone typed a future legislated rate into a category early, that category no longer matched the current-year default and could be excluded from the next automatic rollover. The business that tried to prepare early is the one that needs the strongest pre-July check.

The resolution is a controlled annual audit across:

1. the business-level Automatically Update Super Rates setting
2. pay-category Super Rate fields
3. pay-rate template overrides
4. employee-level overrides

Exporting the categories and templates is safer than opening a few employee records. Payd Co includes this review in the pre-July payroll configuration check and tests the first pay run with a July payment date before relying on automation.

Super on leave loading is not safe to leave on the default

The ATO includes annual leave loading in qualifying earnings unless it is clearly linked to a lost opportunity to work overtime. The label alone is not evidence of that link.

Employment Hero’s system-generated Leave Loading pay category does not assume super applies in every business. Its leave-loading guidance tells the payroll administrator to add the required super rate to that category when super should be calculated.

That makes leave loading a configuration decision with an evidence requirement:

• confirm what the award, agreement or employment arrangement says the loading compensates for
• record the basis for including or excluding it
• configure the system-generated Leave Loading category accordingly
• test an employee taking loaded annual leave

Where the loading is not demonstrably linked to lost overtime, leaving the generated category at nil can underpay super without producing a warning. We close that gap by documenting the basis, setting the category and including a leave-loading test in the reconciliation pack.

The maximum contribution base is now annual

The old quarterly maximum contribution base no longer applies to earnings paid from 1 July 2026. The ATO’s annual maximum contribution base is $270,830 for 2026-27.

Once an employee’s qualifying earnings paid in the year reach that amount, the employer does not need to pay statutory SG on further qualifying earnings for the rest of that financial year. An award or enterprise agreement may still require additional contributions.

This was the figure that conflicted across secondary sources. The ATO page was updated on 10 August 2026 and confirms $270,830, calculated from the $32,500 concessional contributions cap and the 12% SG rate. The similar $250,000 figure belongs to other super and tax thresholds and should not be used as the 2026-27 MCB.

For high earners, check year-to-date qualifying earnings before applying the cap and restart the calculation in the new financial year. A manual stop applied to the wrong employee or year creates an immediate shortfall.

How to reconcile an Employment Hero super discrepancy

Start with one affected employee and trace the calculation without changing the live setup:

1. Confirm the payment date and whether the pre-July OTE rules or post-July qualifying-earnings rules apply.
2. Rebuild the expected base from the employee’s earnings lines.
3. Compare each line with the pay-category super field and any template or employee override.
4. Check salary sacrifice, leave loading and the annual MCB separately.
5. Compare the expected contribution with the pay-run result and the amount received by the fund.

Once the cause is clear, identify every employee and pay run using the same category or override. Fix the configuration for future runs, then calculate the historic difference under the rules that applied to each payment date. If a required contribution was late or short, follow the current ATO process for the super guarantee charge; do not net it into the next normal contribution and assume the matter is closed.

This is the point where a category-level issue becomes a payroll reconciliation. Payd Co handles the mapping, employee scope and correction process as part of Employment Hero implementation and managed payroll support.

Why didn’t my Employment Hero super rate update automatically?

The business-level automatic-update setting does not override every category and employee. A pay category set to 0% or a rate different from the current legislated rate is excluded, as are some template and employee-level overrides. Review all four levels before the first July-dated pay run.

Does annual leave loading attract super after 1 July 2026?

Usually, unless the loading is clearly linked to compensation for a lost opportunity to work overtime. Employment Hero leaves this as a payroll configuration decision, so the system-generated Leave Loading pay category must be checked against the employment arrangement and ATO guidance.

What is the maximum contribution base for 2026-27?

The ATO confirms an annual maximum contribution base of $270,830 for 2026-27. It applies to qualifying earnings paid during the financial year and does not remove any additional contribution obligation under an award or enterprise agreement.