Questions about Worksauce

Worksauce connects to the rostering, payroll and point-of-sale systems you already run and does two jobs.

Wage compliance. It checks every pay run against each staff member’s Award. For each person you see what they should have been paid, what they were paid and the gap. You can buy it on its own. It’s built for Owners, senior management and HR.

Operational tools for your Managers. Worksauce forecasts each day’s sales hour by hour and helps build the roster around that forecast, using who’s on your team and what they’re skilled at. During the day it tracks labour cost against sales and alerts the Manager on shift when labour goes over your target. Messages, nudges and announcements go to the people actually on shift.

Australian businesses that pay staff under modern Awards, whether they run one site or many. Wage compliance is for Owners, senior management and HR, because they’re accountable if pay is wrong. The operational tools are for the Manager running the shift, who needs to know who to send home, when to change the roster and who’s due a break.

Rosters and timesheets come from Tanda, Deputy or Employment Hero, pay runs from Tanda, Employment Hero or Xero, and sales from Square or Lightspeed. Without a point-of-sale connection, you can upload sales as a CSV file instead.

Yes. Worksauce doesn’t clock staff on and off. It reads rosters and timesheets from Tanda, Deputy or Employment Hero, where your team’s hours are already recorded.

No. You keep running pay in your payroll system. Worksauce reads each pay run and checks it against the Award, and if you use Xero it can send reviewed timesheets back as drafts.

You connect your rostering and payroll systems first. Worksauce then reads your staff from them and suggests an Award, classification, employment type and allowances for each person, and you correct anything that looks wrong.

No. Worksauce reads your staff from your rostering and payroll systems, so your team doesn’t need an account or an app. Owners and Managers are the ones who log in.

Yes. One account covers all your sites, each set up with its own state and time zone. You can look at one site at a time, or see Award compliance across the whole business.

In Australia. The Worksauce app and its database are hosted in Sydney, as our Privacy Policy sets out, and you choose which people in your team can see each site and each part of Worksauce.

Worksauce checks pay against our own interpretation of each Award we cover. We’ve tested that interpretation against years of real pay data, and external accountants reviewed and endorsed it during due diligence for a business acquisition. Every check shows its working, so you can see how each figure was calculated. We’re not a law firm, though, so for advice on your situation, talk to your legal or HR adviser.

The Award that covers your staff depends on your industry and the work each person does, not on job titles or what you’ve agreed with them. The Fair Work Commission sets 122 modern Awards, and most Australian employees fall under one of them. Worksauce’s free Award Finder asks a few questions about your business and roles, then tells you the Award and classification for each position.

The National Minimum Wage is $26.44 an hour, or $1,004.90 for a 38-hour week, from the first full pay period starting on or after 1 July 2026. Most employees are covered by an Award with a higher minimum rate for their classification. That makes the National Minimum Wage a floor, not the rate most staff should be on.

At least the minimum rate for their Award and classification. On top of that come any penalty rates, overtime, loadings and allowances that apply to the hours they actually work. A Sunday shift, a late finish or a missed meal break can all change what someone is owed. Worksauce works this out shift by shift from your timesheets.

Under most Awards, casuals get the base hourly rate for their classification plus a 25% casual loading, paid instead of leave entitlements. Casuals may also get weekend, public holiday and evening penalty rates. How the loading and penalties combine differs between Awards.

Penalty rates are higher rates for working at times the Award treats as unsociable, most commonly weekends, public holidays, late nights and early mornings. Each Award sets its own rates and times, and they differ between full-time, part-time and casual staff. A missed Sunday penalty is only a few dollars a shift, but it adds up on every shift until someone notices.

Since 1 January 2025, intentionally underpaying employees has been a criminal offence, with penalties of up to 10 years’ imprisonment for individuals. Honest mistakes aren’t covered by the criminal offence. Accidental underpayments can still attract civil penalties, though, and must be paid back.

It depends on the business:

• Pubs, hotels, bars and clubs are usually under the Hospitality Industry (General) Award.
• Restaurants and many cafes are under the Restaurant Industry Award.
• Takeaway-focused venues are under the Fast Food Industry Award.

The line between them comes down to how food is sold and served, so confirm yours rather than assume.

Payroll software pays according to how it was set up. If an Award, classification or pay rule was set incorrectly, or wasn’t updated on 1 July, it will keep paying the wrong amount without warning. Legal responsibility stays with the employer, not the software vendor. An independent check that compares what payroll paid with what the Award requires is how you catch these errors.

Your payroll system applies the rules it was given. Worksauce works out separately what each person should have been paid under their Award, then compares that with what payroll actually paid. That catches errors payroll can’t see in its own setup, such as a wrong classification, a missed penalty or a rate that wasn’t updated on 1 July.