Hi guys, it’s Michelle Knight from Little Miss Bookkeeping and today I wanted to do a quick run through around how to determine your employee’s salary or wages.

Keep reading to find the answers to three (3) of the most commonly asked questions that I get asked on this topic.

3 Commonly Asked Questions about Employee Salary or Wages

1. Can you advise on what to pay my employee?

No, we are tax professionals and HR isn’t our specialty. We are not skilled in this area and do not provide this advice.  

2. Who do I speak with to find out what to pay my employees?

Typically I refer clients to two main options:

• Fair Work (fairwork.gov.au)

  • A government website where you can have a look around on information about pay rates and wages, awards, starting employment, etc

  • Has pay calculators you can use to determine pay rate, awards, etc 

  • You can contact Fair Work to get some advice directly from them

• HR professional or solicitor

• 
  

• Can be an agency that specifically deals with HR issues, or a solicitor  

• Can help with more complex issues such as employee contacts

This is not to say we cannot have some preliminary discussions. There is going to things I can help with and things that I can’t. For the areas that I cannot, I will direct my clients to the appropriate place to go with those queries.

3. What do you help with?

Once the pay rate/salary wage has been finalised and provided to us, we can then help you with: 

• Payroll set up  

• Processing payruns 

• Super reconciliation 

• Wage adjustments in accounting software 

• Paying tax on wages (PAYGW) 

• Keeping track of leave and processing leave 

• Assisting with tax calculations on commissions or bonus payments 

• STP filing & finalisations 

• And more! 

Summary

So in summary, I am not a HR professional. I will direct you to either Fair Work or a Solicitor/HR Agency if you have any specific questions around that. Again, as business owners it is up to you to determine what pay rate you’re paying your employees, and once you have determined that I, in my accountant role, will help with setting that all up in your accounting system, calculating the correct amount of tax and wages. If there’s any tax related questions or accounting issues with payroll, yes, we can definitely help with that.

If you have any other questions or concerns, please reach out to us here at Little Miss Bookkeeping. As always, please speak to the right professionals to get the right advice. Have a lovely day and I’ll see you in the next one, bye!