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How is superannuation calculated?

In a given month, superannuation is calculated on an employee's pay as follows:

The amount of pay for the month MULTIPLIED by the current super rate MINUS super already calculated for that month.

The super calculation also takes into account any adjustments made to an employee's super for a given month.

Here's an example of how a super adjustment affects the super calculation in an employee's pay for a given month. Note that this is based on the current super guarantee rate of 10.5% (this increased from 10% on 1 July 2022).

(MTD = Month to date)

This shows that despite the employee being paid the same amount each week, the super calculation in week 3 takes into account the super adjustment. This ensures the correct amount of super is paid to an employee for any given month.

If the incorrect super is from a previous payroll year, check with your accounting advisor before attempting to correct this in your software.

Make sure your employees have the correct super guarantee percentage set in their record, otherwise the wrong amount of super will be paid for them.

If you need to fix overpaid or underpaid superannuation, you can:

• adjust the superannuation amount in a future pay, or
• create a separate pay for the adjustment (only for fixing underpaid super).

To make the super adjustment in a future pay

Ideally, this should occur in the employee's final pay for the current month. But if it's too late for this, you can process it in the employee's final pay for any future month.

In the employee's pay, click into the Super field and adjust the amount.

Here's an example where the super amount is manually increased by $100 to make up for an underpayment from a previous month. If you're fixing an overpayment, reduce the super value by the overpaid amount.

To make the super adjustment in a separate pay

Because you can't record a negative pay in MYOB Essentials, you can only use this method to fix a superannuation underpayment. If possible, process the separate pay at the end of the month in which the underpayment occurred. If it's too late to do this, it can be processed at the end of any subsequent month.

Start a new pay for the employee and zero out all hours and amounts from the pay. Then enter the super adjustment amount in the Super field.

Here it is in action showing $100 being paid in super to make up for an earlier underpayment.

If the above solutions don't suit your needs, you can delete the pay containing the incorrect super amount and re-enter the pay.