How to Check Your Payslip

Under the Fair Work Regulations, every payslip must be issued within one working day of payday — even if you're on leave — and must show:

• Your employer's name and ABN, and your name
• The pay period and the date of payment
• Gross pay and net pay
• If you're paid hourly: the ordinary hourly rate, the hours worked at that rate, and the amount
• Any loadings, allowances, bonuses, penalty rates or other separately identifiable amounts
• Any deductions, with the name (or name and number) of the account they went to
• Superannuation contributions and the fund they're paid into

Two things follow from that list. First, a payslip that lumps everything into one number — no hours, no rate, no allowance lines — isn't just unhelpful, it's non-compliant by itself, regardless of whether the money is right. Second, everything you need to check your pay is legally required to be in your hands every fortnight. You don't need to request anything to start.

Work down the payslip in this order:

1. The ordinary rate. This is the anchor for everything else. It must be at or above the minimum for your award classification — for support and care workers, the current SCHADS tables list every level at the rates effective 1 July 2026. If you're casual, the rate should already include the 25% loading.
2. The hours. Do the hours on the payslip match what you actually worked? Cross-check against your roster or shift app. Short visits should be paid at your award's minimum engagement (at least 2 hours under SCHADS), not to the minute.
3. Penalty-rate lines. Weekend, public-holiday and late-evening hours should appear as separate lines at higher rates. If you worked a Sunday and there is no Sunday line, either it was paid at the wrong rate or absorbed into ordinary hours — both cost you money.
4. Allowance lines. Real events on your roster should map to allowance lines: sleepovers, broken shifts, kilometres in your own car, first aid duties, laundry. An eventful fortnight with an empty allowances section is the single strongest underpayment signal on a payslip. Here's what each SCHADS allowance is worth.
5. Super (a manual check — our tool below does not check it). Should be at least 12% of your qualifying earnings — pay for ordinary hours, casual loading and penalty rates, but not overtime — into a named fund. Since 1 July 2026 your employer must generally get each contribution into your fund within 7 business days of payday. Underpaid wages also mean super is owed on the qualifying part once the back pay is paid — the two travel together.

From auditing thousands of care-sector payslips and timesheets, these five account for most of the money:

• The rate that never moved. Award minimums rose 4.75% on 1 July 2026. A payslip with the same hourly rate in June and August is either paying above award or below it — check which.
• Weekends flattened into ordinary hours. No weekend lines despite weekend work.
• Allowances that never appear. Sleepover nights without the $62.87 line, split days without the broken-shift allowance, kilometres without the vehicle allowance.
• The invisible classification. No level stated anywhere, making the rate impossible to verify — ask in writing what classification you're paid at.
• Short shifts paid to the minute. A 1-hour visit paid as 1 hour, where the award's minimum engagement requires at least 2.

If you're under the SCHADS Award — disability support, community services, home care — our free payslip check covers the rate, hours, penalty and allowance steps on this page for you. Upload a payslip (PDF or a phone photo) and it reads the rates, hours and allowances printed on it, compares each against the current Fair Work minimums, and answers line by line: looks right, worth checking, or below the minimum — with exact dollar figures. Nothing is guessed: when something can't be verified from the payslip alone, it says so. It does not check super or overtime lines, so check those yourself using the steps above.

If a line comes back below the minimum, put the question to your employer in writing with the specific date and amounts. Most gaps are payroll configuration errors and get fixed once named. If it goes further, the Fair Work Ombudsman is free, claims reach back up to 6 years, and asking about your pay is a protected workplace right.