There are only two cells to complete for each employee’s salary and remuneration information for the unit level file – Base Salary and Total Remuneration.
Both figures must be provided as the annualised and full-time equivalent amounts – that is, the amount the employee would have earned if they had worked a full year for full-time hours.
Payment reference table - unit level template
| Payment type | Unit level file |
| Annual leave and leave loading |
Base salary* |
|
Carer and sick leave |
Base salary* |
| Employer funded parental leave | Base salary* |
|
Penalty rates and shift loadings |
Base salary* |
| Salary sacrificed items | Base salary* |
| Wages/salary (fixed) | Base salary* |
| Wages/salary (pro-rata) | Base salary* |
| Workers’ compensation payments | Base salary* |
| Allowances (fixed amount) |
Total remuneration |
| Allowances (pro-rata) | Total remuneration |
| Associated payments on overtime earnings (bonuses, penalty rates) | Total remuneration |
| Back pay or lump sums | Total remuneration |
| Cashed out annual leave or long service leave | Total remuneration |
| Car payments (company car) | Total remuneration |
| Car reimbursements (personal car) | Total remuneration |
| Discretionary payments (fixed) | Total remuneration |
| Fringe benefits (long/short term incentives) | Total remuneration |
| Overtime worked outside of expected hours | Total remuneration |
| Sales commission (pro-rata) | Total remuneration |
| Sales commission (fixed) | Total remuneration |
| Share allocations | Total remuneration |
| Superannuation | Total remuneration |
| Superannuation on fixed remuneration | Total remuneration |
| Temporary performance loading or higher duties allowance | Total remuneration |
*Please note - All base salary amounts in the unit level file must be included in the total remuneration figure
** Company car payments - if the car is a tool of trade it is not included, if the car is part of the employees salary package it should be included on the profile.
Column K - Base salary
'Base Salary' is a mandatory field in the Workplace Profile. It refers to an employee’s actual annual earnings before tax in full-time and full year equivalent amounts, minus compulsory superannuation and other employee payments and benefits.
Base Salary is an employee's gross base salary before tax, and includes:
- Wages/salary payments
- Annual leave, leave loading and long service leave
- Carer/sick leave
- Employer funded parental leave
- Penalty rates/shift loadings that are paid as part of a casual, permanent or fixed-term employee’s ordinary working hours (this does not include overtime payments)
- Salary sacrificed amounts (e.g. employee superannuation contributions, car leases, childcare, rent)
- Workers compensation
The Base Salary amount entered must be equivalent to what the employee would earn for the above items if they had worked full time hours for a full year.
Base salary amounts entered that are below minimum wage (for an annualised and full-time equivalent amount) will be flagged by the system as requiring an explanation. There are only a few circumstances when a figure below minimum wage can be accepted:
- If the employee is employed through a disability support scheme
- If the employee is school aged (junior), or a trainee
If you enter a reason that the employee works casually/part time or has periods of unpaid leave this will not be accepted.
- You must calculate the base salary and total remuneration earnings of each employee on the file as if they did work a full year for full-time hours (and did not take unpaid leave).
Column L - Total remuneration
'Total Remuneration' is a mandatory field. It is the sum of three types of payments made to employees:
- Base Salary that has been annualised and converted to the full-time equivalent amounts, plus
- Fixed remuneration payments, plus
- Other pro-rata payments that have been annualised and converted to the full-time equivalent amounts.
Total Remuneration should include all payments and income paid to an employee by an employer, the figure includes:
- The entire Base Salary amount you entered into column K
- Allowances
- Bonus pay
- Cashed-out annual leave (taken in lieu of leave)
- Company car payments
- Discretionary pay
- Fringe benefits (long/short term incentives)
- Overtime
- Non-financial benefits (gym memberships, counselling services etc)
- Sales commissions
- Superannuation
- Any other payment made to the employee in cash or another form
Fixed remuneration refers to payments other than base salary which are not paid on a pro-rata basis – e.g., a lump sum payment, a one-off bonus, or any other type of payment that should not be calculated to an annualised and full-time equivalent. Fixed remuneration payments should be added on to the final total remuneration amount.
Total remuneration for each employee should represent the total earning capacity of that employee if they had worked a full year for full-time hours.
All payments must be included in Total Remuneration, whether they are paid directly or indirectly, in cash or kind.
- Every employee’s Total Remuneration must be equal to or more than Base Salary
- Total Remuneration is an employee’s base Salary figure PLUS any other payments
- If an employee’s Base Salary is higher than their Total Remuneration, you will receive a data error.
Salary sacrificed items
You must provide income information for each employee that is before tax and before any salary sacrificed items have been taken out.
Sales commission
Sales commissions are payments made regardless of the number of hours worked, such as a fixed, 20% commission for all sales
Employees who earn only sales commission (no base salary) should always be categorised in the non-manager category, ‘Sales’.
For the Unit Level template:
- Type zero in the ‘Base Salary’ column of the profile and add the annualised full-time equivalent commission amount into the ‘Total Remuneration’ column.
- If you have chosen to report salary data based on the financial year that ends within the reporting period, instead use the value from the Income Statement.
Calculating annualised and full-time equivalent amounts
For each employee in your Workplace Profile, you will need to report their annualised full-time equivalent Base Salary and Total Remuneration. Providing annualised, full-time equivalent data for all part-time, part-year and casual employees enables comparisons to occur between organisations and industries.
- Annualise: You must annualise the earnings of employees who worked for only part of the year. This means taking their actual earnings and converting these to the amount they would have earnt if they worked for the full year.
- Full-time equivalent: You will also need to convert the earnings of employees who worked less than full-time hours to full-time equivalent amounts. Again, this means converting their actual earnings to the amount they would have earnt if they had worked full-time hours
In short - each employee on either template should end up with salary and remuneration that represents what they would earn if they worked a full year for full time hours.
Employers can also make use of a Salary Calculator tool, or refer to the calculation methods below.
Full-time, full-year employees
If the employee was employed full-time for the whole 12-month reporting period, no conversion is needed.
Use the employee’s actual earnings for the 12-month reporting period.
Full-time, part-year employees
If the employee was employed full-time for less than 12 months in the lead up to the snapshot date, you will need to annualise their earnings. To do this, you would:
- Divide the employee’s actual earnings by the number of weeks they worked during the 12-month period. This is the weekly pay rate.
- Multiply the weekly pay rate by 52 (weeks in a year). This is the annualised amount.
Example: Lisa was employed full-time for eight-months (or 36 weeks) of the year leading up to the snapshot date.
- In this time, she earnt $50,000. If we divide her earnings by the number of weeks she worked (36), we see her average weekly pay rate was $1389.
- We then multiple her weekly pay rate by 52 weeks, giving Lisa an annualised equivalent salary of $72,222.
Full-year, part-time (regular days) employees
If the employee was employed part-time and worked regular days for the 12-month period leading up to the snapshot date, you will need to convert their earnings into full-time equivalent amounts. To do this, you would:
- Divide the employee’s earnings by the number of days they worked per week.
- Multiply this number by 5 (the number of days per week for a full-time workload). This is the full-time equivalent salary.
Example:
- Lee earned $45,000, working 3 days a week. We then divide Lee's earnings ($45,000) by the number of days per week they worked (3), giving us $15,000.
- Then, we multiple $15,000 by 5 (the full-time workload), giving Lee a full-time equivalent salary of $75,000.
Full-year, part-time (irregular days) employees
If the employee was employed part-time and worked varying days for the 12-month period leading up to the snapshot date, you will need to convert their earnings into full-time equivalent amounts. To do this, you would:
- Identify the employee’s earnings (actual amount paid).
- Identify how many days or hours the employee worked in the 12-month period.
- Identify how many days or hours a full-time employee would have worked during the same period.
- Divide the earnings by the total days or hours worked. This is the average daily or hourly pay rate.
- Multiply the daily rate by the total days of a full-time employee. This is the full-time equivalent salary.
Example:
- Over a 12-month period, John earned $30000.
- He worked three days a week for 20 weeks, and four days a week for 32 weeks. This is a total of 188 days over the year.
- The full-time workload in John’s organisation is 260 days (that is, 5 days a week for 52 weeks).
- If we divide John’s earnings of $30,000 by his total days worked (188), we see his average daily pay rate is $159.57.
We then multiple his average daily rate by the full-time equivalent workload of 260 days, giving John a full-time equivalent salary of $41,489
Part-year, part-time employees
If an employee was employed part-time for less than 12 months leading up to the snapshot date, you will need to convert their earnings into both annualised and full-time equivalent amounts. To do this, you would:
- Divide the total days worked by the total days in a full-time working week to get the full-time equivalent fraction.
- Divide the employee’s earnings by the full-time equivalent fraction. This is the full-time equivalent salary.
- Divide the number of weeks the employee worked by 52 (the number of weeks in a year).
- Divide your full-time equivalent salary result by the fraction calculated in step 3 result. This is the annualised full-time equivalent salary.
Example: Sam worked three days a week for 26 weeks of the year. In this time, Sam earnt $30,000.
- The full-time workload in Sam’s organisation is five days a week. If we divide Sam’s 3 days by the full-time workload of 5 days, we get 0.6 – this is the full-time equivalent fraction.
- We then divide Sam’s earnings ($30,000) by the full-time equivalent fraction (0.6), giving us a full-time equivalent salary of $50,000.
- Next, we divide the number of weeks that Sam worked in the year (26), by 52, giving us 0.5.
- Finally, we divide Sam’s full-time equivalent salary ($50,000) by 0.5, giving Sam an annualised, full-time equivalent base salary of $100,000.
Casual employees with a casual rate
If the employee was employed casually with a casual rate for 12 months or less in the lead up to the snapshot date, you will need to:
- Identify the employee’s actual earnings and number of hours worked in the 12-month period
- Divide the employee’s earnings for the 12-month period by the number of hours they worked. This is their hourly rate (not their contracted hourly rate).
- Identify how many hours a full-time employee works in a year.
- Multiply the employee’s hourly rate by the number of full-time hours. This is the annualised full-time equivalent salary.
Example:
- Kim worked 520 hours in a year, earning $20,000.
- If we divide his earnings by his hours worked, we see Kim's hourly rate was $38.46.
- A full-time employee in Kim's organisation works 38 hours a week, for 52 weeks of the year – that’s 1,976 hours a year.
If we multiply Kim's hourly rate ($38.46) by the full-time hours (1976), this gives Kim an annualised, full-time equivalent salary of $76,000.
Casual employees with a daily rate
If the employee was employed casually with a daily rate for 12 months or less in the lead up to the snapshot date, you will need to:
- Multiply the employee’s day rate by the number of days a full-time employee works in a week.
- Multiply this number by the number of weeks in a year. This is your annualised full-time equivalent salary.
Example:
- Ali's day rate is $300. A full-time employee in Ali's organisation works 5 days a week. If we multiple their day rate ($300) by 5, we get $1,500.
- Then, we multiple $1,500 by then number of weeks in a year (52), giving Ali an annualised full-time equivalent salary of $78,000.
Employment status change - full year employee
If the employee has been employed for the 12-month reporting period and changed employment status in this time, you will need to:
- Determine the employee’s earnings for the 12-month period.
- Calculate the number of hours the employee worked.
- Calculate how many hours are in a full-time working week.
- Divide the total full-time hours by the hours the employee worked, and multiply that number by the earnings. This is the full-time equivalent salary.
Example:
- Jorge earned $50,000 dollars during the 12 month period.
- He worked casually at 10 hours a week over 12 weeks, then full-time at 40 hours a week for 40 weeks, for a total of 1,720 hours.
- A full-time employee at Jorge's organisation works 40 hours a week. This is 2,080 hours over 52 weeks.
This means we need to divide 2,080 hours by Jorge's 1,720 hours, and multiply this by his earnings of $50,000. This gives Jorge a full-time equivalent salary of $60,465.
Employment status change - part year employee
If the employee has been employed for less than 12-months and changed employment status in this time, you will need to:
- Determine the employee’s earnings for the period they worked.
- Calculate the number of hours the employee worked.
- Calculate how many hours a full-time employee would work in that same period.
- Divide the total full-time hours by the hours the employee worked, and multiply that number by the earnings. This is the full-time equivalent salary.
Then, to annualise the full-time equivalent salary:
- Divide the number of weeks the employee worked by the number of weeks in a year. This is the annualised fraction.
- Divide the full-time equivalent salary by the annualised fraction. This is your annualised full-time equivalent salary.
Example:
- Omar earnt $25,000 over the 26 weeks he worked.
- He worked casually at 10 hours a week over 12 weeks, then full-time at 40 hours a week for 14 weeks, for a total of 680 hours.
- A full-time employee at Omar's organisation works 40 hours a week. This is 1,040 hours over 26 weeks.
- This means we need to divide1,040 hours by Omar's 680 hours and multiply this by his earnings of $25,000. This gives Omar a full-time equivalent salary of $38,235.
Then, to annualise his earnings
- We divide Omar's 26 weeks by 52 (the number of weeks in a year), giving us an annualised fraction of 0.5.
- Next, we divide $38,235 by 0.5, giving Omar an annualised full-time equivalent salary of $76,470.